Camera Questions

@rodroyso​ What do you mean by "night mode"?  You can configure cameras to behave differently in different modes (off, home, away) if that's what you're asking and you can configure them to be off BUT here is an important caveat. Regardless of how your cameras are configured they will ALWAYS record during some events as detailed in https://support.simplisafe.com/hc/en-us/articles/360029594152-When-does-the-camera-record- :

• Alarms
• Disarming your SimpliSafe system
• Camera Detected Motion
• User Triggered Recording
• Secret Alerts (When Enabled)
• User Initiated Test of the SimpliSafe system
• Duress Alarm
• Silent Panic button
• Entry Delay (After entering your home while the system is alarmed)
• Power Restored

If you have a Simplicam configured to keep the privacy shade closed, the shade will open to allow recording during these events.

Edit: And no, you can't turn this behavior off. All of your cameras will record during these events whether you want them to or not.

If cameras are in night mode does that mean they are recording? Can I turn them off while I’m home?

Hi rodroyso,

Worthing has some great points there. I would just further clarify that our cameras only record when they are triggered - which can either be by their own built-in motion sensor, or by events from your main alarm system (alarms, disarms, etc.).

With the Indoor Camera, you can control when the motion sensor is active (i.e. whether it should be active in Home, Away, or Off modes). It's tied to the Shutter options in the Camera Settings page in the app - when the shutter is open, the motion sensor is on.

However, regardless of the state of your system, the camera will also record for system events. That's what Worthing is talking about in his reply.

But finally, you should know that ALL of your recordings are encrypted and locked to your account. Nobody, not even SimpliSafe's own employees, can just view them without your permission. And of course, you can always review your Timeline and remove any footage immediately, that you don't want to stay on our servers.