SimpliCam losing connection

Just spent twenty minutes reading through this thread. It would be great to have a solution to this. My doorbell cam has been working fine for a year. My bandwidth and router location have not changed. But all of a sudden, over the last two weeks, my doorbell cam disconnects every couple of seconds.

My indoor cams have decent WiFi coverage, but placing the doorbells outside caused issues. They showed weak signal and constantly dropped. The talk back feature was unusable.

I didn't contact support, but I did add additional WiFi coverage between the doors and this improved this considerably.

Moral of the story is, WiFi is the limiting factor. These units seem to have cheap WiFi radios and want fairly strong signals. Moving anything outside poses even more of a WiFi problem.
Good home WiFi coverage with multiple access points or a mesh system with nodes near the exterior walls will improve your connectivity. Even a WiFi range extenders might help.
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Done with SimpliSafe. $25+ a month for a service Ring is providing for $10. Nothing but issues with the cameras saying poor connection strength. I have 990mb download and 42mb upload internet service and the two cameras are 4ft and 14ft away from the WiFi router. Motion sensors randomly go offline and come back on. Additionally, anyone on the street can see my red colored light on the doorbell cam that signals to the world that my system is down- awesome. I'll be canceling service as soon as SS picks up my call from hold and urge everyone to cancel as well. We're all paying premium costs for busman service and hardware.

If you re looking for a camera system, then SS is a poor choice.  If you're looking for a security system, then it may fit your needs.

The $25 is not just for the cameras, it is also for monitoring and remote access.

HI,
I was losing connections randomly it seemed.  What I found was my ATT wifi had both 5Ghz and 2.5Ghz settings and simplisafe can only use the 2.5Ghz connection.  After rebooting router and making sure my simplisafe base station was connected properly things seemed to be working.
BTW the Base station name that popped up on my router was " espressif "  I'm guessing that simplisafe uses parts from this Chinese company.    https://www.espressif.com/

Hope this helps someone.

Cheers,

It's amazing that customers are still having issues with cameras disconnecting. I read through all 3 pages of this forum. I don't have AT&T I have Atlantic Broadband. I have my own router and modem. So after reading through all this I'm wondering if my 2.4 network is overloaded with devices. So to see if this is causing my issue I moved my two indoor cameras and my video doorbell to my guest network. Time will tell.

Just got our SimpliSafe system last week, installation went fine. But now we are having issues with cameras losing connection. I know all the blah blah about distance, materials causing interference and all the technical schtuff.... We have three cameras including a video doorbell. The camera that is the closest to the base station is ~10', straight shot unencumbered line of site of the base unit (same room, just on the top of a curio, but still LINE OF SIGHT to the base unit). Infact, this camera faces directly AT the SS base unit. The doorbell is 12' away, straight shot, line of sight except the door trim behind it that the wall is made of. The doorbell, works fine-ish, the upstairs camera (furthest away and on the second floor, so structural mats in between the camera and the base unit) works fine-ish, they sometimes lose connection. The camera in the room, with shortest range is ALWAYS losing connection to the system. WHY?!?! The closest and best possible connection and that camera more than the others has the issue....

A secondary issue is possibly not SS's fault and I could use some help with is the fact that I have Xfinity (Comcast) the 1Gig dl residential service. Their router/modem, and it sits about 3' from the SS base unit. The cameras are CONSTANTLY losing connection, the main one mentioned up above is the worse, and when they come back on they connect to the 5ghz network as opposed to the 2.4ghz network. How can I tell the SS system to ONLY use the 2.4ghz and not the 5ghz? I have installed the Xfinity PODS, they are .... wifi extenders, just as  a way of ensuring I have no issues with wifi signals anywhere in my house, even though our home is relatively small (~1200sqft, two floors).

Any help would be appreciated, we paid 6 bills for this system and have reliability issues with the service. Perhaps the system just isnt advanced/reliable enough just yet. In addition we need a camera for our driveway and SS does not make a camera integrated into outside lighting. Why not, I mean you can get cameras INSIDE a lightbulb now, but not a camera integrated into dual outside lights. Many other companies offer these, such as ring, and they cost $250, which is a non issue for me, the issue is that it would have to be another app to monitor and go to in a time of necessity. Why cant SS just make the camera/light combo and lets move on?

Rant over thanks.

Hi @Fyrefyghterlyfe,

While our SimpliSafe cameras don't actually connect directly to the Base Station, since the router is only a few feet from the Base Station then we know the Video Doorbell Pro is at most 15' away from the router so distance shouldn't be an issue. It sounds more likely that the first two issues you mentioned may be related.

Some customers have noted similar issues and have said that turning off the Band Steering feature on their router (a feature that automatically moves devices between 2.4 and 5 GHz) solved the issue for them. Another option to try and prevent the cameras from trying to connect to the 5 GHz network would be to make sure that your 2.4 and 5 GHz WiFi networks have different names such as FyreWifi-5G and FyreWifi-2G. If you decide to go this route, you'll need to make sure to set your cameras up to use the new 2.4 GHz WiFi network name.

SimpliSafe Social Team
SimpliSafe Home Security

I'm sorry to hear you're having connectivity problems with your SimpliCam after the first week. Losing connection after just 3-5 seconds of motion detection certainly doesn't inspire confidence.

A few things you could try to troubleshoot:

• Make sure your WiFi network is operating on a less congested frequency band like 5Ghz instead of 2.4Ghz. This can help with wireless interference.
• Try repositioning the camera closer to your router for a stronger signal. Avoid placing near other electronics that could cause interference.
• Check for any firmware updates from Typecalendar and update if available. This may improve connectivity.
• As a test, set up the camera right next to the router and trigger motion to see if it maintains connection. This can help diagnose if it's a camera issue vs wireless network issue.

If the problem persists even after troubleshooting, I would reach out to SimpliSafe support. Describe the connectivity dropping after motion detection starts. They may be able to send you a replacement camera or diagnose if it's something on their end. Definitely don't want unreliable footage when you really need it!