Cameras & doorbells

[Zorro1953]

This issue has been brought up before, but there has not been a working solution posted by other community members, nor by Roku itself. 

The problems persist. Sometimes it is a complete failure to upload video to the cloud (no error message), Other times just a still frame image is available even though the app indicates it is several seconds or even minutes in length. This still image will usually indicate "Upload Failed" with the option to submit a log (and a suggestion to check the internet connection).

On 2 of my cams, the problem occurs nearly 90% of the time. Maybe 10% of the uploads have video that is  available for viewing. One is the floodlight cam and the other is a wired outdoor cam. I have another wired outdoor cam and a wireless outdoor cam and those two don't seem to have the problem.

It's really not right that Roku has charged me $99 for a service that mostly doesn't work, but worse is the lack of a solution to the problem, or an acknowledgement that a problem even exists. Yes, most of us here who have complained about the problem have done all the canned suggestions: check your internet, recycle your cam, reset and reconfigure your cams, clear the cache for the app, uninstall and reinstall the app, etc. 

As a community of faithful Roku customers, I think we should continue to complain about this problem until Roku provides a fix. I am a loyal Roku customer who has been using their streaming devices for years and am 125% satisfied, which is the reason I bought the Roku branded cams. So it is especially disheartening to find that the home security cams just don't have the same quality and ease of use.

[RokuArjiemar]

Hello! @Zorro1953,

Thank you for your post,

We are sorry to hear about the issue you reported and want to let you know that this is not the typical experience we expect from our products.

We wanted to let you know that we have passed along your information to our Support team. They will reach out to assist you further.

Please feel free to let us know if you need any additional assistance!
Thanks,

Arjiemar

[Zorro1953]

I received a phone call from Roku last night (just hours after posting my complaint). We discussed the problem and the rep asked me to provide log files for the issue that the "video can't be uploaded to the cloud successfully". I sent the log files that were generated and I provided him the issue ID number that was assigned. I was promised that this issue would be sent to engineering for further resolution and they will contact me when the is a solution to the problem.

I will post the solution (or lack of) here when I hear back from them.

[Zorro1953]

HEY!!! GUESS WHAT! Y'all sent a firmware update to my Porch cam (someone at Roku can probably figure out which one in my account is called Porch - I don't want to put the MAC address in a public forum). AND NOW THIS ONE ALSO FAILS TO UPLOAD MOTION VIDEO TO THE CLOUD. So now instead of having 2 cams that were not working as advertised, I now have THREE.

If you want to look at the log I sent it is: 60200

[RokuArjiemar]

Hi! @Zorro1953,

Thanks for the post,

We're glad you've been in touch with our Support team. We recommend you continue working with them as they are best equipped to assist you.

Please feel free to let us know if you need any additional assistance!

Thanks,

Arjiemar

[Zorro1953]

I would be more than happy to continue working with your support team, except they gave me no instructions on how to reach them. It's not so much that I've been in touch with them, but someone got in touch with me I presume because of the post I made in this forum yesterday. I received a phone call rather late last night (Sunday) from someone who pretty much went through the routine of blaming my internet connection, asking if I've restarted my cams, asked if I removed and reinstalled the app, etc. They then said they would escalate this for further support. So that's as far as it's gotten so far. Perhaps the firmware pushed out to one of my cams today is a result, but I have to tell you, it has only made matters worse, and believe me, if I could contact the support team about this directly instead of via this community forum, I would be more than happy to do so.

[Zorro1953]

Maybe I spoke too soon. The "Porch" cam is now uploading videos to the cloud just as it did before the firmware update. I'm still having trouble with the floodlight cam and my other outdoor wired cam.

[mlm44]

Zorro - I'm having exactly the same issues with wired doorbell, floodlight cam and indoor cams.

Also sometimes the same video clip will be uploaded for different motion events several minutes apart.

And it is unpredictable - sometimes a video clip will be saved and then five minutes later it will only save a still image, or vice versa.

I'm just going to wait for Roku to figure this out. I don't have the time to deal with them.

[Zorro1953]

I pretty much agree with you. I've spent enough time on this. I think the cams are great for live viewing in the Android app - I've never had a complaint about that. But if you want to see what happened in the past, even if you have a valid cloud subscription, it is totally hit or miss. Two of my cams are pretty good in that respect, but the other two upload to the cloud less than 10% of the time. 

I believe these are really nothing more than toys, and if you really are relying on them for security of your property, you will be very disappointed. 

By the way, I took the time yesterday to check the competition for similarly priced cams and all of them had similar complaints and problems. I would venture a guess this is because they are all really the same camera, just labeled and marketed under different names. 

[Keithernet]

Same problem for me. Outdoor wired floodlight camera fail to upload almost always. AND, misses motion detection completely, often,  even with sensitivity at max. Frustrating.  Having strong doubts I'll renew. So disappointing.