HomeKit Logitech Circle View, connects to home ok, can see live view, but won't record

[ozsmac]

Hi All,

I can see this issue might be common, however I've not yet found any solutions that work for me, so hoping someone has a tip or trick.

Purchased a Logitech Circle View from an Apple store last week, no issues with HomeKit setup, live view streaming is working fine. The issue I'm having is that I just can't see any recordings, not sure if that is me not using the Home app properly, or the device has some kind of issue recording videos via HomeKit Secure Video.

I've tried the following things to fix it:
1 - Re-set my Logitech Circle View to factory defaults and setup four times
2 - Turn off each of my devices with a hub in it, and turn them on one by one (power cycling the Circle View each time)
3 - Restarted every single device that I have
4 - Confirmed latest firmware on all Apple devices
5 - Confirmed the Circle View settings in home, specifically Recording Options to ensure that When Home and When Away are set to "Stream & Allow Recording".

My devices & versions
My iPad and iPhone are latest versions of iOS 15.5
MacBook Pro 16" running 12.4
2 x HomePod (original large ones running as pair) and 1 x HomePod Mini - running latest firmware 15.5.1
1 x AppleTV 4K running 15.5.1
1 x Logitech Circle View Camera firmware 8.2.64


I can see the camera ok, it is 100% available and I can get live view and alerts without any issues. My issue is that the device isn't recording anything so I don't have history, or perhaps I'm just too dumb to be able to figure out how to view the videos (I tap the Camera in home, a live view opens, but no time scrubber appears across the bottom).

Thanks for any help or pointers, this seems to be to be a very poor implementation by either Apple or Logi.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Do you have iCloud+ with camera recording support? You may have mentioned it but I couldn’t see it.

 

[ozsmac]

That is an absolutely fair question, yes it is an Apple One Family subscription that includes iCloud+ (200GB).

 

[StumpyBloke]

Has there been a need for the camera to record, ie the right motion detected by the camera?

 

[Alfie]

I am having similar issues with one of my Logitech Circle Views as well. It has not recorded anything since last night, even when I know multiple people have walked in front of that camera in the last few hours. I have two other Circle Views to that seem to be ok. Just like you, the camera's live view is working, so I know it is online.

What device is your primary hub right now? For me it's the Apple TV 4K. Usually that's my best-performing hub, but I assumed there may be something up with the Apple TV since the hub is responsible for processing video recordings. I was also going to wipe my camera, but since that didn't work you, I'm not sure what to do now.

 

[Alfie]

I unplugged my Apple TV long enough for a HomePod to take over as the primary hub. After that, the Circle View started recording again. Weird that other cameras never seemed to have a problem with recording….it was just something between the Apple TV and that one camera.

 

[ozsmac]

Has there been a need for the camera to record, ie the right motion detected by the camera?

That is also a fair question, the config I have is basically set to record any motion no matter if I'm home or not. So I don't think this is a config nor "did anything move" question.

 

[ozsmac]

I unplugged my Apple TV long enough for a HomePod to take over as the primary hub. After that, the Circle View started recording again. Weird that other cameras never seemed to have a problem with recording….it was just something between the Apple TV and that one camera.

Yes I've seen a few posts about trying to shut down other HomeKit Hubs, and I've tried that without any change (basically turned everything off, including iPads). I can't believe this is a reasonable expectation from Apple or Logi, so I guess this POS is going back to the store, because it just doesn't work.

 

[StumpyBloke]

That is also a fair question, the config I have is basically set to record any motion no matter if I'm home or not. So I don't think this is a config nor "did anything move" question.

View attachment 2020211

View attachment 2020210

In that case I have no idea I’m afraid. But I put it down to Apples god-awful HomeKit rather than the Logitech camera. HomeKit has been a complete and utter abortion for me, and many others here, since the 15 wave of software released last year. Sorry I can’t help any more.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Yes I've seen a few posts about trying to shut down other HomeKit Hubs, and I've tried that without any change (basically turned everything off, including iPads). I can't believe this is a reasonable expectation from Apple or Logi, so I guess this POS is going back to the store, because it just doesn't work.

I know it doesn’t help you any, but this won’t be down to Logitech camera in my opinion. This will be HomeKit. I’ve got a few of these cameras and they, themselves, are pretty much rocksolid.

 

[ozsmac]

Sorry I can’t help any more.

Thanks for your honest assessment and insight, I'm afraid that I agree that it is a HomeKit issue.

It is a shame that this possibly amazing feature isn't at all usable in the real world.

 

[ozsmac]

Update - Fixed.

** Fixed by updating permissions for my "Resident (Admin)" home account when logged into "Resident (Owner)" to "Stream & View Recordings". Not sure why one of the accounts was only set to only "Stream Only".

 

[StumpyBloke]

Great news. Thanks for coming back with your fix

 

[Bl0ckHe1d]

Update - Fixed.

