--- url: /detection/episodes.md --- # Episodes When several cameras see the same activity around the same time, camera.ui can bundle those sightings into one **episode**: a single title and a short story that follows the subject across cameras, in order. A person walking from the driveway to the front door becomes one episode instead of three separate events. The story comes from [AI descriptions](/detection/genai-descriptions). Without them an episode gets a title with the places and the recognized names instead, and forms only when something ties the sightings together without pictures: a face or plate recognized on both cameras, or a walk on the [floor plan](/cameras/floor-plan) or one seen before between the cameras that fits the time in between with at most a short stop. ## Turning it on In **Settings → [Recordings](/recording/)**, open the **Episodes** tab and turn on **Enabled**. Every camera takes part unless its own **Episodes** toggle in the camera's settings is off; an episode forms once at least two different cameras saw related activity. With a drawn [floor plan](/cameras/floor-plan), camera.ui also checks whether the sightings fit together in space: unrelated things happening at the same time in different corners of the property become separate episodes instead of one mixed story, and the title names the places involved. The walk and the time in between then decide which sightings belong together, and the AI only leaves out a sighting that clearly shows someone else. Without a floor plan camera.ui learns the walks between cameras on its own, from faces and plates recognized on both and from the episodes it told, and uses those of the last 30 days the same way. * **Join Window.** A new event joins the open episode when it starts within this long after the last activity. Default 90 seconds. * **Quiet Time.** The episode closes and gets its story once it has been this quiet. Default 60 seconds. * **Wrap Up After.** Once an episode reaches this length it stops taking in new activity and closes at the next natural break: whatever is still happening finishes first, and later activity starts the next episode. Default 10 minutes. * **Custom Instructions.** Free-text guidance added to the built-in prompt for the story, for example what to watch for or how to phrase it. * **Video in Push.** Whether an episode push plays the episode clip, which switches cameras like the [episode player](#the-episode-player). **Off** never attaches it, **Always** always does, and **Camera setting** attaches it when at least one camera in the episode has [Video in Push](/notifications/#what-each-camera-alerts-you-about) turned on. Default **Camera setting**. ## Where episodes show up * **Home.** Episodes appear in the **Recent Events** row as a mosaic card, showing how many cameras took part. * **Recordings.** The same mosaic card appears in the list. A recording that belongs to an episode shows an **Open episode** button that jumps to it. Episode cards follow the camera, time range, **Only with recording** and **Favorites only** filters; any other filter (labels, triggers, attributes, vehicles, search) hides them. * **Apple TV.** Episodes are available in the Apple TV app too. * **Push.** An episode pushes once its story is ready, also from cameras with **Send notifications** turned off. With that switch off on every camera, you get pushes only for activity across several cameras. [Alert zones](/cameras/zones-and-masks#alert-zones) and their face and plate filters still count: an episode whose sightings all lie outside them stays in Recordings without a push. An episode stays as long as one of its recordings does. A recording that goes, by hand or through its camera's retention, leaves the episode and the mosaic follows. ## The episode player An episode plays as one sequence, switching cameras as the story moves and showing the current camera's name and time. The strip below the video has one block per camera stretch. Zoom and pan work as in the [live view](/cameras/live-view). When a second camera covers the same room on the [floor plan](/cameras/floor-plan), the cut plays whichever had the subject closest, and the control bar offers **Second angle** for the other view of that stretch. ## Why an episode turned out this way Admins open what went into an episode with the trace icon on its card and in the player: every event that was a candidate and whether it stayed or went, and for the ones that went the reason, from "never moved" to "belongs to another episode". Below that are the connections it drew between the remaining events, both AI passes with the pictures and instructions the model was given and what it answered, and the cut that came out, including a stretch that was dropped because another camera saw it better. **Download bundle** packs it together with the clip for a bug report.