Nest Cams offline suddenly

ereddish

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Nest must have made some changes. All of a sudden all of my Nest Cams are off line. Everything has been working perfectly until today. Anyone else experiencing this issue? Thanks - Ernie
 

ereddish

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Thanks for the advice. Now I've got 2 out of 3. Strange. I have too much $$$ invested in Nest to switch, but in case I change my mind, what did you end up with?
 

awsum140

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You can buy the Annke I61DR for $50 directly from Annke with free shipping. Took a week from CA to NJ. 1080P HD High Definition Video Resolution IP Camera Online Shopping| annkesecurity.com It's a Hikivision rebrand and has decent videoand two-way sound. PoE or WiFi with a 12 volt adapter which is included.

Idle had good luck with SV3C, me not so much. I'd stick with slowly replacing outdoor cams with Dahua 5231R-Z turrets or the bullet equivalent. About $168 with free shipping from Empire Security, contact Andy with multiple listings on this board. Great day and night vision, far superior to any of the cheap junk I've tried from Amazon or FleaBay.
 

awsum140

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I'll have to post a side by side of a 5231R-Z and an SV3C for you to see the differences. Trust me, well worth the price difference. I'll keep the SV3Cs running but will be moving them to less important areas until they are finally retired. That one with the moisture/condensation inside has cleared up now that the weather has gotten above freezing for a little while, but I expect it back as soon as we drop back down to 20F or so.
 

awahl101

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I'll have to post a side by side of a 5231R-Z and an SV3C for you to see the differences. Trust me, well worth the price difference. I'll keep the SV3Cs running but will be moving them to less important areas until they are finally retired. That one with the moisture/condensation inside has cleared up now that the weather has gotten above freezing for a little while, but I expect it back as soon as we drop back down to 20F or so.
would love to see those as well, I almost grabbed one to try for the heck of it since they are really cheap.
 

awsum140

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I'll post here, in this thread, later this evening. Day and night although today is kind of overcast, dreary and the ground is snow covered AGAIN!
 

mat200

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would love to see those as well, I almost grabbed one to try for the heck of it since they are really cheap.
Hi Awahl101,

The Starlight models just kill the other cameras in that price range for low light conditions. Well worth it if you need images during night.
 

ereddish

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I'm still having issues here with one of my Nest cams. It never came back but it does show on nest.com. I also noticed that when I view the recorded videos in BI, they are extremely slow to come up. I'm wondering if the latest update has a bug...
 

Bapski

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had to revert to an earlier BI version and all nest cameras came back except for one. i had to re-copy and paste the rtmps link and it brought the nagging absent nest camera back to life and ive had no issues close to a week now.
 

ereddish

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had to revert to an earlier BI version and all nest cameras came back except for one. i had to re-copy and paste the rtmps link and it brought the nagging absent nest camera back to life and ive had no issues close to a week now.
Any chance you could share the earlier version of BI. I suspect that may be my problem...
 

awsum140

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OK, here's the captures. The SV3C has a 36 watt IT illuminator mounted about 10 feet in front and 8 feet below the camera height. If you look carefully you can see a fence at the rear of the frame that's about 220 feet away. The 5231 has two, 11 watt, IR illuminators, one on each side of the fence. The road is about 175 feet away and the neighbors houses are much further. Time is displayed in each capture.

SV3C

SV3C_day.JPG

sv3c_night.JPG

5231

5231_day.JPG

5231_nigh6.JPG
 

Bapski

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Any chance you could share the earlier version of BI. I suspect that may be my problem...
funny as i was previously trying to look for an older version that i used when i initially had this issue last year, you were the one who sent me the file and solved the problem for me.. lol (check your pm's if you cant recall)

anyways ill try to find out what version im using right now and see if its the version you need. ill figure out a way to send it. i had problems receiving your BI version last time we tried.. :D when i get home.
 

awahl101

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ohh yeah , you dont happen to have any of the dahua in complete darkness do you?

My fathers in VT is pitch black out the dahua HFW4431R-Z's I have up there work fairly well but the light pattern seems to be more focused towards the center, if they were angled out a bit the light would be perfect. I almost grabbed the 4 mp i8 series hikvisions as I have used them in the past and the light output is great. I was trying at the time to do it as cheap as possible for him
 

awsum140

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No, none in complete, utter, darkness. The Dahua is on the side of the house and looks out toward the street. There are two street lights, on the far side of the street. The one to the right is 200-300 feet away and the one on the left is 400-500 feet away (street lights on every fifth pole). Keep in mind the street is almost 200 feet from that camera. The IR on the Dahua is disabled due to the two additional 11 watt sources. I may shut those two illuminators down and give you a shot in as dark conditions as I can produce without moving the camera. If I do that I'll turn on the IR of the camera and get a shot that way as well.

The SV3C in the back yard does have its IR on as well as the 36 watt source. Without that 36 watt night vision was cut off, basically, at the first shed, say about 50 or 60 feet from the camera. There is some background light coming in from the other side of the fence, street and house lights, but is is fairly dark back there.

Cheap just won't cut it in dark conditions. The 5231 has a larger sensor which makes all the difference. The larger the sensor, the higher the price. Don't fall for the megapixel size, sensor size is far more important in getting a good, low light/no light, picture. I have an "inexpensive" 4mp camera as well and the Dahua really makes that one look bad, day or night. I will say it's better than the SV3Cs though.

You could add additional IR sources, like I did, and get a much wider illumination pattern. Another advantage of doing that is not getting false triggers in snow and rain.
 

ereddish

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IDLE, another reason I suspect BI is when I try to review a recorded clip, it literally takes a minute for it to load. Normally it's instant. This has been going on since I made this post. This morning I still have 2 of my 3 Nest cameras showing on BI while Nest shows all three. I have tried everything except rolling back to the previous version, which I don't have. The version I am running is 4.6.6.1 x64. I really need an earlier version to prove this out.

Bapski, did you happen to locate an earlier version? I think last time we made it work via Dropbox.

Thanks
 

ereddish

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Thanks again. I did find an earlier version of BI and installed it. Now the recordings snap right into place and playback is instant so that part was BI. If the images don't return soon, I will likely do just what you say. My network is very strong but I do rely on WIFI and not cabled. Are the cameras you mention WIFI?
 

ereddish

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Only problem with these is they are not made for outdoor mounting. I do need outdoor 1080p IP wifi cameras. I also have a mesh network and yesterday EVERYTHING has worked perfectly. This is crazy.
 

awsum140

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Bottom line, IMHO, if you want dependable, reliable, 24/7, video surveillance ditch the WiFi stuff and invest in PoE or wired cameras. There are just too many variables, things that can go wrong, with RF connections at the low power levels that WiFi uses despite all the mesh stuff. A wire from point A to point B eliminates all those variables. Nest, Annke, Hikivision or whatever in WiFi are just not "solid" enough. Move them to PoE or conventional wired and they work just fine without a glitch. It's unfortunate that Nest, Ring and others, advertise their products to be able to do what they really can't and depending on the "cloud" is just begging for headaches.
 

bp2008

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ohh yeah , you dont happen to have any of the dahua in complete darkness do you?
Complete darkness you say? Yesterday was a new moon (a.k.a. no moon) and here is a picture on a cloudy night.



And full moon:



Of course, this was a SD49225T-HN (cheap starlight ptz) with its exposure set to 1/3 and IR LEDs turned off because it is a weather cam pointed at the horizon.

Here is a standard starlight varifocal turret zoomed to its max setting, with no light except that which it provides itself. Auto exposure. That horse is moving 50 feet away.

 
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