Excessive doorbell notifications

Community Support
#1

Installed my new Kami doorbell yesterday. We have it for security and normal doorbell things.

Have the basic cloud plan, but it won’t record anything unless motion detection is on, and having that on means I get notifications every three minutes when cars drive by. I can shut motion detection off, but then it doesn’t record unless the doorbell is rung, which defeats the purpose of a security camera.

I can eliminate the notifications by shutting them off on my phone, but then I don’t know when someone rings my doorbell (the mechanical chime doesn’t get enough power to push the striker hard enough to ring the chimes now).

Is there some way we can select what we get notifications for? Like, only notify if the doorbell is pushed, but not for motion detection? I woke up this morning to hundreds of notifications, which is super excessive.

I want it to record when there’s motion, I just don’t need to be notified of it, and I also need to be notified when the doorbell is pushed. Can we strike some kind of balance here?

Thanks!

#2

Update:
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Since installing the camera three days ago, “motion detection” has not captured me coming or going on each of the three walks I go for each day, and has failed to capture two deliveries being dropped off directly in front of the camera. that’s 20 individual occurrences of someone walking directly in the path of a “motion activated” camera and not being captured.
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What it does do is record a 6-60 second snippet of video, depending on the length I choose, every 12, 6, or two minutes, depending if I have notification frequency set to low, medium, or high respectively, regardless if there is motion or not. It will not record between those preset recording times, regardless if there is motion or not.
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Further, If I want push notifications when the doorbell rings, I also get push notifications for every one of these 60 second recordings, so I have missed doorbell ringings because they get lost among the as many as 30 other notifications I receive every hour. Sure, I can shut notifications off on my phone, but then I am not notified when the doorbell is rung and, being in the basement, I can’t hear my chime from upstairs. I guess I can turn motion detection off so it doesn’t record, but then I won’t capture someone taking packages of my porch.
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I own 4 other Yi cameras - two 1080 outdoor and two 1080 indoor - that all function perfectly. That’s why I bought the doorbell camera. I figured the cloud service would function the same as the SD option the doorbell lacks, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Additionally, I work from home and my office is in the basement so I want to be able to have my cameras streaming on another computer but I can’t, because the app suspends video every 30 minutes, and I can’t get the doorbell camera to reconnect until I access it on my phone app first.
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So I’m stuck with a camera that won’t record motion, can’t be streamed live, and can’t be used as a doorbell.
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Why does it exist?
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For reference, I’m on the latest firmware showing available, installed two days ago, version 9.2.00.33_202104151649

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I’m on the 7 day cloud trial right now before I start paying and, if there isn’t some sort of fix outlined to me by company support before the trial expires in 4 days, the cloud service is being cancelled before I’m charged, the doorbell is going back, and I’m switching all of my cameras to another brand that does what I need.

#3

Hey @CMAR138 Is your app settings turning off the notifications for motion detection or is this feature toggled on but you’re still not receiving the motion detection notification?

#4

Notifications are on in my iPhone settings so I can be notified when the doorbell is rung. If the motion detection is on in the app, it records 60 seconds every 12, 6, or 3 minutes, regardless if there is motion, and I receive a notification for every recording (so anywhere from 4 to 30 notifications an hour) and I miss doorbells because there are so many notifications. It will not record between those instances or when triggered by motion, as it missed me coming and going on 18-20 occasions, and two to three deliveries, over three days. If I shut motion detection off it solves the notifications issue, but that’s because it won’t record anything unless the doorbell is rung (which package thieves are unlikely to do).

#5

Here’s an example of what I’m getting

Image-1 (1)
Image-1 (1)2048×1536 470 KB

#6

That must be annoying. How is the placement and location of the camera? Does it view a busy road? Busy walkway?

