Xiaomi Mijia Aqara Smart Ip Camera - Connection Timed Out

[Arus73]

While doing the initial setup, I selected "Mainland China" as the location in Mi Home and while trying to establish the connection to the Home Wifi network, the connection always fails at 89% giving the error - "Connection timed out". Despite repeated trials I always get the error at 89% (sometimes 90%) of the connection process. I am using Mi Home 5.0.28 on Android 7 with a Samsung Galaxy A5 2016 phone. I tried at two different houses and wifi networks, but both showed the connection time out error. I own other 14 Xiaomi devices (including a Dafang 1080 camera and a Yi Ants camera) which work perfectly with my present wifi setup and I never experienced this kind of connection problem on setup.

Incidentally, I tried setting up my phone as a mobile hotspot. I took a Nexus 7 2013 tablet with Mi Home app and I connected it to the phone's wifi hotspot. I then tried adding the Aqara camera on the Nexus and the camera connected fine to the hotspot without the connection time out problem. The problem is that, if I switch off the mobile hotspot on the phone, and I start the Aqara camera on Mi Home, it tells me that the current network is not available. If I switch on again the mobile hotspot, the camera is able to load and to work.
The problem is that I want to connect the camera to the home wifi, not to the phone hotspot!
After connecting the camera to the phone's mobile hotspot, I updated the camera's firmware to the latest available. After this, I resetted the camera and tried the setup process from the beginning and pointed to the home wifi network. Unfortunately, I keep getting the connection time out problem at 89%...

It seems like the Xiaomi Aqara camera doesn't like something in my home's wifi network. This is strange because my Xiaomi Dafang camera connects to it without any problem...

Here are the current settings of my router's wifi network:
- wifi mode : 802.11 b/g/n
- wifi encryption : WPA-PSK [TKIP] + WPA2-PSK [AES]
- bandwidth : 20 MHz
- channel selection : Auto
- Name (SSID) : it's less than 32 characters
- SSID broadcasting : enabled
- DHCP Server : enabled
- Firewall Features : off
- Ipsec PassThrough (VPN) : off
- PPTP PassThrough (VPN) : off
- Multicast : enabled
- Port Scan Detection : enabled
- IP Flood Detection : enabled
- FTP Protection : enabled

Any help is highly appreciated!

Thanks

 

[markusd1984]

I have the same issue, after connecting to the cam during setup it never completes, instead it times out, a Chinese message is played probably saying that it doesn't work outside china like the other Xiaomi cam's and blue LEDs keep blinking

Shocking if Aqara blocks it already during setup. Hope somebody comes up with a solution to hack it, ideally via sd card.

Useless.

Sent from my trltexx using Tapatalk

 

[imsyB]

Make sure your Wifi SSID has no speacial characters or numbers. Change it to a simple SSID and retry. It solved it for me.

 

[Arus73]

I don't think it has a country ban like the Yi Ants because I could connect to my phone's hotspot and use it while I was connected to the hotspot.
The issue is probably in the house wifi settings. My SSID doesn't have special characters unless a space or a "." are considered like that.
But then again, why my Dafang and Chuangmi cameras have no problem with that? There is certainly a bug with the Aqara.

 

[Regny]

Just made an account to post this

My SSID was Pretty fly for a Wifi, always failing at 89% no dice.

Changed it to just my lastname, single worded. Connected instantly no problem whatsoever.

Try it

 

[markusd1984]

I don't think it has a country ban like the Yi Ants because I could connect to my phone's hotspot and use it while I was connected to the hotspot.
The issue is probably in the house wifi settings. My SSID doesn't have special characters unless a space or a "." are considered like that.
But then again, why my Dafang and Chuangmi cameras have no problem with that? There is certainly a bug with the Aqara.

I read your comment before which gave me some hope, so I changed my guest WiFi name as it had spaces in it and a dash, turns out it solved it!! Almost can't believe it, setup went so quick

Unbelievable that a product is released on such scale and you would think they have tested different WiFi access points or at least find out about the problem and write about it to make customer aware.

I got a firmware update prompt but am scared to run it given the region blocks that came into the other Xiaomi cameras

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[markusd1984]

Just made an account to post this

My SSID was Pretty fly for a Wifi, always failing at 89% no dice.

Changed it to just my lastname, single worded. Connected instantly no problem whatsoever.

Try it

Lol me too just now, excited for joy. (My camera was packed away for weeks after many many failed attempts and countless hours of research).

Enjoy

 

[markusd1984]

Unfortunately I can only connect via WiFi, not over the internet, even though the camera appears online in mi home.

That gives you only half the benefit if you can't remotely monitor.

Anybody tried updating the firmware or has more details about it?

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[markusd1984]

Make sure your Wifi SSID has no speacial characters or numbers. Change it to a simple SSID and retry. It solved it for me.

Are you able to connect remotely into it on mobile data (chinese mi home)?

1) Also do you notice a glare and lens reflection in night mode?
Far worse if not useless compared to other Xiaomi cameras, tried cleaning t without success.

I think it must have less infrared LEDs then the others when I thought it had the same or more.

2) Also is there no way to disable the blue light or red ones during night? (I tried changing the "open light" setting but it times out and doesn't get deactivated).

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[Arus73]

Thanks for the inputs guys. I will try as soon as I have some time. Regarding the connection working only on wifi, I remember the nightmare I had with the Dafang camera suffering the exact same problem. On the dafang it was solved with firmware and Mi Home app updates (probably following several complaints).

