Disconnect hell returns.......ad110

[Revo2Maxx]

I agree and I have sent the Data to amcrest, Showing my Results and my reply was that they need to work with someone to get something wrote up and posted...

[gunso]

Just installed mine the other day and not very impressed with this device with issues like this. I have solid power on new 18AWG wiring from a 40VA transformer with no chime on it (had no existing doorbell to tie to) so power is good. Mine was restarting exactly every 5 minutes (plus or minus a second or two) tonight until I disabled night vision, then it stopped rebooting. I let it run for a while then reenabled night vision and, sure enough, it restarted 5 minutes later.

Is there any advanced logging we can turn on for debugging?

[rrhammond]

My AD110 camera (doorbell.jpg) is located about 120 feet from my Nutone Doorbell transformer and Mechanical Chime.
The transformer is 16-Volt 10va.(Newtone_transformer.jpg). I have cat6 cable wire from the transformer to the camera screws. I have 1 pair of the cat 5 attached to one screw and another pair attached to the other screw. (yes it is not the higher gauge door wire). The voltage across the camera screws (doorbellterminalscrews.jpg) WITH the Wiring attached is 15.75 volts. In the evening I was getting similar disconnects as you described. Using my smart phone WIFI Net analyzer app. My RSSI numbers ranged between 78 and 69 and average signal quality was 65. My Neighborhood has lots of 2G WIFI competition My Router is located about 100 feet away with walls and trees between the camera. I fixed the disconnect problem by installing a 2G Access point about 30 feet from the camera. I set the access point channel to a specific channel so that it would not automatically switch away when the channel got "crowded". I no longer have disconnects...

Based on my experience I suggest.

1. Make sure your WIFI router is located close enough to provide a good WIFI Signal.
2. Make sure you do not have lots of WIFI competition with your neighbors (Device auto switching between channels is a good thing; but if signal quality is poor and the channels are excessively busy the switch delay can cause device timeouts)
3. Try to limit the number of devices attached to your WIFI network camera channel. I am fortunate enough to have two 2G channels and 2 5G channels . (NOTE: many routers have a Local and Guest network, BUT they use the same channels). Busy networks can cause timeouts. .
4.All my cameras are networked hardwired, Except the doorbell. It is on a wireless channel used only for "internet of things devices". The other 2G channel is for all of the other 2G devices including the 2g Guest Network.
5. I have most of my wireless devices and Guest network on a 5G channel.
NOTE: Newer routers offer a smart connection solution, They supposedly are able to have one SSID and then attach devices to 2G or 5G depending on how they "negotiate the initial connection". I have not implemented this because I have several devices that always connect to 2G instead of 5G.

LAST NOTE: "Mechanical Chime does not ring" problem discussed elsewhere on this Forum. My mechanical chime didn't after work after I had chose digital chime. I changed it to mechanical chime with the app and it didn't fix the problem. I had to reset it to factory defaults redo the whole setup process and choose Mechanical chimes.

I no longer have any problems with my camera. I use Blue Iris software to manage all my alerts. I do not use the Amcrest App except to change password and/or change network connections. I wish the Amcrest IP Config App provided this service instead of the Phone App.

[FunnyTheWayItIs]

Cross posting my reply from a similar post: https://amcrest.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... 593#p34593

If you’re using a Dual-Band router and have the SSID (network name) the same for both channels, then some smart devices that only work on 2.4ghz will have trouble staying connected to the 2.4ghz channel since the 5.0ghz channel has the same name (the device can’t distinguish).

To fix this, change your 2.4ghz SSID to a different name than your 5.0. Then connect your camera or doorbell to that WiFi network name (2.4).

Alternatively, your dual band router may support a guest network that’s bound to the 2.4ghz network only. In my case, I have a 2.4 and 5.0 under the same SSID, and a separate guest network on 2.4 (router default).

Lower frequencies provide longer range, hence why most smart devices are built to use 2.4ghz only.

