Outdoor Camera Motion Tied to Alarm System Armed State (Home/Away/Off)

@jeanie_walker I believe this has already been requested but best to wait for SS to repsond to your post for status.  The best you can hope for is that its been submitted and under review at this time, but you are correct, you can not set the camera status by system state.

Hi @jeanie_walker, 

Captain11 is correct, the Outdoor Camera was designed to be active at all times, it is not bound to the system's armed state. This is a popular request that has been submitted to our dev team, though. When we hear any news from them, an update will be provided in this thread. 

@captain11​ thank you.  I don’t know if I am going to wait for that change.  It goes through the battery too fast and records when there is no motion except for bugs flying around.  I have them set on people.

@jeanie_walker​ A few suggestions. The outdoor camera has excellent night vision, so I do not turn on the spotlight. As far as the bugs, try setting motion (if you haven't already) to people only and med sensitivity.  Both my outdoor cameras do very well on motion for people only (although hail an snow storms are tough) and they are both powered by AC.  There are solar panels you can use too.

If "soon" equals never, you will be satisfied! :)

I am selling my home system specifically because SimpliSafe not only fails to fix this problem, but also they refuse to give their customers any plan to fix, except, "am waiting to hear from the techs"...

I also just purchased a security system for my business from a competitor (there are several now that are very similar to SimpliSafe systems - both in technology and price)  - including motion sensors and outdoor cameras that are set to turn on or off along with the main system status.  What a concept!!!

Adios SimpliSafe.

Smart! But proved that SimpliSafe makes this not so simple. 

Well, I finished this. It works mostly. I use Kasa smart plug to power the WiFi access point for my cameras. Arming and disarming simplisafe sends an email notification to a special email box I setup that monitors those emails. It looks for keywords and then sends an email to IFTT and IFTT then turns on or off the Kasa plug. Video stops, but motion alerts do not. I needed to disable video for privacy so not so worried about motion alerts. Would be nice if those stopped too though. 

@tschmidt​ good question.. this feature is available on all other platforms. I’ve been a member for over a year and it’s still unavailable.  

This is indeed frustrating. Such an easy fix (literally copy the indoor camera, which in retrospect is a much superior device given this).  I’m in the market for another camera but will not purchase this until fixed. Nor will I encourage others to buy into the sinplisfae ecosystem or replace my devices.  So close to being a great system, but alas it’s a deal

breaker.  

Not having this feature totally defeates the purpose I'd bought my outdoor camera for because of the battery life. I wanted to capture cars and pedestrians passing by at night or when I'm away, but instead I'm forced to limit the motion detection "zones" in the camera's settings to block the street/sidewalk out. Otherwise, the battery lasts 1.5 months at most. Wouldn't be an issue if motion detection weren't active when I'm home/system is disarmed.

They could at least allow you to create a schedule? Definitely can't justify buying any more of these cameras until this lack of functionality is fixed.

Same opinion as everyone else. No idea why nobody at simplisafe thought it should be turned off with the alarm and opted to have it constantly ping you or record video if your kids are playing in the garden all evening/weekend. What's the estimated delivery date for this feature? I've only had the system a couple of weeks and it's incredibly annoying even with snoozing the notifications

I absolutley agree. The fact that I have to go to the app in iOS settings and turn notifications off if I'm home all day is a massive oversight. Otherwise every single move you make out there you get notified as well as my two dogs. The outdoor cameras should have the same flexibility as that new indoor camera with notifications for each of the three modes. I cannot understand how they thought this was a good idea. Now of course I have to turn notifications back on when I arm the system since I turned them off. The snooze feature was a nice placebo but 30 and 60 minutes is as near sighted as the mode setting oversight. I'm in the first few/three days of testing this system out and this issue is a big one for me and and may ultimately kill this system for my use. Even more discouraging is the fact that you posted this a year ago and the feature hasn't materialized. Not much faith they see the error here...

@ryanamercer13​ don’t hold your breath. They have even stopped responding to these threads it seems. At least they used to pretend the Dev team was going to do something about it. They won’t give anyone straight answers. Not a great customer service company in this regard. 

@heidiholub​ They even have close to the same functionality on the Motion Sensors. 🤦

@ryanamercer13​ I think motion sensors are disarmed when in home mode, it would be good to have an option to tick whether or not you want the cameras armed in home mode. Similarly it would be good to enable individual motion sensors when in home mode rather than all being off. You could leave a kitchen motion sensor off in case you get up in the night to get a drink but leave the living room/hallway/garage/office on as you wouldn't be going in there at night. So all you need is to have a settings page where you can specify which sensors you want on in armed mode, which you want on in home mode and which you want on in disarmed mode and everyone would be happy

@dlpsr​  I have mine set to medium sensitivity and my 3 year old sets off a notification on my phone every 30-60s or so whether she's playing a couple of metres from the camera or 10m away. If it were someone unknown in the garden while the alarm is active then obviously we'd want the notifications but when we have people over for a BBQ on a Saturday I don't want 100s of notifications on my phone, the camera should be able to be disarmed with the alarm

Mine is set to low sensitivity and people only, yet today it's a tad windy and I have 15 reports based on an umbrella and trees moving in the wind. From what I can tell motion sensing is broken, beyond the very valid (and basic) request here. At this point it's a wifi camera for use on demand. Probably time to move on from simplisafe to a company that has higher quality and listens to their customers. 

@dlpsr​ 

I don’t have an issue with detection, but sounds like you have an issue that’s not relevant to this particular thread. Sounds like something to reach out to them directly on or start a thread for that issue.

@justmattb​ It is relevant, if implemented, it should be a choice per user, not blanketed.

I don't want a mandatory option, but users who do should have a toggle switch or something in the app. Choices.