The Outdoor Security Camera Series 2 has a battery life of up to 3 months, depending on settings and usage. To help maximise the life of the camera’s battery, we recommend making the following adjustments to its settings and location.

Camera Location

Your camera is activated by a motion sensor for accurate alerts. If your camera is in the vicinity of a high-traffic area, like a busy road or pavement, the motion sensor will be triggered more frequently for unnecessary movement, which can cause the battery to drain.

If your camera is in a high-traffic area:

• Reposition the camera so its field of view does not include the busy road or pavement. You can also set up Activity Zones to avoid monitoring these areas.

• Make sure that there are no tree branches or large plants obstructing the camera’s view.

• Be sure to mount your camera 6-8 feet above the ground, with the lens facing downward at a 30-degree angle.

Camera Settings

There are multiple settings that can be adjusted to help extend the battery life of your camera. To access these settings in the SimpliSafe® Mobile App:

1. Select My System from the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen

2. Choose Camera Settings​

3. Select your Outdoor Camera Series 2

Battery-saving Settings:

• Lower your camera’s motion sensitivity settings to Medium or Low - this will impact how frequently the camera is triggered.

• Enable People-Only motion detection to ensure your camera only captures humans, and is not unnecessarily triggered by other moving objects or animals.

• Set up Activity Zones to control the areas that the camera will monitor. This is helpful if there is a high-traffic zone in the view that you do not need to monitor.

• Use Standard Night Vision instead of the Spotlight feature.

Charge the Camera’s Battery Fully

Charge it Completely

If the battery for the Outdoor Camera Series 2 isn’t completely charged, it will give the appearance of draining quickly. The camera’s battery takes up to 6 hours to charge completely. When the battery is charging, you will see a blinking white light. You’ll know that the battery is fully charged once all 3 lights are illuminated and no longer blinking.

Use the Correct Power Adapter

The battery for the Outdoor Camera Series 2 requires a USB power adapter with an output of 5.0V, 1.5A+. Failure to use the correct power adapter can result in the battery not charging completely.

A list of power adapters that fit this requirements are:

• The SimpliCam® Wired Indoor Security Camera’s adapter

• The Smart Alarm Wireless Indoor Security Camera’s adapter

• Most iPhone adapters

• Most Android adapters

If you don’t know the output of your power adapter, most models will have it printed on the device itself - as seen in the image below.

If you are using the correct power adapter, make sure that you are plugging it into an outlet directly in a wall. Using a USB power strip or USB power hub may not supply efficient power to charge the battery.

The Outdoor Camera Power Cable is a great way to keep your Outdoor Camera powered at all times. The Outdoor Camera Power Cable is 25 feet long and is IP65 water-resistant cable. The Outdoor Camera Power Cable comes with cable clips that can be applied to a clean surface with the built-in adhesives, or permanently attached to that surface using screws. We recommend a 5/64” drill bit to adhere the cable clips to a surface when not using the adhesive option.

When the Outdoor Camera is plugged in with the power cable, you’ll see faster live streams and enjoy pre-roll recordings with Performance Mode.

Need to purchase an Outdoor Camera Power Cable? You can find it available for purchase on our website.

When connected to a continuous power source, the Outdoor Camera and Smart Alarm Wireless Indoor Security Camera can enter performance mode.

When performance mode is enabled for a camera, the camera will remain awake allowing for faster live streams versus battery power. This feature is available to the Outdoor Camera and Smart Alarm Indoor Camera when running firmware version 1.20 or higher, and occurs automatically when the camera is plugged into a power source and it has at least 90% charge. If your camera battery ever drops below 70%, your camera will automatically exit performance mode to conserve battery.

Performance mode also allows the cameras to begin recording* while it determines whether or not the observed motion event was a person or another object (such as a passing car, a tree blowing in the wind, or an indoor pet). This allows for more complete recordings of motion events delivered to your timeline in the SimpliSafe® Mobile App.

*Requires a monitoring plan with recordings.

An exciting feature of the SimpliSafe® App is the ability to reorder your list of cameras in the Cameras tab in the app. This is helpful if you want to see your cameras in alphabetical order, or organised in any specific way.

To Reorder Your Cameras in the SimpliSafe® App:

1. Open the SimpliSafe® App on your phone or tablet

2. Select Cameras from the navigation bar on the bottom of the screen

3. Tap on the reorder icon on the upper right corner of the screen

   

4. Press and hold a camera to drag and reorder it

5. Follow step 4 again for any other cameras you want to reorder

*Note: This feature is only to reorder your cameras in the SimpliSafe® app. Changing the order of your sensors is currently not supported.

If you find that your Outdoor Security Camera Series 2 is detecting motion and you’re receiving too many notifications or alerts, there are some recommended placement and settings changes you can make to reduce the number of notifications.

Adjust the Placement of the Camera

If your Outdoor Camera Series 2 is facing a high-traffic area like a busy street or pavement, we recommend angling the camera down to remove this area from its field of view, as seen in the image below.

