Worthless cameras

Is this an Arlo salesmen?  Most SS customers know how to properly spell SimpliSafe.  Just sayin.  If you are a legit customer I'm glad you found a solution that works for you.  I've got 3 cams and they've been nearly flawless.  One died, but it was the original beta cam and SS replaced it under warranty.  I do believe that the SS cam is only as good as the internet it's connected to tho.  Perhaps Arlo has some automatic resolution adjustments that make it a bit more fluid under less than ideal circumstances.

Probably a function of what wireless router you are using as it's unlikely all 6 would be defective.  Of course, the cameras should work with any router, but they don't.   Some wireless routers are terrible (*cough*  AT&T U-Verse garbage *cough*) and make it difficult for some devices to stay connected.  I have three cameras running on an older Actiontec FIOS router and haven't had any trouble keeping them connected and working.    Obviously Arlo has figured out how to make them work with your router, at least, but they are also newer technology and more expensive.  You do have to go with what works for you!

I'll pay shipping for your now-worthless cameras.  :^)

I was undecided whether to go with a SS cam or a Ring cam.  I have Ring cameras on the perimeter of my house and wanted an indoor cam.  I went with Ring.  Set up took maybe 5 minutes, has excellent audio and 1080 video, and was about 1/2 the price of SS. It works great with all my devices.  It's smaller than the SS camera and looks better, in my opinion.

I went with Ring because of all the complaints dealing with customer service and all the problems people are having with the SS indoor cameras.

The complaints about the customer service are valid.  They need to fix that.  I don't think most people are having trouble with the cameras themselves.

Simplisafe may be vulnerable to this kind of attack too, but so far I've seen zero reports of any incidents like these Ring cracks:

"Ring security camera hacks see homeowners subjected to racial abuse, ransom demands"
https://abcnews.go.com/US/ring-security-camera-hacks-homeowners-subjected-racial-abuse/story?id=67679790

"Man hacks Ring camera in 8-year-old girl's bedroom, taunts her: 'I'm Santa Claus' "
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-hacks-ring-camera-8-year-old-girl-s-bedroom-n1100586

"Couple says stranger hacked into bedroom Ring security camera set up to watch puppy"
https://abcnews.go.com/US/couple-stranger-hacked-bedroom-ring-security-camera-set/story?id=67667763

When Simplisafe finally abandons SS2, Ring will be on the list of companies I consider to replace it.  But they will have to go a couple years with no new reports of hacks to be a finalist.

Ring's two-step verification using SMS is not secure:  

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/why-you-are-at-risk-if-you-use-sms-for-two-step-verification/
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/hey-stop-using-texts-two-factor-authentication/
https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/two-factor-authentication.html

Ring doesn't do true 2FA, which involves a U2F hardware key like Tomu or YubiKey, or a time-based one-time password (TOTP) authenticator App like FreeOTP+, andOTP, or google authenticator.


Of course, Simplisafe doesn't use two-step or true two-factor authentication (and should!), but use a proper strong password and your Simplisafe account is very unlikely to be hacked, barring some system-level breach. Like winning-the-lottery level of unlikely.

Those are old links and not much has changed for the worse since they were written.  Ring is still more secure than SS and SS is going to go down the tubes as a result of their lousy and deplorable customer service.  I talked my neighbor into getting SS during the Christmas sale and he still has problems that he can't get resolved.  Why??

Was on hold for an hour listening to elevator music, then after exactly an hour on hold the music stopped and was replaced by a hissing noise, and still no customer service. If its that busy hire more operators, even sent 2 e-mails to "customer service" still no response. In the message icon it says update your info without saying what is the problem, nothing has changed on my end except for doorbell cam that decided to go off line and doesn't work again, terrible!!!

I frequently have camera issues with playback dropping out and/or going offline. I'm less than totally impressed with SS cameras. I suffered a totally loss of the camera for a few days when I inadvertently changed the camera resolution to 1080 (which no longer shows up on the menu; how was that possible?). Turns out, with the resolution set too high, it refused to broadcast a signal, but only left me with a "offline" error. Worthless error message. A few days later, after recalling I'd changed the resolution, I moved it back down to 720 and all is well again. I suggested to SS that they improve their error messages and/or automatically dumb down the cameras to match the bandwidth.
BTW, I'm also using the free Alfred iPhone app as a security camera, and it's never dropped out.

I've always had problems viewing recordings in the timeline, but I used to could just click on "retry" and it'd finish playing. Now, I haven't been able to view hardly any recordings in their entirety since yesterday, including the user recordings I manually record myself. The error message says my cameras lost connection, but when I download these videos, I can view the whole recording with no problem.

I hope this is addressed and fixed soon because this makes me regret upgrading to SS3 in December. Unreliable cameras are worthless during an emergency.

Wouldn't you have the same problem with your old SS2 system, since the cameras don't talk to the base.

I like my one camera, it always records when there's movement, does its job, and has nice, clear video. However, I wish these were battery operated. That's why I have mostly Arlo cameras. However, they don't connect to a monitored security system. They also record inconsistently and have a clumsy app interface.
Maybe one company should buy the other.