‎Doorbell camera night vision not working | SimpliSafe Support Home
 
json924's profile

Tuesday, May 25th, 2021 2:28 PM

Doorbell camera night vision not working

Is anyone else still experiencing doorbell camera auto night vision failure?
I can get it work once after turning the feature off and then turning it back on but then it stops functioning again.
Is there something more I can do or will I have to wait for a software update?

197 Messages

3 years ago

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.

Community Admin

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5.7K Messages

3 years ago

Hi json924,

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

28 Messages

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.

28 Messages

3 years ago

@Johnny M. - So you're saying this is my problem?

197 Messages

3 years ago

I've checked when I've had the problem and there's not been another light source to cause it not to switch.

Community Admin

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5.7K Messages

3 years ago

json924,

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

1 Message

2 years 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.  

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5.7K Messages

@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!

19 Messages

2 years 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!

4 Messages

2 years 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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5.7K Messages

@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.

4 Messages

No, it wouldn't but I did reset and got the garage camera to work. The doorbell camera I just had to set to night vision. It has absolutely nothing to do with external light sources. The closest one is a quarter mile away. The doorbell camera does not switch to night vision automatically. Don't know if it's a sensor or software issue but it's really annoying to have to go do it manually. I was going to just buy a new one

1 year ago

I see this problem has been going on for over 2 years, and there is still no fix. What a shame. I just got my doorbell camera and I'm having the same issue. The camera does not automatically switch between day/night vision. I'm probably shouting into the void here, since it's still a problem over 2 years later, but I wanted to register my issue.

Simplisafe needs to add the feature to simply schedule night vision to come on between, say, 9p and 6a, or something like that. That would solve this problem quickly and easily.

Community Admin

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3.4K Messages

@musicmaster622​ Are there any lights that are directly in the Video Doorbell's line of sight like street or porch lights? If the doorbell has a lot of light in its path, it may not automatically switch over to Night Vision when it should. Slightly changing the angle of the Video Doorbell may help resolve this issue if there is light directly in its path. 

If there is not a light source near your Video Doorbell, I would go into its settings in the SimpliSafe mobile app and toggle Auto for Night Vision off and back on again.

4 Messages

1 year ago

For the past few weeks we have had this issue. It would switch to night mode then when you armed the system you would loose night vision then it switched to just randomly loosing night vision, ss sent us a new camera and sometime between 8-9 pm tonight that one lost night vision. The only thing we noticed that happened is a helicopter flew over and there was as an automatic test signal when it happened. The doorbell is under an overhang so I don’t think it was the helicopter,

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3.4K Messages

@pixelbabe74​ I agree, I don't think the helicopter flying over your home could trigger the Video Doorbell to exit Night Vision. What is the environment around your doorbell like? If there are any bright lights in the doorbell's field of view, it could prevent it from fully entering Night Vision.

If you haven't already, I would try resetting your Video Doorbell by pressing and holding the button on the top of the doorbell for 16 seconds. After you release the button, the Video Doorbell will reboot and prompt you to set it up again in the mobile app. It may also help to change the Night Vision setting from Auto to On as well.

(edited)

4 Messages

The area is dark we do have street lights on the side of the house but no where near doorbell, now last night after the test signal an we lost night vision we got it back on and my husband used his head lamp to simulate a car going by which. Knocks out the night vision but as soon as the light was off it came back on and no issues the rest of the night. Could it be a small glitch in the system software? I do have a little knowledge with computers software. Just a thought we’re going to see how it does tonight as we just installed the new one yesterday. 

3 Messages

1 year ago

It's the end of 2023 and this issue still persists. Is SimpliSafe even working on this, or is the default response just to ignore customer complaints? Someone suggested an option to schedule the switch to night mode at a specific time. Can we at least get that? Shouldn't take more than a few of lines of code.

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5.7K Messages

@ironi​ we understand the frustration, and our engineers continue the investigation.

One possible issue is that something in the environment is affecting the internal light sensor. That's why our troubleshooting has focused on identifying what's in the scene - for example, if you have a wall that takes up a big part of the view, or light sources within the neighborhood pointed directly at the camera, or if there's a column or other big objects in the way. Angling the Video Doorbell away from those has often helped.

2 Messages

9 months ago

We've had our SS doorbell camera for 2.5 years. It unexpectedly lost its regular in-color mode, paired with murky B&W night vision during darker nighttime hours. It effectively operates in-color during daylight hours. Nothing has changed with respect to our outdoor lighting or environment.; so please, let's rule that out once and for all. It's a time-wasting stumbling block! We are in a private wooded setting with no traffic. Our camera doorbell is protected from the elements within our outdoor porch setting. Settings have not been touched in these past 2.5 years. I went to my settings and changed them tonight from 1080p, now set to 480p and I completely turned off the night vision. Voilà! Night Vision has been restored. In other words, when I bypassed the 1080p mode and reduced it to the lowest setting, 480p, coupled with turning off night vision, our SS doorbell camera is now properly working. Go figure. We also had a similar problem with one of our new indoor cameras being used for outdoor purposes at the same interval this week. It recently developed similar glitches, encountering 50% loss of contrast and mirky video quality during nighttime hours. We have never encountered these problems with previous older cameras used for outdoors. Our older cameras are 720p; whereas the new one is 1180p. We unplugged the electrical power adapter from the outlet source for five minutes and plugged it back in.  Our new 1180p camera is now working. Unplugging it rebooted the camera. SS has been super to us - professional, intelligent, accommodating, and polite. Thank you! That said, these cameras are imperfect. Wi-Fi is imperfect. IMHO, we are living in the similar age of early 1930s when radio was embryonic. We have a long way to go before these products improve and stabilize without all the hassles. They're nice, but at the same time, a real drag. I'd much rather be living off the grid and hiking in the woods and am seriously considering it. Best!  

Community Admin

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3.4K Messages

@cjkfamily​ This is interesting, so it sounds like toggling the settings on your Video Doorbell Pro, and rebooting your indoor camera was able to help their Night Vision settings work properly again. Thank you for sharing this!

If you run into this issue again with any of your cameras, please let me know and we can troubleshoot further.

2 Messages

Yes, I will. I also called SS and explained the peculiarity regarding our video doorbell settings to a SS tech. Our video doorbell is still operating properly in the 480p setting with the night vision in the off position night and day. I tried re-setting the video doorbell back to the 1080p mode and turned on the night vision last night and got the same unusable mirky quality we've recently been experiencing; so I reverted back to 480p and turned off the night vision and it worked perfectly during the nighttime. The picture quality is so clear that it appears to be in-color, but the SS tech informed me the video is B&W when in night vision, not in-color. My wife also insists it is B&W. I swear I see amber hues in the video from our driveway lights hundreds of feet in the distance. The video is so clear that it appears in color to me. Thank you for your reply and concern. I hope this helps other customers. Best!  

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