 

[Arus73]

Problem solved! The issue was indeed with the SSID name. No space or special characters were accepted by the Aqara camera. I wrote to Xiaomi tech support and pointed out the bug telling them that the other Xiaomi cameras didn't have same problem with the SSID name. They released a firmware update n. 3.3.7_224.0143 which solved the SSID bug and now my camera accepts the space in the SSID name. Yuppy!!!

 

[imsyB]

@Markus D.

I have not noticed any glare on the night mode. As its a very wide angle camera - it picks up reflection from nearby objects from the infra red LEDs. It works best on the wall or ceiling.

To turn off the blue led. In the Mi Home app select the camera and go to "Camera Settings" and turn off "open light" option.


Once you have the camera in the Mi Home app - you can view it on the app from anywhere using mobile data or wifi.
I have not found a way to stream the video without using the Mi Home app. I want to connect it to my Home Assistant server but local lan support is not enabled on this camera.

 

[markusd1984]

@Markus D.

I have not noticed any glare on the night mode. As its a very wide angle camera - it picks up reflection from nearby objects from the infra red LEDs. It works best on the wall or ceiling.

To turn off the blue led. In the Mi Home app select the camera and go to "Camera Settings" and turn off "open light" option.
View attachment 18171

Once you have the camera in the Mi Home app - you can view it on the app from anywhere using mobile data or wifi.
I have not found a way to stream the video without using the Mi Home app. I want to connect it to my Home Assistant server but local lan support is not enabled on this camera.

After I updated the firmware I was able to change the settings for disabling blue light and even night mode which before just timed out.

Also I can now connect remotely, just get the annoying message about mobile usage which unfortunately can't be disabled where xioami simply has it as a small message underneath the video that can be closed with an X.

I get to realise how much better the xioami camera software is. Even scrolling through the timeline just doesn't work as it's very hard to select a recording, xioami instead enlarges the timeline which is way more user friendly.

The 3 LEDs are just not enough, beside that they are visible ones, I regret the purchase now. While I loved to try out the 180 angle this is the only feature with a real competitive advantage, I don't need the hub as I have the gateway already.

Even the 1080p HD quality seems poor, I haven't tried a xioami 1080p but aqara one is very hard to see when zoomed in a little, it gets worse as you can't move into all the corners when zoomed in, rediciulous.

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[Arus73]

Ok the quality could be better, but for 20 bucks I don't see many regrets. I needed the gateway functionality and I got a camera on top of that at a price lower than the gateway alone. The wide angle is also very much impressive as it is able to set views apparently outside the camera range.

 

[belu09]

Hi, do you know where i can download firmware for offline flash by SD card ?
Thank you.

 

[Arus73]

Sorry, I have no idea...

 

[eq4ever]

Sadly renaming the SSID doesn't work for me Any tips what setting you used e.g. channel, encryption, chars used in the password etc?
I think I've already tried every possible combination, but still time out at ~90% just as you did

I have about 30 Xiaomi devices at home and none have any connectivity issues. I guess I had to run into a problem eventually

 

[Arus73]

You can see all my settings in my post of 17 January. Apart from SSID, which must be a single word without special characters, it's important to have the wifi mode set to 802.11 b/g/n, NOT to 802.11 n only. My password is a short combination of numbers and letters (all capital letters) without any special characters. I noted that sometimes it gets timed out at 90%, but then if you wait some seconds it completes alone the connection (look at the blue blinking light: if it stops blinking, even after time out, it's a good sign that the connection will be completed).

 

[eq4ever]

Thanks! After 4 hours I've finally connected and upgraded the firmware Longest 4 hours of my life

 

[Simon Prior]

Hi all - well i am nearly 3 hours in to trying to get it working, i have tried everything well i think i have... SSID 5 simple letters , password very simple no capitals, 2,4ghz only tried rebooting the cam by removing and inserting the sd card - still times out, now just reloaded the mi app on to my wifes iphone and still the same time out... So now i am going to have a time out -- please if anyone can help this would be great,,

 

[marceli]

I had to retry it maybe once but then it connects to the app (on android, Samsung A5 2017). But I'm not able to get motion detection working :/

 

[judith]

my problem is Mi app cannot detect my unit(AQARA smart camera gateway). I have switched to China(region) and still it is not working. does anyone have the same problem, please share on how to go about this problem?

 

[Arus73]

The camera worked flawlessly for about 9 months until Xiaomi released the MiHome app update 5.3.19. After the update when I try to connect to the camera it loads until 36% and then gives me the error message "The current network is not available" (see attached). Anyone else experiencing same problem? All other devices and cameras I have work just fine.

 

[Arus73]

Actually, I realize that my Aqara Smart Camera Gateway can only be accessed when I am in the same wifi network of the camera. If I am outside and I try to load the camera, it arrives to 36% and then it stops saying that "The current network is not available" as per previous post. A security camera which can only be accessed when I am inside my house is completely useless.

 

[MarkHUK]

Actually, I realize that my Aqara Smart Camera Gateway can only be accessed when I am in the same wifi network of the camera. If I am outside and I try to load the camera, it arrives to 36% and then it stops saying that "The current network is not available" as per previous post. A security camera which can only be accessed when I am inside my house is completely useless.

You purchased Chinese products for Mainland only use.. It even states so on the packaging.