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Corkey05's avatar
Corkey05
Explorer
Aug 23, 2021

WiFi Camera always late to the action

I have this nagging question about wifi security cameras. My current sticks & bricks system is an Arlo setup with several cameras. They work well to a point. But sadly my issue is, by the time the camera connects to the wifi network, the movement that triggered it is long gone. It's a common problem, but enough to render this system as a toy more than a security device.

What I'm looking for is a WiFi camera that immediately begins spooling (recording) to internal memory at the moment it's triggered. The internal memory would forward the recording upon connection to the network. This would eliminate any lag in what the camera sees.

I've looked around for a good place to pose this question and hope for a source, and this board is full of some pretty bright minds, so I tossed it out here first.

Any suggestions to a system I described would be very welcomed - Thanks all.
  • APT wrote:
    Corkey, my Wyze cameras log under 1kbps unless I an **************. The "motion detection" should be on the camera itself, not on a cloud which would require full camera resolution to the cloud. My Ubiquiti cameras log about 2mpbs of network/WiFi data, but those only stay in my home.


    You're right (I should have been a little more clear) the motion detection is in the camera ... the camera must detect motion before it tells the Hub to connects to the WiFi. Hence the delay. These cameras are NOT connected to WiFi full time, only when recording anything motion activated. I don't know of any Wifi camera powered by batteries that stays connected. If so the batteries wouldn't last more than a few hours at best.

    The question I posed was, why can't internal memory in the camera capture the immediate recording and spool it to the Hub/WiFi? No delay
  • The problem is with whatever camera brand/model you have, There are lots of options out there across a wide range of $$$.

    Do you have a way to run power to where you want cameras? Wyze use Micro USB. For some of my outdoor cameras, I use 25' long cables hidden in siding J channel. Some are power over Ethernet, so not using WiFi either.

    Have you looked into Blink Cameras? They have 2yr battery life. I'm sure there are similar competitors with longer battery life.
  • APT wrote:
    The problem is with whatever camera brand/model you have, There are lots of options out there across a wide range of $$$.

    Do you have a way to run power to where you want cameras? Wyze use Micro USB. For some of my outdoor cameras, I use 25' long cables hidden in siding J channel. Some are power over Ethernet, so not using WiFi either.

    Have you looked into Blink Cameras? They have 2yr battery life. I'm sure there are similar competitors with longer battery life.


    ARLO camera system. I won't disagree about the problem being with the camera system. ARLO is expensive and actually a good system, with excellent digital controls. The answer to your question about a power source is "No", I didn't have a good way to provide power at the time. My choice of battery powered camera took me to ARLO because of the good reviews, but I guess I missed the part about connection lag. ARLO is also harder on battery life than I expected. I'm actually looking at a way to provide power over Ethernet as we speak.

    Thanks for the help.

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