‎Simplisafe Doorbell Hell | SimpliSafe Support Home
 
J

Thursday, October 1st, 2020 10:44 AM

Simplisafe Doorbell Hell

This thing is so unreliable.
Shows 3 full blue bars both connection and upload yet it constantly disconnects and misses delivery personnel.  
Does anyone know if the Simplisafe Video Doorbell Pro goes into some sort of sleep mode during periods of inactivity??
At least that would explain why it is always dropping wifi connections despite showing 3 full blue bars during "connection check".
Those of you who own one of these are familiar with the "connection check" option in the app and how hard it is to obtain all blue bars yet, the connection is always dropping.
The only way to get the router any closer is to duck tape it to the doorbell itself.

4 years ago

Agreed. I have had issues with mine since day 1
They wanted to blame it on my internet. I have the highest speed possible and a brand new router.

Own up to your product when its not working!

1.3K Messages

4 years ago

There were some threads a while back where people had lots of drops and general poor function. In at least a couple cases the homeowner/system owner found the doorbell transformer that provides power to the camera was a rather small one (10VA rating or something like that). They replaced that with a higher-rated doorbell transformer and it started working much better. Don't know if that's your case, but it's something to consider. A device cannot work properly if it's unable to get adequate power.

SS provides a voltage range recommendation but I don't believe I've ever seen a minimum power spec. Ring says minimum of 20-30VA transformer for theirs to work right. And, if they give a range, I'd do either middle or top of the min range. Myself, I wouldn't use the minimum of the minimum range if I had to make a change.

217 Messages

4 years ago

I am convinced that doors and exterior walls present some sort of extra barrier to wireless router signals. Maybe it's the steel of the doors or the exterior siding.  I don't know what it could be, but the fact that some people have this issue and some do not, tells me it may not be entirely SimpliSafe's fault.

I have an Orbi mesh router system.  And the router node was installed in my living room on the inside of the wall about 20 feet away from the doorbell that of course, was on the outside of that wall.   I had severe connectivity issues that forced me to use the 420p image dimensions with the doorbell, and that wasn't even particularly reliable.

After I moved the router node to a plug to an interior plug almost directly below the doorbell, I was able to reliably use the default 720p option.  In addition to the transformer issue discussed above, it could also be an issue of your wireless router just isn't powerful enough to 'punch' through the barriers that lie in the way of the signal to provide reliable operation.  

A lot of people think their homes are not large enough to warrant a mesh router system, but the mesh router systems are coming down in price, and they make balancing the needs of various internet-connected devices scattered about the modern home MUCH easier.  (If I add another internet-connected device that requires a strong signal, and I can't move the mesh nodes, I can buy another Orbi mesh node in order to make sure all devices receive a strong signal.)

Orbi  (Netgear), eero (Amazon), and Google, all make reliable and inexpensive mesh node systems.  Other manufacturers are trying to catch up, but I suspect they will all be trying to compete with a slightly different take on the mix of features and price.

3 Messages

4 years ago

Thanks for the comments. I will try a new transformer.
New to the Community? Get started by reading our Welcome Article and please be sure to review our Community Guidelines before posting.