I experienced the known outage on the night of 10/31/16, however video/audio resumed without issue the next morning. Starting on the night of 11/2/16, though, I begin having the same issue albeit with no error message. When accessing the Skybell in the ADC app, the loading indicator just spins endlessly on a white background and I never receive an error. Also, no video is recorded under any condition.
All other functions continue to work: Motion notifications, button presses and associated notifications, led light color changes. Also, I can see the Skybell LEDs change status when I attempt to connect as well as a “video stream requested” in the history.
I’ve done the long button press restart and physical disconnect of the Skybell to no avail. Latest firmware and Wi-Fi is at ~83%. DDNS updates continue and are current. Speed tests are normal. Any other recommendations beyond the deleting and re-adding?
Based on another post, I understand ADC is just leveraging Skybell’s video stream. Can you all confirm this issue is beyond the scope of ADC? I’ve got a ticket open with Skybell but have not heard back.
note in the time period between 11/2 and now, there were 2 TWC (now Spectrum) outages in my immediate area. However, all other cloud connected/streaming devices at the house have reconnected without issue so I’m not convinced it is related.
Looking at the diagnostics for this doorbell cam, while the wifi signal strength is sufficient, the signal quality is reporting as very poor.
Can you try lowering the resolution all the way down to the lowest option as a test. Does this bring up video?
Some routers have the option of adjusting signal output. If able, you might try adjusting it a bit higher to get a better signal to noise ratio. Otherwise, you might try a different wifi channel as well.
Interesting … Is there an additional diagnostics page I missed or is that something only you all have access to?
Lowering to 480p did not change the behavior. White page with spinning circle - never loads.
I’ll verify router settings and channel layout tonight. No changes there in 6 months but it was power cycled following each internet outage so I suppose anything is possible. FWIW other devices 3 and 4 times further away are not experiencing upload/download issues.
I don’t believe those diagnostics can be seen in the user site. We can see signal to noise ratio, and a generalized link quality.
The quality is showing on the low end, so some tinkering may be needed to improve signal at the doorbell location. Have you brought a laptop outside near the doorbell, waited a minute or so, then tested speed?
Speed tests at the location (via iOS app) have all been normal with expected results.
FWIW … I was going to do a factory reset on the Skybell Friday night and re-add it and it went belly up. Went through a few troubleshooting steps with Skybell support and they sent me an RMA form and will be advance shipping a replacement under warranty. I wonder if there was an underlying hardware issue I was experiencing that was brought to light by the reset or if it was total coincidence.
Oh well, hopefully third Skybell’s the charm. Assuming it operates correctly, I’ll have you guys pull the snr and link quality for me for comparison’s sake. Could confirm there was a hardware issue.
Interesting. If Skybell themselves believe it to be hardware failure I wouldn’t question it. I’m curious what the troubleshooting steps were they had you try.
lol - push and hold the button (what I was trying to do when I called them). Then disconnect from the wall and reconnect while pushing and holding the button. Nothing earth shattering. Depending on how long you hold the button puts it through various stages:
During these times there are supposed to be a range of flashing colors indicating the stages. Mine would turn solid yellow after a few seconds and stay there (indicating it was stuck in boot mode). No length of button presses resulted in any change (even a ding-dong). The guy simply said if holding the button down doesn’t do anything it’s dead, we’ll send you a new one.
Keep in mind this is a different model technically (re-branded for Alarm.com).
The exact Alarm.com instructions for a reset are as follows:
"Caution: If you initiate a Factory Reset, the Doorbell Camera will need to be deleted from the Alarm.com customer account, re-connected to Wi-Fi and re-synced with the account.
Press and HOLD the button until the LED begins a YELLOW rapid strobe flash.
This could take up to 2 minutes
Note: The Alarm.com Wi-Fi Doorbell Camera will flash BLUE before it flashes YELLOW – do not release during the flashing BLUE phase (this will Power Cycle the device).
Note: You can Factory Reset the device when it is in AP Mode (see instructions above). Press and HOLD the button until the LED flashes YELLOW.
Note: If a factory reset is performed on a camera that is already connected to Wi-Fi, the camera will need to be re-installed in order to re-provision its Wi-Fi connection."
By chance have you tested the power output at the doorbell with a multimeter? Curious if it might be under-powered for some reason.
Do you have a digital door chime or a mechanical one?
I indicated several times to them this was an ADC model and was assured there were no alternative steps.
