Signal Loss Issues

[eleuthera]

Just fired up my Blue Iris/Dahua setup on the recommendations of folks on this site! So far so good, but one pretty important kink: my four cameras all say "No signal," one at a time, and then reconnect. Here's my setup:

4 DH-IPC-HFW13A0SN-W
Refurbished Dell desktop at 15% CPU utilization
Cameras powered via 12v adapters
Some cameras beside my router, some far away, same results.
Netgear Nighthawk R7000P router
Everything wifi connected via static IP addresses

Settings attached - ideas welcome!

 

[awsum140]

I'll hazard a guess and tell you the problem is "WiFi connected". Too many devices sharing the same channels. RF can get really flakey when there's a lot of "traffic" in a relatively small area. Move them to wire and see what happens. I'll be they don't drop out any more.

 

[eleuthera]

Thanks for the tip. I have 11 channels on my router...I'll manually add them on specific channels and see the results.

 

[looney2ns]

Just fired up my Blue Iris/Dahua setup on the recommendations of folks on this site! So far so good, but one pretty important kink: my four cameras all say "No signal," one at a time, and then reconnect. Here's my setup:

4 DH-IPC-HFW13A0SN-W
Refurbished Dell desktop at 15% CPU utilization
Cameras powered via 12v adapters
Some cameras beside my router, some far away, same results.
Netgear Nighthawk R7000P router
Everything wifi connected via static IP addresses

Settings attached - ideas welcome!

As you have discovered, Wifi stinks for use with security cams, avoid.
Cable is your friend.

 

[eleuthera]

I had previously tried zmodo wifi cameras and had great results for connectivity. Unfortunately, contrary to their marketing they do not offer "continuous recording," they just record motion and a snapshot every 10 seconds of non-motion. So here I am with Dahua!

 

[awsum140]

I don't own any Dahua WiFi stuff, but maybe you can set the channels for each camera in their config pages. Just a thought. If you've got to get power to them, why bother with WiFi? Just run some CAT5/6 and have a solid, permanent connection.

 

[eleuthera]

Unfortunately my router only allows 1 channel for 2.4Ghz and 1 channel for 5Ghz. I'm working on getting my 5Ghz connection up so I can spread the traffic across two channels, unfortunately right now my router is having difficulty there. And this Dahua doesn't have any ability to choose wifi channels.

In the meanwhile, I tried to reduce traffic and got it down to 150KB/s per camera by enabling smart codec and reducing the FPS to 10. Quality doesn't seem to have suffered so far. Would love any other ideas people have for making efficient use of a crowded channel.

 

[awsum140]

For home security porpises 10fps will work OK. As long as you've found a workaround. I do understand that sometimes WiFi is the only option due to loaction or conditions, like living in an apartment.condo.

 

[fenderman]

I had previously tried zmodo wifi cameras and had great results for connectivity. Unfortunately, contrary to their marketing they do not offer "continuous recording," they just record motion and a snapshot every 10 seconds of non-motion. So here I am with Dahua!

it is easy to make wifi "work" if you are only sending buffered video on motion....wifi is unreliable as you can see..also you dont need to choose lower end dahua model cameras simply because they provide wifi....you can make any starlight wifi using a bridge..the result will be better as well because the signal will already be inside the house.

 

[handinpalm]

If you do use WiFi, you should see all the traffic in your area first, especially if you live in high density area. Use the WiFi Analyzer app on Android or Apple and see which channels are being used on your bands (2.6 Ghz or 5 Ghz typically, most likely 2.4 Ghz). The more traffic on a particular channel (frequency), the more interference you will have (dropped packets) and the Ethernet traffic needs to resend messages, slowing data transfer. The greater channel separation (frequencies farther apart) you can get between all your cameras, the better. If you have many transmitters on same channel (frequency) the cameras that have the strongest signal strength between router and camera will perform the best. Having many transmitters (cameras or routers) on same frequency channel is disaster, because of interference. But as always, use wired Enet for security!

 

[eleuthera]

Thanks for the tips everyone. I'm gonna work on getting the 5Ghz up and running to spread the traffic around another channel.

The wifi analyzer was an interesting test, looks like my router is correctly choosing a lesser-used channel.