If you're getting into home automation and smart devices, this will solve your problems a lot of the time. Cameras, smart light bulbs and a lot of devices don't have the capability (like phones and laptops) to pick their preferred network channel, so you just force them.

[gunso]

I checked the logs on my wifi controller and the device is staying right at -62dBm (±1) until it reboots itself. Of course, without any logging function on the doorbell itself, we can't know what's triggering it. My issue isn't simply losing wifi momentarily, it's completely rebooting itself, which should have nothing to do with network access. Should I start a separate thread for "reboot hell"?

Good power, good wifi, I guess my next step is RMA.

[Revo2Maxx]

@gunso Before you do a RMA I would try doing a Reset of the camera...

I had some issues with Cross linking some Recorders and or using IP COnfig and some other things working with different cameras and I think when I did something in either one of the recorder or ip config it got my Ad110 out of Wack and I don't have issues with Connection or power issues but it kept going on about Connection and I would hear it so I would try and connect and it would say offline then hear it connect so I would try to access it.. So I removed it from all Recorders besides my Main NVR and did a factory Reset and after setting the camera up again it was stable and has not has this issue since..

Just an idea...

[gunso]

@Revo2Maxx I'll give that a try tonight, it's dark now and it's doing the constant reboot, so I should see instant results if that's it.

[Danual]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh back again!!!! This piece of crap is doing my head in now. If I turn night vision off it seems to stabilise again, there has to be a component in this thing that’s just crap.

[Revo2Maxx]

1 anyone that has a 16vac 10va that Transformer isn't large enough no matter what people say. Some might get away using it but at no time with IR on will it be stable..

ALSO BE IT KNOWN IF YOU ARE USING A LOW CURRENT TRANSFORMER OR HAVE ISSUES THAT TURN OFF AND REBOOT OVER AND OVER AGAIN DON'T TRY A FIRMWARE UPDATE UNTIL YOU HAVE STABLE POWER 16VAC 10VA MAY NOT BE ENOUGH POWER TO DO AN UPDATE ON NORMAL DAY TIME EITHER!!!!!

Things to be known. To small of Wire (2x24awg aka cat5e wire is to small) also Distance and quality of wire are major factors in your quality of camera feeds..

Sadly I wish there was a way for the camera to know that it is having a power issue and make a log of it or a Wifi Connection issue and make a log of it but sadly there isn't and trying to find out what can cause this issue can be hard. 1 thing to do is test the VOLTS at the Transformer side, then again at the camera side of the wiring without load and again with load.. If with out load it shows a good number of around 16vac or even 15.85 or better however on load drops down to lower then 14 the wire is to long and or the size of wire is to small..

[rrhammond]

I know voltage can be a problem. (I have cat6 not 5e, but I am not quibbling the point.) And my Camera is 120 feet away from the door bell transformer. The Voltage/amp issue has more to do with ringing the chime then keeping the camera charged up to do its thing.. I still think your real issue is WIFI. When my camera was going thru "reboot hell" The symptom was something like the camera saying "connected to the network". And was scaring the heck out of my neighbor because she was hearing it over and over in the middle of the night.
Using my smart phone WIFI Net analyzer app at the door bell location (look at the picture from my previous post showing it's location). The AD110 thought my WIFI connection was "good"
BUT
when surveying the the WIFI Spectrum, I saw over 28 SSID waiting for connections. Eleven using Channel 1; Six using channel 11, The rest split over the other channels.

I fixed the problem by putting my WIFI Access point as close as I could , So that MY WIFI Signal was stronger then the 28 competitors. I set the AP to one channel so that it would not auto-negotiate when my competitors "shared" my channel. Additionally I have very few devices on my SSID network and they are very low bandwidth. Actual channel through put is about 35 Kbps RX and 1023Kbs TX. My Access Point has a Max TX rate of 144.4Mbps (that is the best case) Remember, Actual TX is less when you have others sharing the same channel bandwidth and signal strength.