Outdoor Cam recording every 3 minutes

This issue has been happening now for over 6 months and SS have still not resolved the issue.  Per my post above I gave up with the cameras and returned them and I am not confident that SS know how to solve the problem (or are just ignoring it).  I wish someone from SS would post an official response to this problem (other than it is known by the technical dept. and should be resolved shortly).

I repeatedly tried battery removals/resetting the cameras - this is a very short term fix as the problem returned each time on both my cameras.

Can we please get a comment from either the supervisor of the director/vp of engineering/development, marketing or whoever  approved the wireless outdoor camera for public release?  This individual should be fired immediately.  It does not remotely work as advertised.  I am now on my 4th outdoor camera.  Besides the ongoing ~3 minute recording of nothing that everyone has been complaining about, it suddenly drains the battery overnight .  I have 2 batteries (one extra plus all the ones that came with replacement cameras).  I put in a freshly charged one around 10 PM at all motion, high sensitivity (because otherwise it detects the back of my head while I do jumping jacks directly in front of it ) and at around 3-4 AM get an alert the camera has shut down due to low battery.  Then I get up around 8ish and check the app, it's still recording and at the  30-40% battery mark.  I have tried people only, low/med/high detection  as well with ALL 4 CAMERAS AND NUMEROUS BATTERIES)  There is obviously a quality control/engineering issue here.  I eagerly await a prompt response on what SimplieSafe's resolution will be.

I like others just had the 3 minute camera bug where the outside camera kept detecting motion every three minutes. Changing to people detection only, low medium high sensitivity also did nothing. The battery eventually died. My question is should I just reset it? Should I send the camera back to Simplisafe. Thanks!

I have been having the same issue.  I have four outdoor cameras and they have all done the three minute recording thing until the batteries drain - always at night. 

I've seen this asked a few times, but have yet to see a solution posted.  I have four outdoor cameras, and occasionally one of them will detect motion every three minutes, always at night, and record until the battery is drained.  This has happened with each camera at some point.  Changing the camera settings in the app does nothing, even if I turn off motion detecting. The camera just continues to sense motion and record every three minutes.

I have the same issue. Records every 3 minutes. I have it on low detection, people only and viewing field so small. It will not stop. So annoying. 
simpli safe has really created a bad camera

My outdoor cameras randomly go off every three minutes every couple of days since I bought them 8 months ago. I’ve reset and power cycled it, moved front to back and back to front, it’s still doing it. These cameras need an update. They work about 40% of the time,  people move directly in front of them in people mode and they don’t work. Very disappointed in the product. 

My outdoor camera does the same thing occasionally. Usually, turning motion detection (events) off and waiting a while then turning it back on, will resolve it. However, there are times that it continues to record every 3 min even with motion detection turned off, with a text message saying that "motion was detected" even with motion events turned off. When it does this, powering down and restarting resolves it. However, my camera is located where that involves a ladder. So, I experimented and found that if I turn off motion notifications, and save that, it still thinks it detects motion and sends the notification every 3 min - in spite of having notifications turned off. Experimenting further, i found that if i turn off motion notifications, and save that, then turn off motion events, and save that, and wait 10 or 15 min, then turn it all back on, that it is resolved without having to climb up on a ladder to manually power down the camera. (My camera is supplied with corded power btw).

Also, I have noticed that when the system is armed, that it does a quick 1 min check of all the cameras and I have noticed that if I trigger the outdoor camera by walking by it, or by pulling the car out of the garage, during this initial 1 min check, that it almost always goes in to the "every 3 min recording" loop. Strangely, however, not always, because when i have intentionally done this to test it, sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.

Definitely an issue with the camera software since none of this ever happens with the indoor cameras that are used outdoors in the clear plastic cases - including the one that was replaced with the new outdoor camera.

I have 2 Outdoor cams, powered by solar panels. At night, the cameras will go into a constant loop of recognizing motion, filming for three minutes, then doing it again, and again, and again, until the batteries exhaust. The cam will signal a critically low battery, go offline, and the panels will not revive them the next day. I've worked with customer care, we've changed every setting, used the field motion recognition functions, disabled notifications, etc, and nothing has prevented this phenomenon from happening. I've received 2 new cams and one new solar panel. Nothing has worked. LET ME BE CLEAR. THERE IS NO MOTION EVER DETECTED IN THE REPETITIOUS RUNNING AND RECORDING. Ive read about firmware updates, but it appears that these are not going to come anytime soon. I've read hundreds of comments online of people having the same experience.

SS's customer service has been very accommodating, and It's my hope that SS will rectify this matter, but at this point I feel like I'm just going to request a refund and go another route. This has been an extremely frustrating experience. 

I have the same issue. Try different new cameras (replacement) and same things keep happening. Tech support is not very helpful and just talking about you (the customer) have slow internet etc. which I don't. And this is not because there is motion constantly like many always said. I have (2) camera and one works fine and others do not. I switch the working camera to the none working location and suddenly its works fine. So, it is not internet issue at the location or camera is detecting motion like others have mentioned.

The reason, and I found only at night, once the camera is initially triggered by a motion or was turn-on. For whatever reasons or bugs in the system, the camera is not able to communicate with base correctly, so then the camera is not able to turn itself off, and when that happens, the camera will record itself every 3 min because it is always on. When it cannot communicate with the base like that, you cannot shut the camera off or change setting using your phone. IT WON'T work.

I spend countless hours of my own time for many nights trying to figure this out. And I try to explain the Simplisafe to help them understand the issues better, and their reps on the phone did not want to listen or just don't care... 

Hello all,

I have a new update on this issue. Outdoor Camera Firmware 1.9 is currently rolling out gradually to all units, and it includes updates that may resolve some cases here.

You can check if your camera is already updated by going into the Camera Settings section of the SimpliSafe app.

If your camera is already on 1.9, and you're still seeing this issue, please let us know here. I'll relay to our engineering team for further investigation.

Outdoor constant recording worsened, started recording every minutes now.  Like might as well just shutdown notifications for the app all together

I had the same issue. It happened while I was away. No matter what setting I tried it just kept recording one after another until the battery died.

This keeps happening to three of my four outdoor cameras and it's super frustrating.  I read on another thread that there should be an automatic software update that may fix this issue. It's 1.9.  Unfortunately, we just have to wait until the update happens on its own.  I have no idea how long it'll take, but my cameras are draining on a regular basis.

I discovered that the problem only occurs with the night vision "spotlight" turned on. I realized that the problem was no longer happening and realized the only difference was the spotlight was turned off. To test this, i turned it back on and the next time the camera detected motion, it went back in to the "every 3 minute drill".

I turned the spotlight back off - and had to cycle through turning off motion and notifications then turning it all back on - however leaving the spotlight off. No more "every 3 minute repeat" issue. It has been 2 or 3 weeks now with no problem at all. I do miss having color video at night that you don't have with the spotlight turned off, but i sure don't miss the thing going off every 3 minutes.