This has happened to me on occasion. Sometimes the night vision doesn't switch on when it gets dark. There is nothing I did I've done to fix the problem. It seems to come and go.
The Auto setting allows the Video Doorbell Pro to automatically switch between daytime mode and night mode based on light levels in the scene. So if it's failing to switch over automatically, I suspect that there's some sort of light source that's messing up the detection.
Do you see anything like that on your cam? And if so, do you think there's a way to change what the camera is pointed at? For example, sometimes it's a wall light that can be turned off. Or maybe if the light source is from a neighbor's house, you can angle the Video Doorbell away from it (using an angled bracket).
We're reporting to our dev team, of course. They're always adjusting and improving the algorithms in the cam for better performance. But in the meantime, it would help to look options in the environment.
I do have motion sensing lights on the front of my home, where my doorbell camera is located but this has never interfered with my doorbell camera night vision before.
btw, I've had my doorbell camera installed in the same location for over two years.
It would be more that the Video Doorbell Pro uses an algorithm for light detection, and that algorithm is configured for our best guess of lighting conditions in a typical front doorstep. Unfortunately, we can't account for 100% of what's possible out there, so we might just need to consider environmental solutions to compensate.
But as we mentioned, our dev team is always working on tweaking those algorithms. It's possible that a recent such update is what's prompting this current behavior. So a future update might resolve it, too.
Having the same issue, it's intermittent. SS will tell you there's a light source interfering when in fact there are no lights, my backyard is pitch black at night and auto NV doesn't work Intermittently. My guess is that they offshore programming and pay the lowest bidder.
@jermo respectfully, no. Our engineering team is all in-house, and based in our headquarters in Boston, MA.
That being said, other light sources pointed directly at the light sensor might confuse it, but that's just one possibility. We would need more info to figure out what's going on.
To that end, I've forwarded your case to our engineering team to aid in investigation. Please keep an ear out in case they need to reach out!
This is an ongoing issue with the doorbell camera that has been discussed in other threads. In my experience, it has nothing to do with light sources. I live in a very dark neighborhood and have seen night vision fail to turn on when it is pitch black outside. The camera essentially gets stuck indefinitely and I have to toggle a setting, such as auto-off-auto, or 720p-1080p-720p, to get it to work again. Then it immediately starts working with the same lighting conditions as before. It would be great to hear from SS if any future update is expected to resolve this issue. I had the camera replaced and the replacement has the same problem. As it stands now, the doorbell camera is unreliable for nighttime security. Amazingly, I have never seen night vision fail to turn on for the new SS outdoor cameras. If only the doorbell camera had the night vision performance of the outdoor camera, and the outdoor camera had the recording/wake-up speed of the doorbell camera, we'd be all set!
My doorbell camera does that also. Out in the sticks with no external light source. The garage inside camera has a slightly different problem. The night vision goes on in auto but the camera only shows total black. I put a motion nightlight out there but no help. I can see and walk through the garage with only the nightlight but the camera only shows black.
@frodo922sr so when you're standing directly in front of the camera, you still don't appear in the image?
The Night Vision feature works by sending out an infrared light, which needs to bounce off of nearby objects to show anything. So if the camera is pointed at a very large field, there might not be anything for it to see. However, if there are objects nearby, they should be visible.
Also I should ask - have you already tried resetting the camera? You can do that by holding the button on top for 16 seconds. When you release, it will reboot, and and you can set it up again through the SimpliSafe app. Resetting might resolve any problems stemming from software or programming issues.
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mdolfan
180 Messages
2 years ago
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davey_d
Community Admin
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4.3K Messages
2 years ago
The Auto setting allows the Video Doorbell Pro to automatically switch between daytime mode and night mode based on light levels in the scene. So if it's failing to switch over automatically, I suspect that there's some sort of light source that's messing up the detection.
Do you see anything like that on your cam? And if so, do you think there's a way to change what the camera is pointed at? For example, sometimes it's a wall light that can be turned off. Or maybe if the light source is from a neighbor's house, you can angle the Video Doorbell away from it (using an angled bracket).
We're reporting to our dev team, of course. They're always adjusting and improving the algorithms in the cam for better performance. But in the meantime, it would help to look options in the environment.
- Johnny M.
SimpliSafe Home Security
1
0
json924
28 Messages
2 years ago
0
0
mdolfan
180 Messages
2 years ago
0
0
davey_d
Community Admin
•
4.3K Messages
2 years ago
It would be more that the Video Doorbell Pro uses an algorithm for light detection, and that algorithm is configured for our best guess of lighting conditions in a typical front doorstep. Unfortunately, we can't account for 100% of what's possible out there, so we might just need to consider environmental solutions to compensate.
But as we mentioned, our dev team is always working on tweaking those algorithms. It's possible that a recent such update is what's prompting this current behavior. So a future update might resolve it, too.
- Johnny M.
SimpliSafe Home Security
0
0
jermo
1 Message
10 months ago
Having the same issue, it's intermittent. SS will tell you there's a light source interfering when in fact there are no lights, my backyard is pitch black at night and auto NV doesn't work Intermittently. My guess is that they offshore programming and pay the lowest bidder.
1
0
vistaronn
12 Messages
10 months ago
This is an ongoing issue with the doorbell camera that has been discussed in other threads. In my experience, it has nothing to do with light sources. I live in a very dark neighborhood and have seen night vision fail to turn on when it is pitch black outside. The camera essentially gets stuck indefinitely and I have to toggle a setting, such as auto-off-auto, or 720p-1080p-720p, to get it to work again. Then it immediately starts working with the same lighting conditions as before. It would be great to hear from SS if any future update is expected to resolve this issue. I had the camera replaced and the replacement has the same problem. As it stands now, the doorbell camera is unreliable for nighttime security. Amazingly, I have never seen night vision fail to turn on for the new SS outdoor cameras. If only the doorbell camera had the night vision performance of the outdoor camera, and the outdoor camera had the recording/wake-up speed of the doorbell camera, we'd be all set!
0
0
frodo922sr
2 Messages
4 months ago
My doorbell camera does that also. Out in the sticks with no external light source. The garage inside camera has a slightly different problem. The night vision goes on in auto but the camera only shows total black. I put a motion nightlight out there but no help. I can see and walk through the garage with only the nightlight but the camera only shows black.
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