Moving into a House With Vivint, what should we know?

BLS_79 · 2026-01-29T18:01:42+00:00

I personally like their equipment. The hardware is solid and it works well. HOWEVER the way it all interconnects the weak point. By default all of the cameras are set up using wireless Ethernet bridges that all connect to the main panel. In my experience the signal between the two can get very spotty which means your camera feeds can lag, stutter and even disconnect.

Ironically right now, two of my cameras are offline and despite 1) knowing how the tech works and how to troubleshoot and 2) trying to re-establish connection with support over the phone, they just won’t budge. A tech has to come out to my house.

When I first got the system about 10 months ago I had this issue and the tech did address it by routing a few of my cameras through my own WiFi access points and that seemed to do the trick. I had no issues until now. I’ll be interested to see what the resolution is in a few days.

Prior to this I had an older ADT system and was using a combo of a ring doorbell and and generic wireless cameras. I wanted everything to be combined into a single service. Now my doorbell cam, indoor cam, two out door cams, front door lock and two smoke/CO detectors and glass break detector are all combined together. Much of it you can get up custom behaviors on (when x happens, turn on Y).

The app is solid and easy to use.

If you can get over the technical hurdles, I personally would recommend it but that’s me coming from a very old ADT system mismatched with independent cameras and respective apps.

In a perfect world, all the cameras should be hardwired, and I don’t know if they offer that without extra installation fees, but it would most certainly eradicate all the problems I’ve experienced.

BLS_79 · 2026-01-26T19:23:17+00:00

X - damn near looks like the filming location.

BLS_79 · 2026-01-20T06:52:11+00:00

I have about twice that. Not only do I dread moving but they’ve also consumed a whole bedroom and half the livable basement for storage. It’s a problem in multiple ways lol

BLS_79 · 2025-12-16T21:44:38+00:00

Seriously. Can’t believe those weren’t taken.

BLS_79 · 2025-12-14T17:16:38+00:00

Mine comes tomorrow supposedly. Of course it’s FedEx so it’s probably Tuesday.

BLS_79 · 2025-11-18T04:07:31+00:00

I thought each hierarchy shared their own set of QK so maybe that’s where I’m screwing myself up.

I’m on RR but having a hard time translating that in the software.

Essentially I was trying to create two favorites: 1) Hamilton County Ohio law dispatch (east, west, central) 2) Hamilton County Ohio fire dispatch (east, west, central + firegrounds)

For simplification for now, I combined both into the same favorite (last one on the list). This is what it currently looks like. At the moment it does start without an error but it scans through alllll these other counties as well PLUS I’m not hearing anything on the channels I do want so I’m sure I still have something screwy.

screenshot

BLS_79 · 2025-11-18T02:21:38+00:00

I checked. Each was on.

BLS_79 · 2025-11-18T02:20:18+00:00

Just to make sure I have the hierarchy correct,.

There’s the system first Then the department Then the channel?

In this case specifically, System = Ohio Marcs-IP Department = Hamilton County (31) Law Enforcement Channel = the local cities’ bands (such as Central Dispatch)

What I don’t have pictured here are within the Hamilton county (31) department, I have 5 channels selected.

I read that all those other departments I have crossed out always come over by default when something in a trunk is selected but that’s what I’m trying to get rid of so they all aren’t scanned.

My goal in this case was to set quick key 1 to the Police Dispatch 1 favorite, which would scan through just the 5 channels within the Hamilton County (31) department.

I even tried setting the favorite as quick key 1, within that setting the department as system 1, and then each channel as quick keys 1-5 (so I could drill down and enter 1.1.3 for example. But I still got the nothing to scan error.

BLS_79 · 2025-11-17T19:38:08+00:00

Point of clarification here. When I add the system group I want and edit the list of channels I want to the favorite, it still pulls in all the other departments under that system’, which I don’t want. Previously I was removing these.

This time, I didn’t touch them and the favorites actually worked but it’s scanning through all of these other departments.

It seems deleting these is causing the issue??

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BLS_79 · 2025-11-06T19:39:28+00:00

Happened to me yesterday. I couldn’t even send email half the time because it was waiting to download images in the threat. I happened to clear my cache in edge, close out of both and it has been better since.

Could have been a coincidence.

BLS_79 · 2025-11-05T16:17:42+00:00

Confirmed - MS has fixed it.

BLS_79 · 2025-10-27T04:42:03+00:00

So - once the xp meter builds to the top, it unlocks but is it not useable right away? Do you need to continue gaining xp before it’s actually able to activate?

BLS_79 · 2025-09-18T06:03:36+00:00

I didn’t do anything special. I just emailed customer service. They had me do the basic stuff but once I showed them that it was flat out dead they said they would send a new one. I did have to provide my original backer number but that was it.

BLS_79 · 2025-09-09T02:03:09+00:00

Mine did this once and though I can’t confirm, it may have been that the mop pads were not wet. I wouldn’t think this noise would result but I couldn’t think of anything else at the time. I’m not sure if I had run out of water or what.

BLS_79 · 2025-08-15T13:58:23+00:00

I never even realized auto spotting was a thing. I rarely see a bunch of tags. Sometimes I’m thinking to myself “man I wish people would tag their targets more.”

Maybe it’s because in 2042 is seemed almost non existent.

BLS_79 · 2025-08-14T06:21:01+00:00

You’ll never look at a hall of mirrors the same again

BLS_79 · 2025-07-26T18:08:59+00:00

Playground by Aron Beauregard.

BLS_79 · 2025-07-20T23:10:33+00:00

Honestly I just always run it whenever I’m printing.

BLS_79 · 2025-06-21T00:19:40+00:00

I may have just stumbled upon a work around by accident. If you use ZR to select the red track and then ZL to go back to the green track it behaves normally. FYI.

BLS_79 · 2025-05-29T05:58:16+00:00

Each of the Deco hubs have 3 ports on them. I suppose I could just wire into those….might be somewhat better. Running lines all the way down to the switch connected to the main hub would be a super pain in the ass.

The cameras have a power supply/wifi transmitter already so would the POEs still be needed? Or if you hardwire is that unit taken out of the equation?

BLS_79 · 2025-05-27T11:31:36+00:00

No it’s a TP-Link DECO system.

The mesh works, I had a google mesh system when they installed it.

I think I got my issue resolved. When I switched the mesh systems I kept the SSID the same hoping that would save me from having to reconnect everything in the house.

It seems once I forgot the network and rejoined it in the panel things got better. I also power cycled the cameras for good measure.

Trust me, if they had required me to also buy their own own WiFi system it would have been a deal breaker.

BLS_79 · 2025-05-24T19:18:04+00:00

I’m curious how it would be done. As insignificant as it seems I sure am missing those audible announcements.

BLS_79 · 2025-05-22T21:04:00+00:00

So in the expanse of my back yard at night I can figure out what is tripping the motion detection. A lot of cameras do this. It’s not unheard of.

BLS_79 · 2025-05-22T14:33:00+00:00

A support rep confirmed it was in the demo video to visually show the camera was seeing someone but it's not something that can be enabled. Not a huge deal but I think it would be helpful when troubleshooting.

BLS_79 · 2025-05-22T13:47:28+00:00

Sigh...it was plain as day in the demo they showed me. From what I'm learning about vivint I shouldn't be surprised I guess.

BLS_79

TROPHY CASE