‎Doorbell camera constantly sends motion alerts | SimpliSafe Support Home
 
PatrickGSR94's profile

Wednesday, November 8th, 2023 3:42 PM

Doorbell camera constantly sends motion alerts

My front doorbell camera has been sending MANY motion alerts over the past few weeks.  It mostly seems to happen at night, but when I look, nothing is there.  The doorbell is located on an adjacent wall to the side of my front door, so it does not actually look out towards the street.  It only sees the wall on the opposite side of the front door.  Anything that could trigger motion would have to be right there in a 3' x 3' square in front of the door.  One morning I woke up to at least 25-30 notifications between 11 PM and 6 AM for motion detected.  It's getting pretty ridiculous.  Would a firmware update remedy this?  It's currently showing v2.6.2.171 for my doorbell camera.

Community Admin

 • 

5.7K Messages

1 year ago

Hi @PatrickGSR94 ,

The Video Doorbell Pro's motion sensor works by infrared; that is, it's looking for sources of heat that are moving around within view. So it could be triggered by things that you might not be able to see.

So to troubleshoot, I would suggest looking for anything like that - maybe bugs or lizards crawling over the camera, or maybe an exhaust that vents out somewhere in that space in front of your door. Does anything like that sound possible for your setup?

6 Messages

There may be a few flying insect in the vicinity.  Is the sensor really THAT sensitive to pick up moths and the like?  No other vents or heat sources.  Seems like it needs an update to make it not quite as sensitive.

Community Admin

 • 

3.4K Messages

@PatrickGSR94​ If a bug got close enough to your Video Doorbell, it could trigger the camera to wake up and begin recording.

3 Messages

1 year ago

I just set mine up and have the area disabled and sensitivity to low and it alerts NONSTOP with NOTHING on the video. What a piece of junk!

Community Admin

 • 

3.4K Messages

@cwilson6​ Do you only notice this happen during the night, or does it happen at all hours of the day? The Video Doorbell's Activity Zones only work in full light, so once it gets dark out and night vision turns on Activity Zones will not be blocked. 

And as Davey previously mentioned, the Video Doorbell's motion sensor works by picking up sources of heat that move around it. If a small bug or animal could get close to the doorbell's motion sensor, or if there is a vent near it, that could trigger the camera to record. I would look around your doorbell and see if there's anything that generates heat near it. If there isn't, it can help to reset the doorbell by pressing and holding the button on the back for 30 seconds. Once you release it, you will be prompted to set the doorbell up again in the mobile app.

23 Messages

I am having the exact same issue. This is happening on a doorbell that is a new (refurbished) support replacement from Simplisafe. It is in the exact same mount and location of a SS doorbell that has worked for several years without issue. There are no heat sources or motion nearby at all.

1. It happens every 5-20 minutes, both day and night, at the same interval.

2. It happens the same at every sensitivity levels.

3. I've hard reset the doorbell camera twice by pressing the button, going through setup, removing and re-adding the camera.

The old SS doorbell camera didn't exhibit any issue, only the replacement unit, again, mounted in the exact same bracket.

23 Messages

Addendum: I, like the OP, am using Firmware v2.6.2.171.

Community Admin

 • 

3.4K Messages

@Ambival​ Understood! Knowing this, this is something our engineering team would want to look into further. I've forwarded your case details to them for additional investigation.

23 Messages

@emily_s​ Great. I look forward to hearing from them. At the moment, I've been forced to disable all motion detection and alerts - two prime use cases. Today, I will be shipping back my previous doorbell camera that gave up the ghost last week.

1 Message

10 months ago

Was this resolved? I am having the same issue in daylight.  Had to remove doorbell camera, so many alerts, every 3 minutes 

23 Messages

@ducare​ No, I have never heard anything from support and still have alerts nonstop day and night - in the same mount where I had no problems for years.

I've had to disable all alerts, really negating most of the doorbell's value.

3 Messages

9 months ago

Has there been any update to this? We just installed ours a month ago and probably get around 50-70 notifications a day. However, when Amazon delivers a package we don’t even get a notification. I have the road grayed out and it’s still detecting the cars driving by. My old camera that I got on Amazon did a much better job. I hope this gets fixed soon.

23 Messages

That is exactly like our situation! Still waiting to hear back from Simplisafe...

It is not a heat source issue as the previous SS camera in the same mount had no such issues!

(edited)

3 Messages

Interesting. It's very frustrating as I know basically ignore every notification and have no idea when there is truly someone there. The doorbell is almost pointless at this point. Very frustrating!

