Sweet! LTS is releasing an ONVIF compatible doorbell with SD card slot and 940nm IR

[Bob NWI]

I have made a recent observation. A fair amount of the time I go to any of the apps; Hik-Connect, Gaurding Vision, Uniden, EZVIZ, LAView, ClareVision, RCA Security and the camera shows unavailable but I open up my connection to Blue Iris and the camera is still streaming. Clearly there is a problem with the connection to the cloud at times. When this happens you won’t get alerts or a ring on your phone when someone pushes the doorbell. Curious if others are seeing this as well. It’s not a truly cloud free solution, in order to use the remote apps, we are relying upon the cloud based service to be up and operational.

I’m using Hik-connect app and have the doorbell and NVR set as separate devices. The NVR has 3 cameras streaming one being the doorbell. Sometimes it seems the NVR displays the stream faster than standalone doorbell device connection. It’s a 4-year old Hikvision NVR

When using mobile apps all streams I believe have to pass through cloud based server. How busy the server is and performs would affect connection I think? If you want to bypass cloud server port forward is required?

Are you using Blue Iris client app with PC on 24hours?

 

[Chadsturgill]

I capture all video from 7 cameras but only keep video where there is motion. Blue Iris always has the doorbell up and able to be seen anytime I launch my app. I have access to it remotely due to allowing the port forward through my firewall. Now the cloud based app, has been broken many times where it says the doorbell is offline when it clearly is connected to Blue Iris and working. My internet is fine, because I can stream the camera via Blue Iris remotely. So that tells me, the cloud service is not always up or connected to my camera. Just curious if others see the same results. The reason I care, is for the times someone might come up and hit the button. Funny thing here is sometimes I continue to get alerts via the app from the camera, but it shows offline and I can't see the image or live feed but the alerting is still working. Next time it goes offline I will test to see if ringing the doorbell still will trigger the in app calling of my phone. It may still work however, it seems very likely that they have a backend problem with maintaining a reliable connection to all these cameras in the field.

 

[Mconigs78]

I have made a recent observation. A fair amount of the time I go to any of the apps; Hik-Connect, Gaurding Vision, Uniden, EZVIZ, LAView, ClareVision, RCA Security and the camera shows unavailable but I open up my connection to Blue Iris and the camera is still streaming. Clearly there is a problem with the connection to the cloud at times. When this happens you won’t get alerts or a ring on your phone when someone pushes the doorbell. Curious if others are seeing this as well. It’s not a truly cloud free solution, in order to use the remote apps, we are relying upon the cloud based service to be up and operational.

My 60watt LED light is on the wall 1foot horizontal from the doorbell and 3 feet above. I have my motion grid set small and sensitivity in middle. I took me awhile to optimize setting. Motion will trigger at night from car headlights, not much traffic in my subdivision. My wife's car enters and exits driveway at night it will trigger the motion sensor. My car won't because it is a car width further over from camera. A person walking approaching from driveway will trigger motion sensor 15feet from camera.

Does your audio sound noisy in live view? Like a mechanical squeaking sound? I first noticed it when playing back on my NVR. Not sure if it is normal or defective?

Which firmware are you on?
Yes it does have a slight higher pitch sound. I havent messed with my audio settings yet. I like being able to talk to the person at the door but its very low volume even with the settings all the way up for the volume control

 

[Mconigs78]

I capture all video from 7 cameras but only keep video where there is motion. Blue Iris always has the doorbell up and able to be seen anytime I launch my app. I have access to it remotely due to allowing the port forward through my firewall. Now the cloud based app, has been broken many times where it says the doorbell is offline when it clearly is connected to Blue Iris and working. My internet is fine, because I can stream the camera via Blue Iris remotely. So that tells me, the cloud service is not always up or connected to my camera. Just curious if others see the same results. The reason I care, is for the times someone might come up and hit the button. Funny thing here is sometimes I continue to get alerts via the app from the camera, but it shows offline and I can't see the image or live feed but the alerting is still working. Next time it goes offline I will test to see if ringing the doorbell still will trigger the in app calling of my phone. It may still work however, it seems very likely that they have a backend problem with maintaining a reliable connection to all these cameras in the field.

So will Blueiris (if i purchase it) give me alerts and notifications similar to the apps hik-connect or the uniden one app? Im still new to the ip cameras/doorbells.

 

[Bob NWI]

Which firmware are you on?
Yes it does have a slight higher pitch sound. I havent messed with my audio settings yet. I like being able to talk to the person at the door but its very low volume even with the settings all the way up for the volume control

I'm on V1.4.62 Build 171225

Attached is a zip file of a video clip with audio of the noise.

