‎Cameras do not work if Internet down? | SimpliSafe Support Home
 
sgjava's profile

Thursday, July 16th, 2020 4:06 PM

Cameras do not work if Internet down?

I know the base station has a cellular device in case Internet goes down, but to have the cameras unreachable when Internet is down doesn't make sense. Doesn't the cellular radio have enough bandwidth to handle the camera videos? The cameras should still function if the WLAN is up and I'm connected with the SS app. I understand if they cannot send videos to the "cloud" if the cell is 2G or something, but to have them just not function is unacceptable. Basic networking 101. I have several smart cameras I built from scratch hardware/software and they do not rely on the internet, so at least those still worked when SS cameras were offline.

Also, after the Internet came back up the cameras were still offline. I restarted the router and things started working again even though I verified the Internet was up first. Not real happy.

1.3K Messages

4 years ago

Yup. No cameras if the Internet or your WiFi no worky.

The cameras connect independently to your WiFi network and only by WiFi. The video does not stream through the base so it can't use the cell modem in the base. If the Internet or your WiFi network goes down then no camera.

Such is why security pros typically do not use WiFi cameras as first line product, usually only as the last option when no other way is possible. Instead, using hardwire CCTV or IP/PoE type cameras to local storage. At least then if the Internet goes down or the WiFi gets flakey there is still a record to access later if something happened during that time.

I have a few SS cameras for convenience but my main security camera system is an IP camera/PoE based system connected to a NVR. I have available 24/7/365 video from every IP cam for two weeks rolling. Two weeks is plenty of time for me to look back when I notice something happened. It does send me alerts by Internet but even if that goes down there is still the stored video.

13 Messages

Thanks for validating. I do have other cameras that are wifi that I made from scratch and they've been running since 2013 (with updates of course). I just record for 2 weeks to a NFS share using computer vision and pedestrian/motion detection and monitor the streams with Zabbix. I'm an IT guy, so I understand having fault tolerant systems. I'm also using my old hard wired system with a home made board like Konnected. Doesn't hurt to have a fallback. Wired cameras maybe one day, but wireless has proven fine for me for years.

1 Message

7 months ago

All I know is if someone was able to cut the internet than they can sneak around the property without being recorded. I feel like this could be a very big issue.

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