** Fixed by updating permissions for my "Resident (Admin)" home account when logged into "Resident (Owner)" to "Stream & View Recordings". Not sure why one of the accounts was only set to only "Stream Only".

Hope you don't mind me asking, how did you change the permission from (owner) to (admin)?

 

[w5jck]

I recently bought a HomePod mini to use as a hub, even though I have had the ATV 4K 2017 for quite a while. I just now started looking to add some Homekit accessories and thus far only have a meross smart-plug. It seems like Apple has limited functionality to a lot of the accessories, especially security cams. For example, most that advertise 2K cams will state "except with Homekit where they are only 1080". I'm already getting frustrated to find all the limitations on Apple's part, especially when most Homekit accessories are so expensive. For now I'm sticking mostly to Alexa and her accessories because they work better, although Alexa is über annoying with her unsolicited babbling and advertisements. But at least her home accessories seem to work and are typically lower priced and there are many more from which to choose. Apple fails again...

 

[cynics]

I recently bought a HomePod mini to use as a hub, even though I have had the ATV 4K 2017 for quite a while. I just now started looking to add some Homekit accessories and thus far only have a meross smart-plug. It seems like Apple has limited functionality to a lot of the accessories, especially security cams. For example, most that advertise 2K cams will state "except with Homekit where they are only 1080". I'm already getting frustrated to find all the limitations on Apple's part, especially when most Homekit accessories are so expensive. For now I'm sticking mostly to Alexa and her accessories because they work better, although Alexa is über annoying with her unsolicited babbling and advertisements. But at least her home accessories seem to work and are typically lower priced and there are many more from which to choose. Apple fails again...

Believe it or not Apple was actually pretty smart about that. Apples not bad at capturing and handling video files believe it or not. I have 2 of those 2k cameras made by Eufy, allow me to explain....(spoiler you get what you pay for)...

IP cameras need to record, encode, and stream their data in real time. Particular focus needs to made to bandwidth usage as well. If you ever encoded a video you know the higher quality it is the longer it takes...that won't work it needs to be in real time. Also the slower preset you used for the encoder the smaller the file size....that won't work either because your cameras can't be allowed to saturate the customers upload bandwidth.

For perspective the iPhone capturing at 1080p 30fps using h264 has about a 18 Mbps peak. Obviously that won't work, 5 cameras and your using 90 Mbps of the customers available bandwidth, if they even have that much upload speed (many using cable broadband don't as its partitioned for fast download mediocre upload).

So the compromises to save bandwidth and processing time. First what some of those 2k cameras dont advertise is a lot of them reduce the FPS at 2k. So for example 20fps at 1080p and 12fps at 2k. Secondly they are generally using h264 base low/medium quality. The result is video stream that has a average bitrate of 1 Mbps. Thats a lousy bitrate for a 720p camera and there is only so much you can do with that little data to forum it into an image.

Well here is the results, I turned my IP camera to face a wall that I leaned a take out menu on about 1-2 feet away from the camera. I pulled a screen grab from the Home app. Then I recorded a 1080 video with my iPhone at the same distance and took a screen grab of that. I tried to match them up, its not perfect but close enough...you can click to zoom in...

Eufy Camera @ 1080p


iPhone Camera @ 1080p


The point of all that was to say, megapixels isn't is the bottleneck of the camera. Its just there isn't enough image data there due to the low bit rate. As tech progresses and prices drop these cheap cameras will get better. I'll ignore the color accuracy because its a security camera.

Now don't get me wrong, it works well enough but I would struggle to make out facial details if I ever needed to unless someone walked right up the camera. Its a bit deceiving too, it doesn't look bad looking around the room with its wide FOV, but you'd struggle with details.

I would recommend high quality name brand 1080p cameras. Canary is even worse, avoid them. Ring is pretty decent but I've had issues with their flood IR lens not retracting in the daytime. From what I've seen Nest 1080p HDR cameras are really good since they can balance bright and dark into the image really well.

4k cameras with a HUB is a good option too. Cameras capture at high quality and send their stream to a hub using a proprietary protocol (or wire) and the hub uses higher quality hardware to encode the video with a high quality codec. This way the camera can focus on being a good camera and the hub can focus on being a good encoder.

 

[ozsmac]

Hope you don't mind me asking, how did you change the permission from (owner) to (admin)?

@Bl0ckHe1d, no problem at all:

Open Home app on an iOS device (steps are slightly different for MacOS)
Tap the Home picture in the top left hand corner
Tap Home Settings
Tap the person you want to check under People
Tap Cameras
Tap Stream & View Recordings

The iTunes account you are logged in as on the device you are running the above, must be a Resident Owner or Resident Admin account to be able to change the setting.

Why?
My guess - If you (like me) previously used a "central/shared" iTunes account for sharing purchases with your family (before family sharing was a thing), this will be the cause of the issue, because the additional accounts you added to your family won't have this setting by default, only the "central/shared".