Video Doorbell AD110 Losing connection at night

[Airey001]

So my wife got me one the Amcrest Video Doorbells (AD110) for my birthday in February. Installed and setup was easy. My BlueIris system found it and added it with ease. But that night I started to hear it every few minutes saying connected to network. this was pretty constant. I had to disconnect it so we could sleep. Then i started my research and then relaced the wire and the transformer with a 16v 30vac model. But still the disconnects. I opened a case with support only to be asked if i had the right transformer I verified this but then didn't hear back. Then one night i had my BlueIris server offline and noticed that the doorbell wasn't disconnecting. So i turned on the blue iris and bam with in a mintue there came the disconnects. Shut it off it was stable. So i emailed this to support. after another day not hearing back i started testing more and found that i could reproduce this with the Amcrest App. With blueiris on and at night if i viewed the camera via the amcrest app with it set to HD boom the disconnects started. So it seems at night the system has too much load for the HD viewing. I started to look and found people on Amazons reviews saying the same thing. Now its been about a week since the last time i heard from amcrest so i thought i would come here. Hoping for some help before i am forced to return it.

[amcrest168]

sounds like you may have a network issue. what do you get when you ping your doorbell?

on your command prompt, enter the following:

Code: Select all

ping <ad110's ip address>

you should see something like this. pay attention to the packet loss. keep pinging the doorbell to get an idea if your doorbell is struggling to stay connected to your wireless network.

ping.PNG (12.65 KiB) Viewed 6241 times

[Airey001]

Nope No Network issue. during the day and when not streaming HD at night there is no loss of conenction. This is only an issue at night when the IR is on and i am streaming HD. I have tested the wifi at the spot and its fine. Its like the whole doorbell reboots when IR is on and HD is streaming at night. Like the power is not enough.

[Revo2Maxx]

Hello and Welcome to the forum

Sadly it sounds like a bigger Power Supply is needed...

Things needed to know.. A 16vac 30va is said to be a good working supply for the camera.. However if your system isn't a normal type system that has a ding dong type bell it could be that your doorbell requires to much power for that 30va supply to work well enough
Another thing to note... Most Doorbell systems are not wired good enough for running a Doorbell camera... This could be To long of Run between the doorbell camera and the power supply or the wiring in the walls are to small and not enough power is able to make it to the camera...

This is my guess because everything works well until the night falls and the camera IR turns on This taxing the Power supply to give the camera more power...

To small Power supply or wires are to small from supply to camera....

PS... To others that blur out IP addresses there is no need to blur out your IP address when it is a internal IP address no one can do anything from out side your network to harm your system....

My IP addresses are 10.0.0.109 for this computer and most of my camera gear is on 10.0.0.2XX and some start at 188 or 150 and so on... No one can do anything to your NetWORK IP from outside your network without having a Pipeline to your network...

[amcrest168]

the voltage reading at the 16v 30va transformer should be around 18v and it drops about 1v at the doorbell wire. if you feel power is the issue, then i suggest taking voltage readings at the transformer and also at the doorbell wires to validate if indeed you have a power issue.

[Revo2Maxx]

Please note Voltage without load will always be something within specs... You could have 24awg wiring running from your garage with no load and have a 24vac power supply show 23.5vac and that would be within specs.. However as soon as you put that to load that VOLT will drop... OVer time with wires gauge as I have stated it will burn out the wiring because that is just to small for 24vac or even 16vac to be running for any length of time...

If you don't have much room between your Power Supply and the door bell then I would say 20awg will be ok However to be fair I would say that it would be best wired with at least 18awg and this would be of quality wiring there are people out there that is selling Cheap wire... I wouldn't use cheap under gauge wire for any reason

[Airey001]

Yeah i can stand in front of it with my ipad and stream HD videos from my other cameras and even netflix. At night when this happens this is the only wireless device thats on the network. As i stated before the wire and transformer were replaced. So to test some more My neighbor has a ring door bell and we put that in to try and we can't find a single issue with it so we know the wire and transformers are good. We even tested the old transformer and it worked. So we started testing and i found I can 100 percent reproduce this issue with 1 foot of 18 gauge wire directly from the transformer to the doorbell in my basement with it hanging 3 feet in front of the router. This is not network or power this is the product itself. Turn the basement lights on hear the click and the IR turns on. Then i start viewing on the app and boom about 30 seconds the video goes black and i can hear the click from the doorbell as the ir shuts off. If the lights are on in the basement and the IR is off no problems. Its an issue with the product.

[Revo2Maxx]

Sadly I can tell you it sounds like a Power Issue.. I know you said you have a Ring you used and while I am not disputing this I am going to guess that it is the Ring takes less power to run....

Here is the info NEW transformer or old it don't matter if it is under sized.... The Transformer needs to be 16vac and 30va min as stated... Sadly if the camera works until the IR turned on that tells me that the POWER to the Camera isn't enough.... So then you said that you were with in a foot or 3 to the transformer again sadly if it isn't large enough it won't work... Most big box stores have 20va or 10va transformers...

Please note that the 24vac 20va isn't enough. 24 30vac isn't enough problem that people don't understand the AC conversion to Amps and there is no true guide to say what is needed for what camera other then Min Required power is 16vac 30va... This translates into 1.875amps

So this brings something that I had my Friend telling me I was wrong when he had the same issue... He said it works for another Dooebell camera and that one the specs was 24vac 30va max and that is only 1.25amps... Sadly it did work and only worked on his Amcrest Camera because it would charge the caps and as it would discharge it would charge and so on... Then just like your post when it would turn on IR at night it would turn it on for a short time and then die... That was because if you think about how it works when you first turn it on at day time.... The Camera don't come on right away it takes a while for the Caps to charge... Also takes some time for them to Discharge... That is because when you Press the BUTTON you remove the Camera from POWER and there needs to be enough storage to keep the camera running.... Once button is no longer pressed power is going to camera and any power removed from the Caps are now being charged back up for another button press....

Please understand I am not there... I am not able to see what Transformer you have but from what I know with my 40 years in Electronics and what I think I know of how this Doorbell Camera was designed and works there is an issue with not enough power to the Camera for it to work in IR aka Night MODE....

[Airey001]

I agree sounds like a power issue with the product. I have tried 3 different 16v 30vac transformers today. It happens to all of them 2 are mine one is my neighbors.

Here is the setup we testing:

tranformer hard lined into power
brand new 18 gauge wire (1 foot)
doorbell
router is 3 feet in front of it

All 3 transformers seems to test out fine according to my neighbors power meter. But with all 3 I can replicate the issue. As soon as the IR is on the doorbell doesn't have the power to stream HD. It seems it can stream SD fine. If i don't stream anything no issue. But that defeats the purpose of the it being able to tie into your own NVR or VMS.

[amcrest168]

i think with the last test setup, you should consider rma-ing it for a replacement doorbell. sounds like you have a problem unit.