Where you should really start when debugging the Netatmo Smart Indoor camera

I’ve always been a fan of Netatmo’s product. I’ve bought nearly every one of them excluding the siren, doorbell and smart lock. Though I am tempted by the smart lock if my backdoor is compatible.

What drew me to them was that they’ve always worked (reliable and stable), they don’t require subscriptions, and they are well-supported. With the exception of the Smart Indoor Air Quality Monitor. Don’t get me wrong, that product works as expected, and the app is good. It’s just that it’s basically an indoor weather module, but it doesn’t get the same support as the weather module. I.E. no dashboard support and no api support so, as an example, it’s not supported by the excellent Weather Status for Netatmo app.

TLDR I’ve blathered on a bit more than you may like if you’re having problems with your Netatmo Smart Indoor Camera. The answer is, check the SD card. It’s probably the SD card giving you grief. If it works on your computer, wipe the files and try starting from a truly fresh starting point. It doesn’t even have to be a clear if you have another SD card. I put the old SD card in from my old Netatmo camera and everything worked perfectly since doing that.

Note: a good way to check if your camera is really having network issues is to get its IP address from your router. Then load it in your browser. Something like http://192.1.2.3/ is good enough. You should get some sort of forbidden error. I say some kind because occasionally, it would show a basic nginx style 403 forbidden error pages and other times I’d get a JSON response.

Either way, the network is fine, so you should definitely look at the SD card at that point.

The longer version is that I had a Netatmo smart indoor camera for 8 years and it died. 8 years, when I even put in a hotter location than recommended, was perfectly reasonable to me. So, I bought another one.

When you set it up, it now tries to jump straight into HomeKit setup without allowing you to get around it. That felt off to me, but I had no choice. I did that and it failed. Oddly enough, the camera actually did show up in HomeKit and seemingly worked. However, configuring it or doing anything in the Netatmo app did not work.

I tried over and over, and it would fail in random ways, mostly around the network issues. I tried the desktop app, it would say it was fine, and then it would show up in the app. But it failed on remote access due to the network apparently being unverified. You get a message saying:

“Remote access to this product has been blocked (unverified connection). Please configure the network from this app to verify the connection. Configure network”.

Other people have had the unverified connection issue too. See here and here. Some people have said this error is random. How could that be? I mean, either your network is verified or not, right? I suspect all those people having issues probably have an SD card issue.

Some issues caused by the SD card are that unverified network, but even if you get around that it can:

1. Cause the Camera settings view to effectively get stuck in a crash loop between a blank view and some error message that isn’t shown long enough to read.
2. Break HomeKit configuration with an unknown error.
3. Make the dashboard and app think the camera is offline when it is not.

It is perhaps also the cause of all sorts of weird error states when trying to configure the camera. The app doesn’t appear to start from zero every time you try setting it up. You get all sorts of unexpected navigation paths that usually end up in a retry view that won’t go away, resulting in needing to kill the app.

The app in general does seem pretty shoddy since the new UI. Back when it was the ‘green’ app it was perfectly fine. Even when it was the green app’s UI but in orange it was fine. Then they did this new sort of one view for everything that also matches the dashboard more (consistency is fine I guess) and it’s gone all downhill since then.

I’m happy it is working now. I do have to admit, once this one goes or if I feel I need another, I may consider another brand that is compatible with HomeKit secure video just to see how it is elsewhere.

The Netatmo camera has always had a few issues. The cylinder shape means it does fall over easily and can break. My first one broke its plastic bottom after falling over enough times. It did continue to work for many years after that. Just with a bit of electrical tape to hold the bottom on. They have since improved the design by putting a grippy rubber bottom on it rather than smooth plastic.

It does also run a bit hot. It is an aluminium case, which means that dissipates the heat and, of course, it’ll feel warm. Not only that, but it should be able to operate between -20c and 50c. It’s not their fault, but the room can get up to 30c easily in the summer (unfortunately for me, it’s where I work). So, I feel I might be pushing its running temperature closer to that 50c than I’d like, and perhaps that’s why the first one died.

Still, despite my unhappiness with the new app and the fact the SD card can break everything and support staff don’t even think to mention that, I’d say it’s still a reasonable product to consider.

The thing is when it works, it works really well and aside from HomeKit secure video, the fact it has multiple options for uploading videos while also storing videos locally on the SD card. You’ve got quite a few options for ensuring you capture those critical moments, and the fact it can last 8 years without being deprecated is sadly quite the feat with a technology product.