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How to set up and view recordings on your Roku Smart Home camera or video doorbell

Your Roku® Smart Home camera can capture several different types of recordings including event, continuous, scheduled, and time lapse recordings. Recordings can be saved to the cloud when you purchase a Roku Smart Home Subscription. In addition to the previous recording features mentioned, you can also manually capture a video or photo of the live video stream on both smart home cameras and video doorbells. Your recordings can be viewed in the Roku Smart Home mobile app.

How to set up event recordings

Change detection settings

You can set your smart home camera or video doorbell to record an event when it detects motion and/or sound with a Roku Smart Home Subscription. If neither detection setting is enabled, the camera will not record events. You can change detection settings for motion and sound in the app.

  • Select your camera from the Home screen
  • Tap Settingssettings icon on Roku mobile app in the corner
  • Tap Event Detection
      • Sound events: Begin recording when a sound event is detected
      • Motion events: Begin recording when motion is detected. When ‘Motion Events’ is toggled ON, motion events are detected by one of these two options:
          • Detected by camera and sensor (Default): Records when motion is detected by both (Lower sensitivity)
          • Detected by camera only: Records when motion is detected by the camera (Higher sensitivity)
  • Select which type of motion events you want to record
    • Person
    • Pet
    • Package
    • Vehicle
    • Other
  • To record audio: Navigate to Advanced settings and tap Record audio
  •  

Toggle alarm detection

Smart sound recognition uses an advanced algorithm that recognizes the sound patterns of smoke alarms and carbon monoxide (CO) monitors. When an alarm sound is detected, a 12 second event video is generated, and a push notification is sent by the smart home app.

You can change smart sound recognition settings in the app.

  • Select your camera from the Home screen
  • Tap Settingssettings icon on Roku mobile app in the corner
  • Tap Alarm Settings
  • Toggle the alarm settings on or off

Note: If you have Detect Sound off, you can still use smart sound recognition to send a notification when the camera detects an alarm sound.

Manage automation rules

Automation rules can be used to trigger an event recording. You can create a rule to "Upload a short video to the cloud" at a specific time from a specific camera. Learn how to use rules to automate your smart home devices.

Note: Some recording features are only available on specific smart home cameras.

How to view event recordings

You can find your event recordings on the Roku Smart Home app in the Events tab. You must purchase a smart home subscription to view and filter event video recordings saved to the cloud. On the Events screen, tap an event to watch the video.

Filter event recordings

You can filter events by camera group, camera, smart detection (person, package, vehicle, pet), and trigger source. Automation events cannot be filtered. On the Events screen, tap the funnel Funnel icon in the Roku Smart Home mobile app in the corner to open the Filter screen.

Download and share event recordings

You can share and download recordings in the smart home app. Downloading a recording will save it to the gallery on your mobile device. Sharing a recording will prompt you to select an app and then generate a message with the recording in the selected app.

  • On the Home screen, tap Events
  • Select the event
  • Tap the DownloadDownload icon in the Roku Smart Home mobile app or ShareShare icon in the Roku Smart Home mobile app icon

Record certain events

You can choose to record only certain types of events, such as only vehicles or only people. Learn how to choose what to record.

Last updated at 2/25/2026 10:00:34 PM

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