When I connect my Skybell, it flashes blue/red momentarily indicating it is charging. It then goes to solid yellow and will stay here indefinitely. If I connect it to the wall and immediately press and hold the button, it goes to flashing green after about 10 or 15 seconds and then immediately returns to solid yellow indefinitely. I have held the button for over 3 minutes with no change. Skybell support has said this indicates a hardware issue with no further troubleshooting to be done.
I’m also being informed now that warranty support would go through you all, not through the manufacturer.
Mechanical door chime. Have not checked power output yet.
I’m also being informed now that warranty support would go through you all, not through the manufacturer
Yes, barring special circumstances product warranty would go through suretyDIY if purchased originally from us. I was kind of surprised to see you say they offered a replacement. (Skybell Sales confirmed they do not directly handle Alarm.com branded cameras. These are manufactured and all distribution, sales, etc. is through Alarm.com.)
Skybell support has said this indicates a hardware issue with no further troubleshooting to be done.
This is likely true given what you describe. If I recall, the previous issue was a different manufacturing issue, correct? Not a connection or boot issue? Rather, were similar problems existing with the first cam?
Yes, barring special circumstances product warranty would go through suretyDIY if purchased originally from us. I was kind of surprised to see you say they offered a replacement. (Skybell Sales confirmed they do not directly handle Alarm.com branded cameras. These are manufactured and all distribution, sales, etc. is through Alarm.com.)
The silly part is I provided that info to them multiple times (ADC Skybell - ADC-VDB101) - in my initial support request to Skybell, email follow-up, and the phone call with their support. It was not until I filled out the RMA they provided to me after confirming they would 2-day advance-ship me a new one they came back and told me otherwise.
This is likely true given what you describe. If I recall, the previous issue was a different manufacturing issue, correct? Not a connection or boot issue? Rather, were similar problems existing with the first cam?
Correct, first issue was with the rubber grommet blocking part of the camera view - physical manufacturer flaw unrelated to hardware/software. That one ran fine for 1-2 weeks until it was swapped and the new one ran fine for about 2 weeks until it didn’t.
Well I would definitely swap it out. If you are seeing no correct response from attempts to power cycle or reset then there is (as Skybell suggested) not much else that can be done. Return policy is found here.
It’s unfortunate there was a physical issue with the first, but other than the plastic set screw (not a fan at all of that manufacturing decision) we’ve been very rough with a couple test units, including a dozen or more resets, and they are still going strong.
The only other thing you might check, just to verify that it wouldn’t cause an issue later, is the power at the doorbell location.
Also, is this doorbell mounted to a metal frame by chance?
Brick can do a good job of degrading a wireless signal, depending on the strength of the signal before passing through. I’m not supremely confident a new Skybell would get rid of signal quality concerns, but if there was a hardware defect anything is possible.
Hopefully that part is resolved with the replacement. Let us know after you have the new one installed for a day or so and the signal quality should tell us what we need.
While the bell is mounted to brick, it’s perpendicular to the door, meaning line of sight from the router to the Skybell is through a window. Doesn’t change how the signal may bounce off the brick to hit the antenna, but it’s not directly attenuating it.
After it’s installed (assuming it operates correctly) I will ask you to pull the SNR and signal quality from your back-end diagnostics page to compare. I would not typically expect a device to experience sudden network issues with no back-end changes while on an otherwise clear channel. I’m hopeful the video loading issue was a symptom of the hardware issue that was made fully apparent when it failed trying to reset it. In the weeks prior to this issue, video load times were 2-5 seconds with zero jitter at 720p.
So … new Skybell, no issues. Set it up via the ADC app and the video/notifications pop right up as before.
Can you all pull the signal quality details and let me know what it shows? ADC is reporting 100% signal strength and I’ve got no audio/video problems. Couldn’t locate my multimeter so didn’t get a voltage reading.
Shows a poor link quality (about the same as prior unit) with a 100% signal strength. The signal to noise ratio is showing 26db, which is actually pretty low for the device. The Skybell HD has very strict requirements for the best call quality.
It sounds promising that there have been no issues yet, but if you do run into further issues, one thing you can try is lowering the video resolution to see if that improves overall performance.
26 is typically fine for many applications, but in this circumstance the Skybell HD does require higher than that. The “Poor” rating is a representation of that signal to noise ratio/link quality as a percentage. Signal strength is 100%, link quality shows about 85%. For best performance, higher than 90% is required.
Alarm.com implemented the additional lower resolution options to assist with this in cases where the signal cannot be improved.