 

[Chadsturgill]

So will Blueiris (if i purchase it) give me alerts and notifications similar to the apps hik-connect or the uniden one app? Im still new to the ip cameras/doorbells.

Not exactly. Blue Iris will record the video and I assume you could have it alert you to motion. I do not use it that way. It does not do the two way Audio with this camera even though it has the capability. It just doesn’t work. Also, it has no way of calling you like the app does when the doorbell is rang. It’s just a software NVR that can run on any ole computer as long as it has enough resources. I run it in a virtual machine on a Vmware ESXi server

 

[Mconigs78]

Not exactly. Blue Iris will record the video and I assume you could have it alert you to motion. I do not use it that way. It does not do the two way Audio with this camera even though it has the capability. It just doesn’t work. Also, it has no way of calling you like the app does when the doorbell is rang. It’s just a software NVR that can run on any ole computer as long as it has enough resources. I run it in a virtual machine on a Vmware ESXi server

Ahhh ok.

I think maybe im expecting too much from these doorbell cameras in general. Im still happy for it though when it was only $89.

When the doorbell is rang it does record and that is good. It just seems like the motion detection is hit or miss unless its like a foot or two away.

 

[alienatsf]

I capture all video from 7 cameras but only keep video where there is motion. Blue Iris always has the doorbell up and able to be seen anytime I launch my app. I have access to it remotely due to allowing the port forward through my firewall. Now the cloud based app, has been broken many times where it says the doorbell is offline when it clearly is connected to Blue Iris and working. My internet is fine, because I can stream the camera via Blue Iris remotely. So that tells me, the cloud service is not always up or connected to my camera. Just curious if others see the same results. The reason I care, is for the times someone might come up and hit the button. Funny thing here is sometimes I continue to get alerts via the app from the camera, but it shows offline and I can't see the image or live feed but the alerting is still working. Next time it goes offline I will test to see if ringing the doorbell still will trigger the in app calling of my phone. It may still work however, it seems very likely that they have a backend problem with maintaining a reliable connection to all these cameras in the field.

i've been having the exact same offline problem more frequent than before in this month. this problem has been on and off for so many months for me no matter what brand of app i use. i am using firmware 180726 on RCA brand. but i had three different firmware before and also experienced the same problem. i had no problem using the vms4200 to see live streaming of the doorbell even though the app was showing offline as well.

i also thought this was a problem from the cloud server seeing this problem on my front door doorbell camera. BUT i also set up another identical RCA brand with the same firmware right under my computer desk with a constant 16V 20VA transformer that plugs directly into wall outlet. this one has never shown any problem of any kind of offline issue. so i am really guessing my doorbell transformer to the front doorbell camera is not providing enough voltage again. BUT there is another possibility that it is the cloud server problem. the front doorbell camera has way more motion triggered notification. whereas my indoor, under my computer desk doorbell camera has zero motion triggered notification because i disabled motion detection. so i am also starting to think that the cloud based server is overloaded.

Last night my front doorbell camera rebooted several times ringing the chime on every reboot with IR turned on triggered by bug movement. so i still cannot rule out the possibility that my doorbell transformer is either dying or the new firmware starts to consume more power than before.

anyway i had to go into vms4200 to reboot the camera and remove and add it back to the phone app.

 

[Chadsturgill]

i've been having the exact same offline problem more frequent than before in this month. this problem has been on and off for so many months for me no matter what brand of app i use. i am using firmware 180726 on RCA brand. but i had three different firmware before and also experienced the same problem. i had no problem using the vms4200 to see live streaming of the doorbell even though the app was showing offline as well.

i also thought this was a problem from the cloud server seeing this problem on my front door doorbell camera. BUT i also set up another identical RCA brand with the same firmware right under my computer desk with a constant 16V 20VA transformer that plugs directly into wall outlet. this one has never shown any problem of any kind of offline issue. so i am really guessing my doorbell transformer to the front doorbell camera is not providing enough voltage again. BUT there is another possibility that it is the cloud server problem. the front doorbell camera has way more motion triggered notification. whereas my indoor, under my computer desk doorbell camera has virtually zero motion triggered notification. so i am also starting to think that the cloud based server is overloaded.

Last night my front doorbell camera rebooted several times ringing the chime on every reboot with IR turned on triggered by bug movement. so i still cannot rule out the possibility that my doorbell transformer is either dying or the new firmware starts to consume more power than before.

anyway i had to go into vms4200 to reboot the camera and remove and add it back to the phone app.