Change the Camera’s Settings

If you cannot change the angle of the Outdoor Camera, there are settings you can adjust in the SimpliSafe® Mobile App to minimise the amount of motion it detects.

Sensitivity

By default, the Outdoor Camera’s sensitivity is set to High, but you can adjust this setting to Medium or Low to limit the number of motion events you receive.

You can adjust the sensitivity of your Outdoor Camera by taking the following steps:

SimpliSafe® Mobile App:

1. Open up the SimpliSafe® Mobile App on your mobile device or tablet

2. Tap Cameras on the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen

3. Select the gear icon in the top right corner to open Camera Settings

4. Choose the Outdoor Camera you’d like to adjust

5. Tap Motion Detection

6. Under Sensitivity, move the slider to Low

7. Tap Save in the top right corner to save this change

SimpliSafe® Online Account:

1. Log into your SimpliSafe® Online Account using the browser of your choice

1. If you manage multiple properties, choose the location you wish to update from the list by clicking on the Base Station Serial Number or Property Address

2. Select Devices from the navigation bar on the left side of the screen

3. Select the camera you want to update

4. A pop up menu will appear on the right hand side of the screen

5. Scroll down to Motion Sensitivity and move the slider to Low

6. When you are done, click Save Changes on the bottom of the pop up to save your selections

Motion Detection Type

The Outdoor Camera has two motion detection options: All Motion and People Only. When set to All Motion, the camera will record any motion it senses - which may cause excess motion events. However, if the camera is set to People Only it will only respond to people-shaped objects.

To minimize the amount of motion your Outdoor Camera detects, you can change its motion setting to People Only by following these steps:

1. Open up the SimpliSafe® Mobile App on your mobile device or tablet

2. Tap Cameras on the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen

3. Select the gear icon in the top right corner to open Camera Settings

4. Choose the Outdoor Camera you’d like to adjust

5. Tap Motion Detection

6. Under Motion Type, select People Only

7. Tap Save in the top right corner to save this change

Activtiy Zones

By setting up Activity Zones, you can block unnecessary sources of motion from the camera’s view, like tree branches, sidewalks, or busy streets.

To create Activity Zones, take the following steps:

1. Open up the SimpliSafe® Mobile App on your mobile device or tablet

2. Tap Cameras on the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen

3. Select the gear icon in the top right corner to open Camera Settings

4. Choose the Outdoor Camera you’d like to adjust

5. Tap Motion Detection

6. Under Activity Zone, tap the boxes in the frame where you do not want your camera to record

7. Tap Save in the top right corner to save this change

Additional Troubleshooting

If you’re still getting too many motion alerts when your camera is set to People Only mode, we recommend trying the following tricks:

• Change your camera’s motion detection setting to All Motion

• Turn your camera’s sensitivity down to Medium or Low

• Set up Activity Zones around the perimeter of the camera’s field of view, as seen in the image below

Still Need Help?

If you’ve taken the steps above and your Outdoor Camera is still detecting excess motion, we recommend contacting our support team for further assistance.

In some instances, you may need to add the MAC Address of a SimpliSafe® product to your network’s allow list or firewall in order for it to connect to Wi-Fi. A MAC Address is a unique, 12-character alphanumeric attribute that is used to identify individual electronic devices on a network.

Only the Base Station and the Cameras will provide a MAC Address, as they connect to Wi-Fi. Other SimpliSafe® products connect to the Base Station using Radio Frequency (RF).

Note: If you have MAC Address filtering enabled on your network, you may need to temporarily disable it while setting up your camera, to allow it to connect. You’ll be able to determine the MAC Address to add to your allow list once the device is connected.

Base Station

For the Base Station, you will need to use your Keypad to locate its MAC Address.

1. Press Menu on your Keypad

2. Enter your Primary PIN

3. Using the arrow keys, select System Settings

4. Then choose Diagnostics

5. Use the right arrow and toggle to the Wi-Fi screen, where the MAC Address will be listed

Cameras

You can locate the MAC Address of a SimpliSafe® Camera using the SimpliSafe® Mobile App.

1. Open the SimpliSafe® Mobile App on your phone or tablet

2. Choose My System from the bottom navigation bar

3. Select Camera Settings

4. Tap on the Camera you wish to find the MAC Address for

5. Scroll to the bottom of this screen. Your Cameras MAC Address will be listed in the MAC Address field.

A "Camera Connection Dropped" error means that during a live stream, SimpliSafe® stopped receiving video from the camera. This is often the result of poor internet connectivity between the camera and the router, causing the camera to be unable to upload video for viewing as fast as it is recording.

The video that your camera has already recorded but not yet been able to stream is stored in the camera's own internal memory. However, the camera’s memory is limited and may eventually be insufficient to hold the video backlog. If the camera's memory becomes full before it can upload the recordings, the video stream will end.

For more information on how to strengthen your camera's connection, please refer to the How to Improve Wi-Fi Signal Strength and How to Improve Upload Speed articles in the Help Centre.