Maximize the Battery Life of your Smart Alarm Wireless Indoor Security Camera
Updated
The battery within the Smart Alarm Wireless Indoor Security Camera can last up to 3 months on a single charge, depending on placement and usage. To charge your camera, we recommend plugging it into power for 6 hours with a 5V, 7.5W USB power adapter that provides 1.5A of current. You will know the battery is fully charged when the LED on the camera turns solid white.
You can maximize your camera’s battery life through its location and various camera settings. The information below will help guide you through our recommendations to improve overall battery life and performance for your Smart Alarm Indoor Camera.
Camera Location
Your camera is activated by a motion sensor for accurate alerts. Because of this, we recommend the following for camera placement:
Place the camera in a room or area where subjects are likely to spend time in if there is an alarm
The motion detector is most sensitive to side-to-side motion with its 125-degree field of view
Do not position the camera so that only a doorway is in frame
Do not position the camera to look outside through a window or doorway
Using the recommendations above, we created a placement guide for the Smart Alarm Indoor Camera with a mock-up floor plan. This floor plan is inserted below and can help provide guidance as to where we’d place the Smart Alarm Indoor Camera in a home with this layout.
Camera Settings
There are many settings that can be adjusted to help extend the battery life of your Smart Alarm Indoor Camera. To access the settings in the SimpliSafe® Mobile App, navigate to:
Click the Cameras tab at the bottom of the navigation bar
Choose the gear icon for Camera Settings in the upper right corner
Select your Smart Alarm Indoor Camera
Adjust your camera’s settings, as needed
Once on the settings menu for your camera, you’ll have the option to change settings. To maximize your battery life, we recommend the following:
Under Motion Detection:
Lower your camera's motion sensitivity setting to low
This will impact how frequently your camera is triggered
Enable People Only detection to ensure your camera is only capturing humans, and is not unnecessarily triggered by other moving objects or animals
Set up Activity Zones for your camera to exclude zones that you don’t want to receive alerts for
Additional Battery Optimization Tips
If you find that your Smart Alarm Indoor Camera’s battery drains quickly despite following the placement and settings tips above, we also recommend considering the number of times you view a live stream through your camera every day, or how often Secret Alerts are triggered.
Frequently viewing a live stream through your Smart Alarm Indoor Camera will cause its battery to drain faster, so if you use it to monitor babies, children, pets, or vacation homes, expect the battery to last fewer than 3 months. If you do use your Smart Alarm Indoor Camera to constantly monitor a room, we recommend keeping it plugged in with its power adapter mentioned below.
If you have any sensors set to Secret Alert and it is triggered, your camera(s) will record a 10-second clip. Over time, this can cause the Smart Alarm Indoor Camera’s battery to drain faster than expected. If you have a sensor that is constantly being triggered, and it does not need to be set to Secret Alert, we recommend turning off the setting for the sensor to preserve the Smart Alarm Indoor Camera’s battery life. If it does need to be set to Secret Alert, we recommend keeping the Smart Alarm Indoor Camera plugged in with its power adapter mentioned below.
Indoor Camera Power Adapter
The Smart Alarm Indoor Camera requires a 5V, 7.5W USB power adapter that supplies 1.5A of current. You may use any compatible power adapter, or you can purchase the Indoor Camera Power Adapter from our online store or through select retailers. The Indoor Camera Power Adapter is a power brick that will allow you to plug in your Smart Alarm Indoor Camera to provide continuous power to the camera.