‎Quick fix for unreadable QR Codes | SimpliSafe Support Home
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vrayocda

1 Message

Friday, May 15th, 2020 6:40 PM

Quick fix for unreadable QR Codes

I made an upgrade to my home WiFi which meant I had to reconnect my cameras.  I could not get the cameras to read the QR Codes from either of my cell phones (iPhone 8 and and a Galaxy S9.)   My quick solution was to take a screen shot of the QR codes, print them 6" by 6" and then scan them with the cameras.  The cameras read the printed QR codes in seconds and the rest is history.

I wish I had thought of this before wasting so much time trying to get them to read my cell phone!

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Updated 

21 days ago

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Official Response

davey_d

Community Admin

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5.6K Messages

2 years ago

Hi all,

This solution can work for both the Video Doorbell Pro, and the SimpliCam Indoor Camera - both of which connect by scanning a QR code generated by the SimpliSafe app. For more tips on troubleshooting the QR code, check out the Help Center article here.

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jump1460

13 Messages

4 years ago

Thanks for the Tip. I'll spread the word. There's always users somewhere calling in for that same thing.

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agl52

3 Messages

I tried everything and the QR code would not scan! 3 video doorbells later and multiple hours of holding the QR code at different sizes, lighting etc and the phone tech finally asked tif there was a “;” character in my WiFi password. Taking out the semicolon from the WiFi password did the trick!!! Who knew!!! Just had to reset the password on the base station and other devices too…

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6 months ago

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jim_264

1 Message

4 years ago

Thanks for this post.  I've been having trouble for weeks w this damn camera. I'm going to try your solution a little later on tonight.

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grahamdickie

1 Message

4 years ago

You don't even have to print the QR code. I took a picture of the QR code with another mobile phone, enlarged that pic by about 50% and bingo the camera read it first time.

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Jward

1 Message

@grahamdickie​ 

scanning these QR codes was driving me nuts! I tried this idea(enlarging screenshot) and it worked! I took a screenshot, rotated my phone horizontal. pinched to zoom as far as I could to make the QR code as big on screen as possible and it scanned pretty easily. Thank you for this tip!

(edited)

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2 months ago

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mshaw_43

1 Message

4 years ago

I had same problem. I took a snapshot of the code on my iphone. I then opened up the pic and made it larger and it worked.

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mmolitoris

1 Message

4 years ago

Hope someone has a better idea--I have tried all of the above; camera shot, printing--nothing seems to help--the camera won't read the QR code, and all I was trying to do was change wi-fi.

thanks...

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markhudgens

9 Messages

4 years ago

I found that the QR code was almost impossible to read.... until I reduced the brightness of my iPhone.  Now the code is read in about 1 second.  Works every time for me.  (I have 5 cameras).

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clearlykrystal27

1 Message

4 years ago

Making the screen *less bright* (about 50%) did the trick for me. I tried all the other suggestions and none of them worked. So glad I found this thread!

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gilcareer

1 Message

4 years ago

I used all the above and none worked. I then held the Code 5/6 inches from camera & Bingo!

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susanbwachtel

1 Message

2 years ago

This solution worked.  I printed the screen shot of just the QR code 6" x 6" and the camera was finally able to scan it.  Thank you!  

I spent nearly an hour and a half before I found this solution.  The Simplisafe customer service closes from midnight to 8 am and the monitoring service is not able to help resolve the issues.  

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smittyb486

1 Message

2 years ago

I was also struggling for the last several days getting my replacement doorbell pro to recognize the QR code. When I saw the comment and reducing the brightness to 50% on your phone, I tried that and it worked instantly. Definitely a great solution. 

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davey_d

Community Admin

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5.6K Messages

@smittyb486​ glad to hear that this worked for you. Glare on the screen, and other lighting conditions at the location, can make it harder for the camera to see the QR code clearly. That's why we added the brightness slider on the QR code screen, so you can try different levels, which might work.

(edited)

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2 years ago

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scalves

1 Message

2 years ago

None of these solutions worked for me after struggling for an hour.  This seems like a big design flaw. Other ideas? 

(edited)

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akaakaalex529

1 Message

2 years ago

I'm shocked this process hasn't been improved. Simplisafe must know how fragile this process is. I just changed my wifi password and of all the devices I had to update only my simplisafe cameras were not immediately able to connect to the new network.

The solution that worked for me after many failures was to take a screenshot of the qr code and enlarge it for the camera to scab

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davey_d

Community Admin

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5.6K Messages

@akaakaalex529​ the Video Doorbell Pro and the Indoor Camera can only communicate by WiFi, which is why the QR Code process is necessary. It's the only way that the camera can 'learn' what the login credentials are for your WiFi, so it can get connected.

Some factors that might help with the scanning are:

  1. Reducing glare on the phone screen by avoiding bright light sources, and turning up your screen brightness
  2. Making sure that the complete QR code is displayed - you should see concentric squares on each of the corners (example below)
  3. Starting at about 2' away, slowly bring your phone closer to the camera. It helps to have both on a table to keep them steady. This allows the camera to properly focus on the image.
  4. Lower-resolution phone screens, or certain zoom settings, might not display the QR code correctly. Trying a different device might help at that pont.

The Outdoor Camera, which we released last year, uses a totally different connection method, as it is able to link with the Base Station directly and obtain the WiFi details that way. Going forward, you can expect future camera devices to set up in a similar way.

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2 years ago

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smitchell08

1 Message

There is no concentric square at the lower right hand corner of the QR code. Repeated attempts to install form scratch yient the same result, seulment three concentric squares.

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8 months ago

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emily_s

Community Admin

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3.1K Messages

@smitchell08​ Apologies! You are correct, the QR code should only have three concentric squares - the bottom right corner should not have one.

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8 months ago

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ravisalem

1 Message

1 year ago

I struggled for a day.. after reading this post . I tried again. Reduced the intensity and Door bell was able to read the QR Code. 

Please let the technical support team know about this. I had an hour chat with them and we tried many things .. they didnot mention this option.

I had to reduce the vedio resolution in the camera to 480 and now it works fine.

Thanks you all for your suggestions.

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grapehound

1 Message

8 months ago

My problem was that my phone was not generating a QR code to scan.  Turns out I just needed to log onto my internet server using the "manual setup" process.  Once I entered my internet server ID and password info, the phone generated the necessary QR code and I got connected.

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