No way mine is a voltage issue. I replaced my transformer with a heavy duty 16v 30VA transformer. It's way more than this doorbell needs. I wonder if the doorbell just loses authentication with the cloud service and a re-auth takes some time. I have noticed that if I reboot the camera via the webui it will show back up as online in the cloud service. So I am not sure if it's the cloud service losing connection or the camera losing connection and having to wait for a new authentication token etc. I always have full packet capture running in my network because I sell and support a forensics platform. I will see what I can see in the captures leading up to an offline situation. Then I will reboot and see what happens at that moment. More to come.... ;-)

 

[Mconigs78]

Have you tested the WiFi strength or signal? Or is there a way to see what the WiFi strength is at the time it goes offline? I installed ivms4200 on my desktop and the video does run a lot smoother. Again I dont know if it’s due to my pc being hardwired.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Chadsturgill]

Have you tested the WiFi strength or signal? Or is there a way to see what the WiFi strength is at the time it goes offline? I installed ivms4200 on my desktop and the video does run a lot smoother. Again I dont know if it’s due to my pc being hardwired.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

WiFi seems fine. I have NetGear Orbi and the base station is 10 feet from my door. Like I said, streaming from camera to Blue Iris is working just fine. It’s just getting the streams up in the IOS app that sometimes is not working. BTW, zero security on this thing going back to Cloud. Not surprised but it’s ugly.

 

[DB1owner]

Hello all, and to you Mconigs78. I think we replied to each other on Slickdeals. I'm new to the security camera world, I've been using my Uniden DB1 for about 2-3 weeks now, and after setting up a WIFI extender, it worked great in the Uniden One app. Now that I've found this helpful forum with information about Blue Iris, and after I solved the camera's log-in dilemma I was grappling with, I am now running BI in demo mode. I have to say, it's better than viewing on my little phone screen. Although, the app has stopped sending me motion alerts. No matter. I have BI taking care of that. Thanks to you all for great advice and help! I'll be sure to check in see how everyone is faring. Cheers!

 

[looney2ns]

So will Blueiris (if i purchase it) give me alerts and notifications similar to the apps hik-connect or the uniden one app? Im still new to the ip cameras/doorbells.

Yes.

 

[looney2ns]

The last few pages of this thread is once again proof that all of these door bell cams are not ready for prime time.
Use BI, put up a real cam on your porch, and let BI automatically notify you. No door bell button required.
I have reviewed both of Dahua's new DB10 and DB11, and they both exhibit some of the exact same bad behavior that you guys are having.

 

[Mconigs78]

DB1owner yes it was you I was talking with on slickdeals. So is it worth it to purchase blueiris for just this doorbell for now? I eventually want to put up 1 or 2 more cameras out front but for now just the doorbell.
I will say when someone pushes the button it does well with that aspect of recording and sending me a notification. Last night and this morning the only alerts i got were from when the IR lights went on at night and then when they turned off in the morning.

 

[DB1owner]

DB1owner yes it was you I was talking with on slickdeals. So is it worth it to purchase blueiris for just this doorbell for now? I eventually want to put up 1 or 2 more cameras out front but for now just the doorbell.
I will say when someone pushes the button it does well with that aspect of recording and sending me a notification. Last night and this morning the only alerts i got were from when the IR lights went on at night and then when they turned off in the morning.

I would say give Blue Iris a try, and if you like it, use a spare PC dedicated to run BI. My situation is similar... starting with a doorbell camera to 'test the waters'. Then, I may expand to add more cameras. Not sure if I'll do that, but the option is there. Once my demo time is done with BI, I'll probably purchase it. Debating the LE or full version. Regarding the alerts, you can always adjust the sensitivity, either with BI or with the app, or via the camera's IP webpage.

 

[awsum140]

It would appear that testing the waters with one of these doorbell cams is like testing a Lamborghini by trying a Hot Wheels.

 

[Mconigs78]

So what does the Ring, Nest, Skybell and all the others have so much popularity? Is it due to paying so much people have to justify it and are basically stuck with it and have to live with it?

 

[awsum140]

I'd speculate that and the slick advertising. The only one I would even consider would be a Doorbird, and that's a wired camera. WiFi and cloud is just asking for problems. Personally, I watch my front, side and back doors with 2mp Starlights on a BI VMS. Hasn't missed yet.

 

[Mconigs78]

Just setup the alert triggers with the blueiris demo version and the notifications are alot faster than the phone apps (hik-connect and uniden one app). I set up email and text alerts and its almost instant. I wanted to try the blueiris app for ios but there is no free demo version.