#7

Our road is road is fairly steady, but we don’t have the zones that cover the road activated; only the closest zone, which covers our walkway and porch. We even played with the range to make it the closest range, to no avail. It seems the motion detection is working somewhat at night now, but only when a car drives by, and it doesn’t activate till it’s 3/4 of the way out of frame; I was out and came home at 11:50 and it didn’t pick me up pulling in the driveway. It also missed me leaving and coming back from my walk again this morning. I’m literally using the door directly next to the camera, and it doesn’t detect motion or a person. But man, it sure thinks every car that drives by is a person. We had a food delivery where the driver pushed the lens of the camera thinking it was the doorbell, and that didn’t even trigger it.

#8

Here’s what our placement looks like

IMG_11311
IMG_113112004×1125 355 KB

And here you can see the zones we have set up

IMG_11321
IMG_113211125×627 494 KB

But the only motion sensing that works is cars driving by at night. During the day, it just records 60 second snips every two minutes, motion or not, and motion - even in close range in the selected zone - will not trigger it.

#9

That sounds to be a faulty camera. Although I know from experience with different brand the zones aren’t fool proof with shadows etc.

But looking at your screengrabs if I was you I’d be asking for a replacement device.

#10

I feel like that is the case too, I’m just hoping that someone from Kami/Yi can advise if there is something I’m missing. So far all I’ve got is updating firmware (which is up to date) and tips on saving the battery life (though I hardwire it). Not much help thus far.

#11

Thanks for sharing these screenshots. I am going to have to do a little digging on this one. It’s really strange because ran into a small bug earlier where a firmware update caused motion detection to be turned OFF. So to have you experience what might literally equate to the exact opposite is super strange to me lol

Have you turned off person detection to at least avoid the excessive notifications while we do a little digging?

It looks like you are on iOS

#12

I just turned all notifications off at this point. If person detection is off, the alerts still happen but are labelled “motion detected.” I should also clarify that the motion detection doesn’t seem to work, it just records 60 second videos at 3 minute intervals when motion detection is on, even when there is no motion. When there is motion in the activated zone, i.e., I walk out the door or back in the door, it is not triggered to record, nor does it send an alert.

#13

hmmmm it seems to me that their might be a bigger problem here. Have you contact our support team yet at www.kamihome.com/contact yet? If so, can you send me your ticket number?

#14

I emailed support@yitechnology.com, request number 553584, and was given suggestions on how to prolong battery life. The camera is hardwired, so battery life isn’t an issue.

#15

I just followed up with our customer service to get them in the right direction. I sent them your screenshots and the forum thread so they can get a better understanding of what’s going on. They are currently looking into and will update you via your ticket.

I am going to keep monitoring and make sure we get this resolved.

1 Like
#16

Thinking the same thing, I ordered a replacement, and it operates the same way. Still just get motion detection notifications every 2-3 minutes, and a 60 second recording that may or may not have motion in it. Thing is, I have this thing set up the same as all my other Yi cameras with the SD cards, and they work perfectly. The only real difference is the cloud operation. Think I’m going to run a test today by putting one of my outdoor 1080 cameras on the cloud and see if it behaves as normal or like the doorbell is.

#17

So here’s where we are now. I took the doorbell off the cloud and linked one of my perfectly functioning 1080 outdoor cameras to the cloud to see if it would behave the same way. Since doing that a couple days ago, network connection has been super spotty on that camera. Never lost connection for the two weeks it was up until the day I linked it to the cloud, now it’s constantly offline. updated the firmware on it, unplugged and plugged back in, still won’t connect.
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Also, my cloud trial ended and auto-renewed yesterday, but the app showed I had no active cloud plan. I tried to cancel and repurchase for a month and it worked, then like 6 hours later, I got a notice that my autorenew went through and now I have two cloud plans. Is it normal to have your cloud service go down for 6-8 hours when it renews?
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Ever since getting this stupid doorbell camera and cloud service these cameras have been nothing but problems. I had no issues with my Yi cameras for years until now, and now they border on being useless.

#18

Hey @CMAR138 I am going to send you a direct message to grab some info from you. I think it would be best if you spoke to our support manager over the phone to help get this resolved. Please check your forum inbox. Many thanks for your patience.

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