Abstract: A remote detection method, node, and system is described. The detector includes a wireless communications module that wirelessly transmits the detection message to a remote sensing device. The remote sensing device includes a camera having a field of view and wirelessly communicates with the detector. The remote illumination and detection method performs preliminary filtering of captured image data to determine images/frames of interest with a computer vision module on board a processor in the node. The images of interest are then transmitted to a cloud computing component via a wireless or cellular network for detailed analysis to determine the presence or absence of motion or an object in each image of interest. The cloud computing component may employ machine learning computations that time and energy intensive, such as convolutional neural networks.