Suffering From I-Pro Notification Lag?
Receiving a security alert seconds after an event has occurred is critical for proactive monitoring. When there's a significant delay between an event happening and the notification arriving on your phone, it can defeat the purpose of having a real-time security system. If you're experiencing a frustrating lag with your I-Pro camera notifications, you're not alone.
This delay, often called latency, can be caused by a number of bottlenecks between your camera and your mobile device. This guide will help you understand the common causes of I-Pro notification lag and provide you with a clear set of troubleshooting steps to resolve the issue and receive faster alerts.
Common Symptoms of Notification Delay
Notification lag can manifest in several ways. Identifying your specific symptom can help narrow down the potential cause.
- Significant Delay: The notification arrives on your phone 30 seconds, a minute, or even longer after the event actually happened.
- Inconsistent Delays: Sometimes alerts are instant, but at other times they are severely delayed, with no obvious pattern.
- Video Arrives Before Alert: You can see a new recording in your event list in the app before the push notification for that event has even arrived.
- Alerts Arrive in Batches: You receive no alerts for a period, and then suddenly three or four notifications arrive all at once.
- Mobile vs. Web: Alerts appear to be delayed on your mobile app, but events show up instantly in the web-based monitoring portal.
- Poor Live View Connection: When you try to open a live view from a notification, it takes a very long time to connect, indicating a network issue.
Step-by-Step Troubleshooting Guide
Let's work through the potential points of failure in the notification chain, from the camera itself to your smartphone.
1. Diagnose Your Network and Internet Connection
The most common cause of lag is network latency. The alert data has to travel from your camera, through your local network, across the internet to I-Pro's servers, and then back to your phone.
- Check Upload Speed: The critical metric is your internet upload speed. Use a speed testing app on your phone (while connected to your Wi-Fi) to check this. You need a stable upload speed of at least 2-3 Mbps per camera for reliable performance. If it's slow, contact your internet service provider.
- Assess Wi-Fi Signal: If the camera is on Wi-Fi, a weak signal will cause packet loss and delays. Log in to the camera's interface or check your network controller to see the camera's signal strength. If it's weak, move your router closer or use a wired Ethernet connection for best results.
- Reboot Network Hardware: A simple but effective step is to reboot your camera, your modem, and your router. This can clear temporary glitches and memory leaks that may be slowing down your network.
2. Optimise Your Smartphone's Settings
Sometimes the delay isn't in the network, but in how your phone is handling the incoming notification.
- Disable Battery Optimisation: Modern Android and iOS devices use aggressive battery-saving features that can "sleep" apps and delay their notifications. Go into your phone's Settings, find the I-Pro app, and ensure it is exempted from battery optimisation.
- Check Background Data Permissions: Ensure the I-Pro app has permission to use data in the background and is not restricted to "Wi-Fi only" if you need alerts on the go.
- Notification Priority: In Android, you can often set notifications for an app to "Priority" to ensure they are delivered instantly, even when the device is in a do-not-disturb or low-power mode.
3. Review Camera-Side Settings
High camera workload can sometimes introduce a small amount of processing delay.
- Update Firmware: Ensure your I-Pro camera is running the latest firmware. Updates often include performance improvements and bug fixes that can reduce processing latency.
- Video Stream Settings: While less common, running an extremely high bitrate or multiple complex AI detection rules at once can increase the camera's processing load. If you are running many different analytics, try disabling all but the essential one (e.g., vehicle detection) to see if it improves notification speed.
By methodically checking your network, your phone, and your camera settings, you can isolate the bottleneck and take the necessary steps to reduce I-Pro notification lag, ensuring you receive timely and actionable alerts.