2 Messages

9 months ago

I just replaced a broken front door camara (didn't have this problem), and it doesn't stop sending alerts when vehicles go by about 100 feet from the door. I have tried reducing the sensitivity, block the areas, resetting, etc., and it still generating alerts. 

Has Simplisafe provided a solution? Its getting quite annoying and I have invested on this company with the various devices I have installed across the house.  

23 Messages

No. This seems to be a very common problem, but I've heard nothing. As this has been a constant problem with replacements, I don't have any confidence anorher will fix it.

(edited)

3 Messages

7 months ago

Is there an update on this?? It’s so ridiculous, I’ve received 86 notifications today from 6am to 11pm. I actually missed the UPS guy who rang my doorbell when I was gone because I get so many notifications that I ignore them all so what’s the point of this in the first place. 

i swear is also tracks cars going 30mph better than people actually walking by. 

23 Messages

Good question. Mine has been no use for ages and I've had to turn all notifications off for the exact reason you've cited. It is the same for many others in this group, sadly SS has yet to respond.

Community Admin

 • 

5.7K Messages

@alenah ​ our dev team is working on improvements to the Video Doorbell, but unfortunately I'm not able to give details just yet. Please keep an eye out on the Community and we'll update when we can.

2 Messages

@alenah ​ same exact thing that’s been happening to me since the last update. It catches all the cars, but the people. Like you, I miss the important alerts because I’m trying to ignore the false alarms. We need a fix and we need it quick! 

5 Messages

7 months ago

Adding on to this. I have a flag out front that sets off the motion detection every few minutes. I have x'd out the area of the flag for no alerts, set it to human only, and I get notifications nonstop.

6 Messages

7 months ago

I turned on all my ignore activity tiles, still picks up motion during the day and sends notifications. I’m gonna guess those ignore tiles aren’t doing a darn thing. Maybe the engineers could add the ability to highlight, circle or somehow mark the area or pixels triggering the event? Might make troubleshooting a little easier. I’m going to turn off my motion detection till an update is provided, this is most unfortunate.

5 Messages

7 months ago

Good to know- that was the same experience I was having. The ignore certain tiles did nothing. 

2 Messages

Same here - I turned it off for now, but what I don't understand, is why Simplisafe is not responding to these messages! I have tried calling them and it is impossible. The chat is awful as well as they take a while to respond. I am seriously considering through it all away and going with a different vendor. 

1 Message

I am having the same issue. Have reconnected, done updates, greyed out areas, lowered sensitivity - yet it still sends me an alert every time a car passes by. I get alerts every few minutes. I would be fine with getting notified when someone presses the button only.

Community Admin

 • 

5.7K Messages

@thematthewwr​ in your case, it might help to disable motion on the Video Doorbell entirely. You can find that setting in the SimpliSafe app under My System > Camera Settings > your Video Doorbell Pro > Motion Detection.

(edited)

5 Messages

@davey_d​ but that defeats the entire purpose of having a camera with alerts. We don't want alerts for cars, or flags, or squirrels. We want alerts for people. 

6 Messages

@davey_d is this issue being actively debugged? Being a developer myself I realize estimating a timeline for a problem without the solution isn’t really ideal or realistically measurable, but if not actively being worked on, how far down the queue is it?

7 months ago

I have the same problem since I replaced the camera. Old one was blurry but worked properly. New camera only takes video of cars passing by. Very frustrating.

23 Messages

@missshorty1401​ About four months ago, I replace my old one in the same mount. The old one had died, but the new one spams alerts every 5-10 minutes, even without any heat source, movement, etc. Others here are getting slammed with alerts even when all zones are disabled.

This really has to be fixed. It's now just a doorbell with all events turned off.

23 Messages

@missshorty1401​ Updated that even setting on Low, on web and in-app, I still get false alerts, just at a lower rate. On Medium, cars pull up right to camera in the driveway and pass constantly, yet those are ignored on "all motions" settings, and alerts get filled up with footage with nothing at all happening, even in shadow or on the edge of vision.

The camera firmware is fundamentally broken and has been for nearly 6 months now. (p.s., functionality we've been paying monthly for that whole time)

(edited)

2 Messages

7 months ago

This is incredibly frustrating. I've had the camera for a couple years now and suddenly this is happening. It defeats the purpose of having it. There are no heat sources, I live on a wooded lot well away from the street. 70 notifications a day but doesn't pick up Amazon delivering a package. Honestly making me consider changing to a different system.

(edited)

23 Messages

My old one worked well until it stopped one day. The replacement one in the exact same mount sends alerts non-stop and has done for many months now. Would love to hear about some progress from SS and an ETA We've been very patient 

2 Messages

7 months ago

Interesting development. While I was on here posting, I accessed the online dashboard and looked at my doorbell camera settings. They did not match the settings showing in the app. The sensitivity on the app was showing as Medium. The sensitivity on the dashboard was showing as high. I changed the sensitivity on the dashboard to Medium. I haven't received a notification in 2 hours. This is the longest it has gone during the day without a notification in weeks. I wonder if there is some issue with the settings not showing correctly in the app?

