61 Messages
Outdoor Cam recording every 3 minutes
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.
kevinis43
3 Messages
3 years ago
I have a new outdoor camera above the front door. This has worked fine for several days but this morning I started receiving continuous notifications every minute. I can't see anything outside that would activate it. I have the sensitivity set to low and "people". I also tried narrowing the vision field. There isn't any wind today. If I turn notifications off for a while and then back on, it will stop. But then I go through periods of phantom notifications starting again after notifications are back on. Is there anything else to try or is the camera defective?
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kennybryant
99 Messages
3 years ago
https://community.simplisafe.com/conversations/wireless-outdoor-security-camera/getting-continuous-notifications-from-outdoor-camera-when-no-motion-activity/61dde3f2f0f05706cf714b02
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captain11
Captain
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6K Messages
3 years ago
There are a lot of questions to ask, many causes which is why best to call support. I have 2 outdoor cams and don't have this behavior, and work as expected.
What was the weather like? Heavy rain? Snowing? In those conditions you can get frequent recordings and, based on what side of the house it is mounted, it can effect just one camera. (In heavy rain, my front camera has been fine but the back yard camera recording every few minutes. If you call support, they should ask for you to download some clips and to send them or upload them where they can review. Also, with one unit doing this, it could be defective, where SS will replace it at no charge under the 3 year warranty.
If you do call, please post your outcome here.
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bradmillerpe
19 Messages
3 years ago
I just installed an outdoor camera yesterday. I had it set for low motion detection and only the area immediately in front of the camera (i.e. not the street). After one night the battery is already dead. This camera is pretty much rubbish. I'm going to stick with my "indoor" camera with the silicon outdoor housing. It works much better.
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Woowee_oowee
5 Messages
2 years ago
The camera had this issue just yesterday(
April 7th) and it keeps "detecting motion" every few minutes or so. The battery was drained overnight since it kept detecting ghost motions. This weirdly only happens at night and I've set it to the lowest motion setting yet, it still happens.
The software is up to date fyi and my street is not a busy one.
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halestroy
4 Messages
2 years ago
Im having the same problem triggering every 3 min. ive tried to change settings to no avail this has happened severall times i'm tired of pulling the battery! Finally removed it from the system its useless to me when im not home to fix it what a waste.
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peterjlee87
2 Messages
2 years ago
I’m having the same problem. It started doing this tonight every 3 minutes. You guys need to update your camera system or something. There’s got to be a bug
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sugakuga
72 Messages
2 years ago
Mine does exactly the same thing. In the morning I have dozens of clips I have to delete. Also, most of the time the camera records these 3-minute videos, these videos do not upload, so there is nothing for me to see.
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jaimelogeman
2 Messages
2 years ago
I've had both of my outdoor cameras do the exact same thing. It will record every three minutes exactly. Clear nights on both nights. Nothing should have triggered them. Still went off every three minutes, despite turning off the motion detection.
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davey_d
Community Admin
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5.7K Messages
2 years ago
@sugakuga regardless of how your Outdoor Cam is powered, it will still need to connect through WiFi. So the Captain is right on the first bit - looking for possible issues with bandwidth and connectivity. The Connection Check tool in the SimpliSafe app will help determine if the camera is getting a good signal where it's located.
Though you're right, there should be no difference in the camera when powered by AC, versus on battery alone. However, it's still worth investigating all the factors - so we can dig up possible leads.
In a different comment, you asked about updates to the cameras. There have been two so far this year. Unlike system updates, camera updates are all silent and automatic, so you may not notice that they've been applied. You can check the current version of your cameras in the Settings page of the SimpliSafe app. More updates are of course on the way.
I have already reported this issue to our dev team, but we'll send it up again to let them know it's still happening.
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kris
4 Messages
2 years ago
Hi there,
I am having the same issue where if there is a motion at night, it records it and then starts recording every 3 minutes and sometimes it lasts till the morning. If I am at home I can power cycle it and it stops doing it but it is not possible if I am away on holiday for example. Which is when you would rely on the camera to work properly the most. Quite a shame that I paid £160 + the cost of the solar panel for it only to realise that a lot of people have reported the same issue and there is no clear solution/software update for it. Really hope that the devs are looking into creating a fix rather than just collecting complaints.
Cheers,
Kris
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davey_d
Community Admin
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5.7K Messages
2 years ago
Hi all,
An update on this issue. Our engineering team is aware, and is working on a fix - targeting the next firmware update. In the meantime, we suggest (if you haven't already) setting your Outdoor Camera to People Only Mode. That may reduce these incorrect triggers significantly.
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bpull1
36 Messages
2 years ago
SS sent me a replacement camera 6 weeks ago for this 3 minute problem. Now, the replacement camera has started doing the same thing. Last night I received over 170 notifications over a nine hour period.
Come on SS, get this problem resolved!!!!!!!!
SS should stop selling the cameras, when they know there's a built-in problem with them!
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Nikegal
2 Messages
2 years ago
I am so tired of dealing with these outdoor cameras! I’ve only had them installed for two weeks and there are constant issues. I’ve already called Simplisafe a couple of times about it. Now, last night, one of my cameras was going off every three minutes. It was recording absolutely nothing moving. I already have the motion set to medium, and people only, and still, it was recording. I viewed every single video and there was nothing in them other than my yard. So annoying and frustrating! The battery that was fully charged three days ago is now depleted. I had to change out both of the camera batteries at that time, because they depleted themselves taking phantom videos of absolutely nothing. I would open up the timeline video and it would be black with lettering saying “video not captured”. My indoor camera does not have any issues hardly ever. These outdoor cameras are terrible!
I really thought Simplisafe would be much better than this.
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halestroy
4 Messages
2 years ago
I was having the same trouble with mine and I took the battery out reset everything and now I haven’t had any issues of it recording everythree minutes since I’ve done this
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