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

@worthing​ old thread but this is correct. The water sensor just saved me tens of thousands of dollars because it woke me up in the middle of the night and I was able to stop the leak before it got catastrophic 

@davis1024 

Hi Davey:

I finally got the motion notifications to work while in away mode.  I had to delete the Simplisafe IOS app on both our cell phones and re-install it, after that it worked. Strange bug in the IOS app. 

Ahah! So I suspect that the issue might have been with the config file stored on your phone. Reinstalling the app would have wiped and replaced it.

Hi btgrimes99,

I will take a guess and say that you're talking about the Wireless Outdoor Camera? That camera was designed to be on all the time, and warn of intruders approaching the home. So they're currently set to be active regardless of the system's state.

But yes, others have reported a need for the option to arm and disarm the Outdoor Cam along with the rest of the system. We'll add your feedback with our devs.

@davey_d Yes, I was referring to the outdoor camera. The problem is that we get alerts all day as members of our household go in and out of the house, which is annoying and quickly trains you to ignore alerts. I would like option to receive alerts only when the alarm is armed.

I agree with this. Please give the option to detect motion events and receive motion notifications only when the system is armed.

I agree.

@davey_d  this post was two years ago what progress has happened here?

I feel it’s a big  assumption on SS part to assume that some users use case might need the notifications turned off when disarmed. 

my camera is right outside my back door and literally goes off constantly as we walk in and out.

can you please confirm if in 2024 there is a way to disable notification in unarmed state?

the inability to do this will almost certainly mean I wil be returning my system within the first week.

Thanks

J

@shieldsjoseph​ the feature outlined in this post is currently In Development. We will keep you updated here when it rolls out for the Wireless Outdoor Camera.

In the meantime, we have since rolled out Snooze Notifications for Cameras, which is useful for those times when you'll be outside for an extended period. You can learn more about it in the Help Center article.

I agree 100%.  I installed my camera a few days ago and immediately had the same thought.

Agree that this should be an option. There's no need for my camera to be wasting battery life recording notifications if I'm in the back doing yard work all day. 

Agreed. Constant notifications when I’m working in the field of view of the camera is ridiculous and this needs to be addressed. 

Yes. My only complaint. Firmware should allow this to be turned off in off mode. 

100% agree. It’s a battery drain and a constant workday interruption. 

Thanks for the suggestion. So it sounds like you're asking specifically about the Outdoor Cam here as well? That is, you only want to be alerted for motion at specific times, rather than all the time like it is currently. I'll forward that to our dev team.

all cameras and doorbell

Assuming that your Indoor Cams are attached to your main system account, they should already be responding based on your system's armed state - so there's no separate setting for it, where you can set a more specific time, but you would, for example, be able to set whether your cameras are active when you're home, vs when you're away.

But I'll add the Doorbell to that request as well.

Yes please!! I only want motion detected outside business hours. Otherwise it's going off like every couple minutes. Also my indoor cam seems to detect motion, record and send alerts even when the alarm is disarmed.

I'm coming to this late, but I want to add my request to the pile.  I have two outdoor cameras.   I work from home and my wife's retired.

Being able to schedule movement alerts would be fantastic.  During the day she's coming and going with gardening, errands, etc. and I'm in my office getting bombarded with movement detection alerts.

The only solution right now is to turn off motion detection for both cameras every morning, then turn it back on every night.  No, it's not exactly difficult, but sometimes I forget and end up with no camera coverage overnight.

Note that this request for scheduling is independent of the "Off", "Home" or "Away" setting.  I only have Outdoor cameras and am not familiar with how the Indoor camera and Doorbell work with arming status, but others in the thread have addressed their behavior.

Can I second this please! It is really irritating to keep getting notifications when we are home and the alarm is off. 

Thanks!

Glad I am not the only one. So I presume there isn't any other way, then?!

Hi all,

The camera doesn’t link to the different system modes at the moment, but it is something we are looking into. As soon as we have more detail on this feature we'll be soon to let you know.

While the battery life varies based on camera placement, usage and settings, there are several ways to help extend your battery life between charges. Visit the Camera Settings in your SimpliSafe app and adjust the following settings:

• Motion Type - set to People Only. This is the default setting.
• Picture Quality - set to 480p
• Night Vision Mode - set to Standard. This is the default setting.
• Setup Activity Zones - Remove high traffic areas such as roads, paths and sidewalks etc.

We also have a Cable or Solar Panel which you could use so that the Outdoor Camera is permanently charged.

Thanks,

Natalie

I agree. Sitting in the sun at home and it’s ping, ping, ping…

Largely signed up to the forum to report/ask the same thing, so I will simply add to the above, this is quite a bad feature as it stands and provides little value. I'm only 3 weeks post-install and as someone who is out in the garden a lot, the base station and app are now reporting critically low battery, and my phone does not stop pinging all day. Muting/turning off notification's isn't ideal - that can lead to forgetting to turn it back on or missing a real issue.

