Cameras not recording at night, possible network conflict

[coneeleven]

I'm having trouble with my system in that I am not seeing any recordings for large portions of the evening/morning.

Over the past week, my first recordings were at 8:03am, 8am, 8am, 7:41am, 9:09am, 8:35am, 9:33am, and 7:53am. Most of these correspond to when someone in my family first leaves the house, but not always.

Over the past week, my last recordings were at 7:35pm, 7:12pm, 7:12pm, 7:21pm, 7:27pm, 8:07pm, and 7:17pm. Most of these correspond to when the last person arrives home. 

In a couple of instances there were no recordings (camera pointed at the street) between 9:30am and 11:30am, when I'd be very surprised if there were no events to trigger recording to start.

My first guess is that something on the network is causing a conflict, so when we get home the system stops recording. Has anybody else experienced this? I can't think of any other reason why so many of these times would correspond to us coming/going from the house.

[homesecurity]

I Have the same issues. My car was broken into and nothing was capture at night.

[jguerdat]

Post screenshots - we may have suggestions for better camera positions.

[coneeleven]

Here you go. Not sure the camera positions are the issue, as they were working as expected for the first few weeks and only stopped recording in late evenings a couple of weeks ago. This may have coincided with installation of a smart door lock, which is why I thought it could be a network conflict, though I don't really understand why it would start recording when I leave the house every day, and stop recording sometime betwen 7-8pm (sometimes coinciding with arriving home, sometimes not). It did it again this morning. Nothing on either camera until we walked out the front door, then the street camera showed us pulling out of the driveway, but nothing after that. 

Could it be that the sensitivity of the street facing camera is too low for it to be able to pick up motion in lower light (not counting night time)? That may also explain it.

[Schorschi]

The street camera will pick up motion events from the street only randomly, as it is outside of the camera's range of ~20 ft. Whatever recording you might get from the street will be mostly from coincidental reflections of the sun on passing objects, I would estimate.

The question is, do you want/need activity alerts from the street? It'll run your battery down faster if the occasional passerby triggers your camera.

I would therefore aim the camera down so that the upper edge of the frame is at the curb, or better yet, at the edge of your driveway/beginning of sidewalk. You may want to swivel the camera a bit too in order to minimize the amount of your own garage in the frame.

Alternatively, you may want to experiment with turning your camera 90 degrees. I assume the paved area framed by brick to the right in the frame is your walkway to the front door? Try turning your camera 90 degrees, so that that walkway is in the frame, from the sidewalk to your garage.

Likewise, you may want to consider turning your front-door camera sideways as well, so that the front door is at the top of the narrow side of the frame and most of your porch area is in the frame. Is that the farthest you can mount your camera away from the front door? Mount it farther away under your porch if you can.

The magnetic mounts may not allow you to mount the cameras that way, so if you don't have them already, invest in some outside mounts.

Additionally, consider creating rules so that both cameras begin recording if only one senses motion. So, you'd create the following rules:

1. If motion detected on street camera, record on street camera.
2. If motion detected on street camera, record on front-door camera.
3. If motion detected on front-door camera, record on front-door camera.
4. If motion detected on front-door camera, record on street camera.

Make sure to configure the recording lengths equal for both cameras, since all cameras triggered from the same motion event will not react to any new motion event until the longest recording has stopped.

These are just some tips for general optimization I'd try.

Btw, I schedule my front-door camera to be disabled during a half-hour time window in the morning during which I leave the house, as I'm not interested in taking footage of my leaving the house on a daily basis. Saves some battery too.

If you think the wireless signal of your smart lock is interfering, try disabling it temporarily and see if your cameras behave any different.

[jguerdat]

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coneeleven wrote:

This may have coincided with installation of a smart door lock, which is why I thought it could be a network conflict

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What smart lock?  I'm using an August SmartLock with the Connect module.  I have two cameras that could be impacted by their WiFi signals and all is working fine.

[coneeleven]

Thanks for your reply. Some answers:

1. I'm torn on recording the street...it's been mostly useless as the 2 second recording delay tends to miss most cars going by, but it would be nice to be able to record cars that stop in front of my house. I may adjust it so it doesn't record the street and see how that works for me. I'm not sure I internalized that the range is about 20 ft. 

2. Rotating the cameras is an interesting idea, though it doesn't look like that is an option for the viewer (i.e. if I watch on my computer, I would have to turn my head, right?). I see that inverting the image is an option, just not rotate 90°. 

3. I've considered rules like you've suggested, and even played with them a little. One problem is then the front door camera will record much more often than it currently does. The bigger problem is that I like having notifications for the front door camera, but if I have them linked, I get a notification every time they record. If I could have it only notify me when the event is triggered by a specific camera, that would be excellent, but so far I don't see that as an option.

4. I think I would only want to have the front door camera triggered by the street camera if I don't point it past the end of my walkway. But that was a good tip to make the recording lengths the same.

5. I may have to try disabling the smart lock to see if it changes things. That being said, the impetus for the question had more to do with why things could be different now than they were during the first few weeks after installation (i.e. before smart lock installation), and why the recordings seem to coincide with us not being home.

[coneeleven]

I am also using an August smart lock, though I am not using the Connect, I'm using my Apple TV for remote control of the lock. Did you have the August or the Arlos connected first? And did you have to do anything regarding wifi router settings to get it to work? I'm assuing not or you probably would have mentioned it.

Thanks!

[Schorschi]

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coneeleven wrote:

2. Rotating the cameras is an interesting idea, though it doesn't look like that is an option for the viewer (i.e. if I watch on my computer, I would have to turn my head, right?). I see that inverting the image is an option, just not rotate 90°. 

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Right, that's a drawback that the video footage can't be rotated by 90 degrees. If you lock your mobile device screen to not dynamically adjust its orientation when you rotate the device, and then maximize the video clip when playing, you'll be able to turn your device so that the video is upside right; at least on Android, not sure about iOS. Of course, this is moot if your preference is to dynamically adjust the orientation on your mobile device or when accessing the UI through a desktop computer.

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coneeleven wrote:

3. I've considered rules like you've suggested, and even played with them a little. One problem is then the front door camera will record much more often than it currently does. The bigger problem is that I like having notifications for the front door camera, but if I have them linked, I get a notification every time they record. If I could have it only notify me when the event is triggered by a specific camera, that would be excellent, but so far I don't see that as an option.

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You can suppress notifications for specific cameras if you uncheck them in the respective rules.

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coneeleven wrote:

4. I think I would only want to have the front door camera triggered by the street camera if I don't point it past the end of my walkway. But that was a good tip to make the recording lengths the same.

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Sure, you can set it up that way.

[jguerdat]

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coneeleven wrote:

I am also using an August smart lock, though I am not using the Connect, I'm using my Apple TV for remote control of the lock. Did you have the August or the Arlos connected first? And did you have to do anything regarding wifi router settings to get it to work? I'm assuing not or you probably would have mentioned it.

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The Arlo system was installed well over a year before the August lock.  No settings anyplace, router or otherwise, had to be changed.  Of course, that doesn't mean you may not have a unique issue that is causing interference.  Pulling the batteries from the lock would be a good first step to decide if there's a connection.