Outdoor Camera recording every 3 minutes at night

At 3:00 am today one of my outdoor camera starting recording every 3 minutes. I turned off detect monition, but it still kept recording throughout out the night. I got up at 6:30 am and removed the battery from it. 

This is what we call the death loop as when it gets stuck in this loop there is absolutely nothing can be do e except go out and pull the battery out and if that doesn't solve it then a un install and reboot on camera and reinstall. I have 5 and have had all of them go through it over and over and just had one do it last week and I believe it has something to do with the spotlight because if I have it off non do it but when spotlight is on they sometimes get this death loop and the spotlight will stay on the whole time until battery dies or pulling battery, I would keep the spotlight off but I really need it. Another thing that I see that triggers it is if motion is on high and set for all motion then it is easier for it to get this death loop. Kinda  Embarrassing when you keep going outside on a ladder and all your neighbors see you on a ladder and they all have ring and they say, camera problems again. 

One of my cameras is on a 1.12 version and the rest are on the 1.10 version and the one with the 1.12 did it tonight and another one did it a few minutes later so here I go on Christmas eve and it's 20 degrees out to pull them down and delete and re add again, please please fix this as it gets stuck and the spotlight stays on the whole time and even though I have mine on all power or solar it will kill the battery fast

Same 1.10 update. While much more responsive my camera death looped last night. Only happens at night and stops death looping during the day but starts up again at night. Medium sensitive people only. Spotlight on.

I have noticed as well that when the sun goes down I have one camera on the side of the house that about every 10 minutes you will see the spotlight come on for about 3 seconds then flicker off, it does not record or do I get notifications and it's not all cameras and it really doesn't bother me I'm just more curious as why it would do that. My son will be in his room and see the light come on then off so I go in there and wait and it does, comes on for 2 seconds or so then flickers off, strange 

Lots of people complained here about a common bug with the outdoor SimpliSafe cameras.  It would get into a loop where it detected motion constantly, giving you notifications every 2-3 minutes, when there was no motion.  I was about ready to cancel my service when firmware version 1.10 came out, and it fixed the problem.  Great.

Well, now I have 1.12.  There aren't even official patch notes for this version - these forums claim that 1.10 is the "latest".  And... the problem is back.  My camera is giving me false notifications every 2-3 minutes again, and the battery will be dead by morning.  I called customer service.  They have no knowledge that anyone has ever encountered this problem.  They also can't revert me back to the "latest" 1.10.

They told me to go to the forums to look for a fix.  So here I am.  I highly doubt this will fix my problem, but at least I can warn others about how terrible these cameras are.

We now have 5 outdoor cameras, and all I can say is dealing with them is kind of like dealing with children.  They each have their own personality and they all behave badly at some point.  All 5 of our cameras are running v1.12.2.384.  I have invested a lot of time trying to optimize our setup, so I'll post all of my observations here to maybe help other owners.

Of the original 2 cameras we bought, one of them is the golden child and the other is a troublemaker.  I have swapped their locations to confirm it is indeed the camera and not something in one location triggering motion.  One of them used to death loop with the notifications every 3 minutes.  I swapped their locations and the problem moved with the camera.  It's been fully reset, and it doesn't do that anymore, possibly because of the firmware update, but it is much more prone to false motion alerts than the other, regardless of location.  Even though it doesn't death loop any more, it still gives several false alerts each day.  I've tried adjusting the sensitivity and disabling Activity Zones with tree branches to minimize them.  I may return this one.

We added three more cameras and one of those may be a problem child too.  It sends bursts of false motion alerts, sometimes more than one per minute.  I'm still adjusting the Activity Zones and sensitivity on this one to see if it will be manageable.  It sent 46 alerts in about 40 minutes yesterday with no apparent motion.  The one thing we have learned from these frequent alerts is that the spotlights misbehave on at least two other cameras. The original problem child, and one of the new cameras that doesn't have alert problems, the spotlights go on and off for no reason.  Both are set to Night Vision Mode "Standard", and not "Spotlight".  But it looks like the spotlights coming on may be triggering alerts on the new problem child.  I can see that one of those two spotlights are on sometimes (not every time) when the recording starts, then the spotlight turns off after a few seconds.  The new camera with the misbehaving spotlight does not send motion alerts when the spotlight is going on and off.  Also, the spotlight does not come on when I view that camera, nor when there is actual motion that does trigger an alert.  It seems to be random.

Why do the spotlights come on, seemingly randomly, when they are set to "Standard" night vision?

Another thing I have noticed is the original problem child seems to get stuck between day vision and night vision.  Sometimes, during the day, if motion is triggered, it will start recording in black and white night vision, then click over to full color day-vision after a few seconds, even though it is bright and sunny outside. 

My last observation is with the two problem cameras as well.  I've noticed that frequently, when you wake up the camera to view it, just doing that will trigger motion alerts.  This really seems to only happen with the 2 problem cameras and not the other 3.  This happens with these cameras during the day, and at night.  All of the other issues seem to only happen at night.

Why would viewing the camera cause it to detect motion?

My suggestions to other owners:

If you have multiple cameras and one is finicky, try swapping the location.  If that camera is still a pain, return it.  There is definitely a difference from camera to camera.

If one camera has trouble with alerts, try to disable the Activity Zones with tree branches, or any areas where the camera may see car headlights moving in the distance.  Also, if there are nearby trees, its helpful to watch the camera for a while on a windy day to see if any branches may be blowing into view that are not normally in view.  I think it is possible the camera can detect motion outside of the field of view, but I'm not sure.

I just had this exact issue, and I'm on the 1.12 firmware.  Any additional updates on a fix here?

Hi all,

We're getting reports of similar symptoms to this issue resurfacing after FW1.12. Our engineering team is INVESTIGATING and we'll keep you updated when we know more.

I have an indoor camera with the same issue. 

My camara night vision spotlight keeps turning off and on for no reason. How do I fix this issue?

My camera started doing this last night and is on firmware 1.15.6.391. What should I do? I think it might be bugs flying around it

I just installed 5 outdoor cameras a week ago and 1 of them above our front door has the spotlight constantly flashing on and off all night. It is plugged in and doesn’t give us any motion alerts unless there really is something there, but continues flashing when there isn’t anything. We live in the Midwest and the weather has been clear all week. This camera is running version V1.15.6.391. 

Our camera just started triggering every 2-3 minutes yesterday. There is nothing new in the yard. The weather is clear. I was advised to set on people only but that defeats the purpose of seeing cars drive up in our driveway.