Update: 4 hrs, only 1 notification, and that was for an actual delivery. 

Update 2: it's been about 24 hrs and the frequency of alerts is definately a fraction of what it was before. I did have a short period around dusk last night where it went off multiple times, but I was able to see a lot of bugs flying around, so I think that was the issue. 

(edited)

23 Messages

@tomygunn301​ Interesting. I wonder if it is these and with the dead zone marking not working from the app as well, leaving everything misconfigured. Will check it out on my end!

Update: My app was at Medium, but the Web site showed High as well. I've changed it online and will report back if it makes a difference. Good catch!

Update 2: The next two alerts were legitimate cars, and then the spam started coming again. I've checked again online and I'm still set up as Medium. It was a good catch though!

(edited)

5 Messages

It doesn't change the issue with "ignored" regions that you are not supposed to get alerts for. 

6 Messages

@tomygunn301​ you are a genius! I went to my online dashboard and also discovered the setting was different then my app. I changed it to low on the web dashboard, then refreshed the app and now the app said medium. So i set the app to low also, double checked both sides (web and ios app) and now everything says low motion settings. It stopped picking up cars driving by and I couldn’t be more excited. Been running successfully now for 24hrs. @davey_d please take a look at this discovery and let your devs know the app (ios in my case) isn’t syncing all the correct data.

23 Messages

@tomygunn301​ As a dev, it makes me wonder if they changed some attribute names when they broke out the sensitivity settings into day and night (app) from a single one (web). Online still might be 'sensitivity' and the app might have 'sensitivityDay' and 'sensitivityNight', and the two apps never aligned. This would explain why one never seems to affect the other.

Of course, there's no way I can tell, or how precedence is calculated. A thought. 

9 Messages

7 months ago

Seems like maybe there’s been a fix? Last time I thought it was fixed it was just a large truck blocking motion. This is different. Starting yesterday at 11:15am the only motion notifications were actually only people walking by. And today 6/1/24 - I have received 0 notifications As of 1pm. It’s raining so no foot traffic today, but lots of cars. Will continue to monitor. I’ve had the motion issue since install in Jan 24 with notifications every 2-5 mins. Hope this is finally it! 

23 Messages

@janic3w86​ That's interesting. Do you happen to know which version of the firmware you're running now?

9 Messages

Looks like v2.6.2.171

23 Messages

@janic3w86​ Ah, the same version I'm running too with the spam. Unless they've made changes elsewhere...

23 Messages

6 months ago

It seems that there is a common problem with the app not being able to make changes settings. We see it in the sensitivity settings and the masking areas. I'm wondering if there were settings changes in the January timeframe (firmware?) that were not reflected in the app, so that these are being lost/misapplied server side.

Out of curiosity, since this might not be universal, I'm wondering if it is perhaps an Android-only issue? I'm on Android. Is anyone seeing this on iPhone?

2 Messages

5 months ago

My camera gets alerts for cars all day long since my last update. I miss the important events trying to ignore the false alarms. It even made someone disappear as they walked off of my steps and down my driveway. It was real spooky as the video was not even done.  Please hurry with a fix! 

23 Messages

@danniemiche​ This has been an issue since last year with no response from Simplisafe other than ""we're looking at it".

1 Message

Had the same problem described here. Went to the online web app, moved sensitivity to “medium”, and the alerts decreased. There is definitely a disconnect between the phone app and the web app. 

23 Messages

In all of my cases, I can get them to decrease in volume, but the ones that appear still have no motion in them and are just as useless, just less noisy. For eight months, I've been stuck with all notifications disabled and 20-25 timeline events a day with nothing in them.

This has been going on for eight months with nothing from Simplisafe. Any basic dev could have solved this problem with enough training data (assuming they have) in a matter of weeks. I suspect there is a fundament hardware rev error that is going unacknowledged (on top of the broken configuration interfaces).

1 Message

We are having the same issue, with the SAME front door camera we have had for two years. It recently just starting sending motion alerts constantly. We didn’t change a thing with our settings. After trying to troubleshoot, we changed the sensitivity, used ignore tiles, but nothing helped. It seems like this is not a hardware issue since we are using the same camera. I hope there is a fix soon, or we’ll definitely be switching. SimpliSafe…updates??

New to the Community? Get started by reading our Welcome Article and please be sure to review our Community Guidelines before posting.