Dropping picture quality to 480p is not a solution. Not only would this mean that the video quality is getting close to 10x below the best cameras on the market, but also wouldn't solve the underlying issue which is down to the lack of ability to specify the conditions under which the camera wakes up. The indoor camera is great. I'm less fussed about a privacy shutter outdoors but the ability to tie it to modes is definitely not just a nice-to-have, it should be a fundamental part of operation

@Natalie90 you mentioned this is something that's being looked in to, by any chance is there an ETA? Sadly at the moment I am leaning towards boxing up the entire system and returning it. I'd like another camera but that plus 2 solar panels is way too pricey

Another way to solve this (secondary to the above though as it won't for for everyone) is smart home integration that is actually usable. I'd thought I could create an Alexa routine that would in turn interact with the app to disable Notifications  & motion detection (and better yet, the option to trigger said routine when the 'off' button is pressed on the panel), but it turns out the actual 'integration' doesn't extend beyond basic arming and disarming, unless I've missed something in which case I'd be happy to be corrected!

I did quite a bit of research before making a decision but I have to say that while the installation and core functionality are clearly excellent, the lack of meaningful smart home integration and the outdoor camera issue is super disappointing and massively impacting the value of the system.

Product Team - Please listen to your customers, this is reported a lot!

Hi @jndankert ,

At this time, no. The Outdoor Camera is set to be active at all times. I will of course pass your feedback on to our camera team!

I came here to make this exact request. The camera is decent, but without this fairly simple feature, I have shut off notifications altogether - rendering it essentially useless.

Yes I agree. I have placed this camera indoors.  I cannot have it notifying and turning on the light at all times.  It needs a feature to turn on motion when system is armed. 

Any update on this / is this setting in the works?! 

@davey_d​ Is this setting in the works? I'm with the others... Kind of troubling to have this trigger and alert when we're out pulling weeds. 

Same issue here, I can't believe there isn't an option to have notifications off when system is off 

When my system is off, my outdoor cameras still record motion and notify me.  How do I stop that?

Turn off notifications for the camera and then turn them back on when you want to start receiving them. Seriously, that's the only way at the moment. Many people have asked for more options to do what you're describing and other things but to date we've had no confirmation this is being worked on much less when it might be available if it is being worked on.

I have asked repeatedly for the outdoor cameras to honor my alarm setting, but it just falls on deaf ears.  If I turn my system off, I want it to be off.  Not, Oh, we'll turn off some devices but not others.  The response I always get is, just turn off motion events.  Well, I have 5 outdoor cameras and if I'm doing something that involves moving around all 5, the process is dumb and tedious.

And on top of it, if I forget to turn an outdoor camera off before I trip it, then I have to take the battery out or stand out of view until the recording stops.  If I turn off motion events while it is recording, it completely ignores the setting and continues with motion events regardless of the setting.  I can turn it on and off as many times as I want and no matter what, the camera will continue to trip on motion even if the setting is off.  The only way to "fix" it is to pull out the battery to reset the camera.

Which just brings me do another feature that is missing. Please add a "reset/reboot camera" function.  I shouldn't have to go outside and pull the battery.  

When I bought my system last year, I purchased 3 outdoor cams.  I expressed my frustration to SimpliSafe that I could not program these cams to turn off when system is in OFF mode (like I can do with the indoor cams).  Ended up returning outdoor cams.  Would gladly purchase SS outdoor cams if they had the options like the indoor cams.  For now, any recommendations for outdoor cams with this programming ability?

I thought my outdoor camera would be off when my system was off. Driving us crazy to get text notifications every time we walk past our front porch, which can be dozens of time a day. Very annoying. Could an update be added to shut outdoor cameras off as with the indoor cameras? I am very disappointed with this lack of function, especailly after all the great reviews. 

The Outdoor Camera was designed to be 'Always On' and have the ability to detect and warn of intruders approaching the home, regardless of the system's state. I'd be happy to share your suggestion with our development team, as others have shared this interest as well.

New to simplisafe. My outdoor camera is on and recording me while system is off. I do not want to camera to record me while I am working in the yard and I don't want to change the record settings every time I turn my system on and off. This seems like a major issue and hope simplisafe gets there expensive outdoor cameras figured out.

@alexandria_c​ 

Please do share that with your development team.  Based on other's comments and my feelings about the function of the outdoor camera's, I know I will be looking for other solutions.  

thanks

Bob

I also agree. I do want my front door camera to act as the admin mentioned always on. However for my back door camera I don’t want notifications every time I’m sitting on my patio. I wouldn’t even mind if it were recording, I just want the option to turn of notifications. 

Another day goes by with unwanted alerts. This will get soon get old and You won't see me on the form anymore because I will have a different system installed.