Troubleshooting — digital wireless camera issues

This is where Handykam collected the hints and tips for solving wireless camera problems. Most of the company's own technology behaved itself, but customers regularly asked about other systems too, so the advice here was written to be general rather than model-specific — and it still is.

The original page was an accordion, and only its first section survived in the archive. The remaining two headings — image quality and interference — have been filled in from the same body of material the company used elsewhere on the site, rather than left as empty headings.

1. Connection

The connection keeps dropping out, or it keeps saying "no signal"

Start by proving it is a range problem rather than a fault. Bring the transmitter close to the receiver, ideally in the same room, and test it. If the picture is solid at two metres, the equipment works and you have a range or obstruction problem. If it is not solid at two metres, the problem is the equipment, the power, or the pairing.

Once you know it is range, work through it in this order:

• Count the walls. Radio at these frequencies is heavily attenuated by stone, wet render, foil-backed insulation and anything metal. A Cornish granite wall is not a mild obstruction. Two thick walls will beat most domestic transmitters.
• Move the receiver, not just the transmitter. Getting the receiver to a window facing the box is usually easier and more effective than moving the box.
• Raise both ends and get them out of corners and away from radiators, boilers and metal shelving.
• Check the power at the camera end. A camera browning out at the end of a long thin DC run will transmit intermittently. Weak power looks exactly like weak signal.
• Consider an aerial booster, or a shorter radio path with a longer cable — moving the transmitter to a shed or outbuilding nearer the house often solves it outright.

The camera worked yesterday and has disappeared today

On a network camera, the most common cause is that the camera has been given a different address by the router, or has been plugged into a network cable, which switches its own WIFI off. Find it on the router's list of connected devices — see the WIFI IP camera FAQ, which covers this at length.

2. Image quality

Wireless picture problems are usually one of four things, and they look different from each other.

• Grain and speckle — low light, not a link problem. Check the infra-red is actually switching on at night; if it is not, suspect the power supply before the camera.
• Breaking up into blocks, freezing, or "no signal" flickers — a marginal radio link. Treat it as a connection problem, above.
• Rolling bars or a herringbone pattern — interference, most often from mains wiring or another transmitter. See below.
• Soft or milky picture that is fine in daylight — infra-red reflecting back off something close to the lens, usually the inside of a box, a perspex window, or a dirty lens cover. Nothing in front of the lens should be within a few centimetres of it, and infra-red LEDs must not shine onto a nearby surface.

A picture that is simply not sharp is a focus problem, not a wireless one. Focus at the working distance over newsprint, as described in the camera FAQ.

3. Interference

Interference is the normal condition of the 2.4GHz band rather than an exceptional one. Everyone and their uncle is using it — baby monitors, WIFI, wireless security cameras, cordless devices and a whole encyclopaedia of other gadgets. Most systems coexist because they are all low powered and do not transmit far, but a degree of interference is to be expected and shows up as pictures breaking up.

What actually helps:

• Use a digital system rather than a fixed-frequency analogue one. Digital wireless encodes the signal and hops frequencies automatically, which makes the link far more robust in a crowded band. This is the single biggest improvement available.
• Change the channel on your WIFI router, or on the camera system if it allows it, to move the two apart.
• Separate the two ends physically from your router and from any other transmitter.
• Consider the band. 5.8GHz is much less congested but does not travel as far. 1.2GHz is cheaper for a reason — it is technically illegal to transmit on for private use in the UK. The full explanation is in Wired or wireless camera?.

When to stop troubleshooting

If you have moved both ends, changed channels, ruled out power and still have an unreliable picture, the honest answer is often that the installation wants a cable. That was the company's consistent position and the reason its most-read article argues for wired systems: a marginal radio link across a stone house never becomes a good one, whereas a cable simply works. Running one cable that carries power out and picture back is usually less work than everything above.

Related pages: Wired or wireless camera? · FAQ: WIFI IP camera · FAQ: cables