‎Continued Wi-Fi & Camera Issues | SimpliSafe Support Home
 

35 Messages

Tuesday, August 24th, 2021 6:43 PM

Continued Wi-Fi & Camera Issues

I am an IT professional. My Wi-Fi settings are correctly set and my home network's advanced tp-link router is providing a strong 2.4GHz signal throughout my home. Please explain why SimpliSafe's servers continue to randomly and  repeatedly drop my camera's Wi-Fi connection?

Since 2:18 AM today, our system has lost/restored its Wi-Fi connection 7 times! This issue has been going on for several weeks now and is severely disrupting the ability to view my deployed SS cameras! Other customers have complained of similar experiences, yet SimpliSafe has yet to respond to those complaints.

My family relies on SimpliSafe cameras to monitor my elderly mother's location within our home and back yard. This Wi-Fi issue needs to be corrected ASAP. Should your system continue to be unreliable, I will cancel our monitoring service and replace your equipment with a system I can depend on.

Captain

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6.2K Messages

3 years ago

@js1547 just last week SS posted issues with some charachters if used causing issues for the QR codes to load, and  thinking it could cause issues with connectivity. Also, being an IT professional, you are aware of speed and signal strength needs. Have you used the troubhelshooting tool in the phone app to see if you cameras all have the minimum values?

I have Google WIFI, one base with 3 points and 80 down, 25 up and all 3 simplicams and doorbell pro work fine with no issues.

Would also call support (yeah, you may have a wait) but can get this resolved.

Please post your outcome here if you get a chance.

35 Messages

Hey, Captain11...it's been a while!

Unfortunately, I am unable to troubleshoot the issue using my iPhone. Each time I press the "Troubleshoot" link, nothing happens, almost as if the hotlink is invalid. And I've been trying for days!

However, I've had this system for a few years now and my cameras and router have not changed position in all that time. Most of the time they have been working pretty regularly, with only the occasional dropped connection. Additionally, sometimes one camera displays while the other doesn't connect. Other times, both cameras fail to connect.

Ironically, as I type this message, my pool patio camera is now displaying video and has stayed connected for the past few minutes. Heaven knows I've been trying to get it to work for the past 2 days!

Hahahaha...camera's Wi-Fi connection just went down again...for the 8th or 9th time today! I'm losing count!

Let's see if SS cares to respond to my original post. Thanks for your support!

1.3K Messages

3 years ago

Hard for me to think it a SS systemic issue, per se, when I can't remember the last time I had to try to reset or reconnect any of my three SS cameras. In one system the WiFi router occasionally locks up and I need to restart that, but soon as I do the camera reconnects on its own and is solid until the router locks up again. I should just replace the router but it happens so infrequently.

Captain

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6.2K Messages

3 years ago

@ js1547 definitely weird that's its been just an issue recently, and for that matter, my cameras are stable. Just curious, is your carrier happen to be Verizon? Mine is and, as of late, they are absolutely terrible. Great article over at PC Mag today (link below) and they talk about Big Red "borrowing" 4G lTE bandwidth to help with their lousy 5G. There are times I could connecdt  to streaming my cameras on the web dashbaord and not on my phone which I suspect was Verizon at play. Yeah, not much to do with your issue but thought you would find it interesting reading while you are on hold waiting for SS support. :-)


https://www.pcmag.com/?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=whatsnewnow=utm_medium=image

742 Messages

3 years ago

@ js1547

Any chance you've installed the 2.3 update and that's when the problems started? Or your router has recently had a firmware update of some sort and that's when the problem started?

Community Admin

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5.7K Messages

3 years ago

Hi js1547,

Just to make sure I have this right, both your SimpliCam, and your security system are having trouble with WiFi?

While both cameras, and the Base Station, connect to WiFi, they do so separately, and even use different WiFi chips. So we'd have to troubleshoot each of them separately.

You mention that this has been going on for several weeks. Have you already received and installed the latest Base Station firmware update? At the very least, that would clear out incorrect data that might be causing the Base Station's WiFi chip to act up.

But the only other thing I can think of is there might be severe interference that's affecting that particular WiFi channel. Though you haven't mentioned any non-SimpliSafe components having trouble as well...

Edit: I noticed a similar issue in a different thread and I'm checking in with our engineers about it. Would you mind letting us know your router's specific model? And is it a mesh setup? And any more details that might be relevant would be helpful as well.

- Johnny M.
SimpliSafe Home Security

4 Messages

3 years ago

This seems very similar to the issue I'm having with my base station randomly "losing WiFi" every few hours.  It often takes over 15 minutes to "regain WiFi".

https://simplisafe.com/forum/customer-support-forum/installing-and-using-simplisafe/base-station-loses-wifi-every

I also have really strong WiFi signals in the house, with a Ubiquiti prosumer WiFi installation that has 5 access points  - and the problem persists even with the base station right next to access points (I've tried multiple locations).

It is *extremely* annoying to get alerts on my phone/watch every time this happens, and I can see no way to disable this.
I only installed my system a week ago, so it has always been running the August firmware.  

If I can't find a solution to this problem then I will likely be returning all of the kit, since this gives me little faith that the system is going to be robust.  (I know the WiFi isn't necessary for monitoring - but it just makes me believe that the software/firmware is likely to be generally buggy)
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