Alert Security Systems

[BlackHawk1776]

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jnoring wrote:

Hard to say....it could be a homeplug issue, but honestly sounds more like a commander issue.   If you can view it using that third party app then my guess is switching to PoE wouldn't help.  Does restarting commander make it re-appear, or is the solution generally to unplug the camera?

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Restarting Commander doesn't work - sometimes the camera will go offline in the evening and I'll just go to bed without messing with it.  When I get up in the AM, fire up the PC and open Commander the camera is still offline.  On occosion it'll come back most times not; but if I unplug the camera for 30 seconds, it'll come back online within a couple of minutes.

[jnoring]

Hmm....PoE might be an intereseting experiment then, just to isolate if it's a homeplug issue or a camera issue.

[rschmidt]

Hi;

Thanks for keeping the discussion going. I have 4 x 700e and 1 x 700i; has been working great for the last 12 mths now suddenly last week two of the most remote cameras started going offline at ~9pm (go figure) I did resets and today after working fine all 4 700e decided to go offline. I do susepct the latest firmware release as my main issues started around that upgrade. So if its possible to revert in firmware, I would be thankful for advise.

Have just decided to embark on the same journey as most of you are already on trying moving the homeplugs around, extending ethernet cords etc. Second susepct is my Verizon FIOS router as if that one reboots I many times loose the IP connectivity until do a hard reset, will address this one tomorrow with a new router upgrade.

As to the comments on remote reboot capability. this would be extremely useful as hardwiring is probably the only reliable way of acheiving a good uptime, a home plug device although practical is still a consumer device and another fault point in the system.

Best/ Rickard

[BlackHawk1776]

rschmidt,

There is indeed a way to revert to older firmware on the cameras; I forget the steps but it can be done and not terribly hard. 

I think I'm going to give PoE a try when I have time to deal with the cabling - it's actually a pretty simple cabling job (mostly in the attic / garage) the only tricky part is the one cable that will transition from the garage into the interrior of the house.  The added benefit will be PoE - and the fact that when all the cameras are running on PoE I'll be able to power cycle of them very easily by power cycling the PoE switch.  Which actually brings me to a thought - on many higher end UPSs (Uninteruptable Power Supply AKA: Battery backup) and PDUs (Power Distribution Units) they have the ability to use a web utility to login to the UPS / PDU and switch on or off individual ports on the unit.  I haven't looked but if we were able to find the least expensive UPS or UPS / PDU combo that would provide this feature a guy could have his cameras hundreds of miles away and very easily turn them off and back on remotely.  (This would assume you have solid internet connectivity - if that failed you would be out of luck.)  Also I think some devices can be set to where they will automatically turn off / on a circuit on a schedule so you could have an automatic power cycle of the PoE Switch / Cameras if that seemed to be a good option.

I think that may just be the ticket - find a UPS / PDU that has a decently featured web utility combined with PoE and you're "In Like Flint."

Edit: Also there are likely Managed PoE switches that can likely do this, which would allow even more finite control over each camera / port.  The last time I shopped for a managed switch (non-PoE) was a while ago and the unit was a bit over $1,000 - perhaps someone like TrendNET / ASUS / Whoever has created something more cost effective?

[UselessS]

@BlackHawk1776, glad to see you seriously considering the PoE + UPS route...it has worked perfectly for me for 1.5 years ( 6 cameras ).  The chances are that you may never need to power-cycle the cameras with that setup...I never have...but then, never say never <g>  My modem/router is on the UPS as well...an important detail.

@rschmidt, the only way I know of to revert f/w is to uninstall Alert Commander and install the older version that has the f/w you want...then manually tell it to downgrade the f/w.  If you do not have the older Alert Commander install EXEs saved, then I'm not sure how you can get them ( I always save then install new versions to ensure I can go back ).

[johnnieo26]

My 'update' also says ver. 3.2.181. Of course I cannot update my two cameras since they have not been heard from since March 31st. One @ 4:26:03, and the other @ 4:26:09 p.m.. It says the Powerline devices are up to date, so where do I go from here?