Netbotz 455 failure rate

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

The job of maintaining our room monitor/cameras was recently dropped in my lap and I am not at all happy with the failure rate of the Netbotz 455's.

We monitor an offsite dark/unattended computer room and the Netbotz camera suddenly went dark.

I figured I would go down there prepared so I bought along a laptop with the latest Serial Port Configuration utility and View program (4.5.1) as well as latest firmware for the Netbotz. Before I went down there, I decided to run through the Netbotz camera in our storage room that were removed from service/failed for some reason.

#1 - Runs for about an hour then the temperature numbers suddenly blink/fade out and it becomes unusable. I was able to upgrade the firmware before it went wonkers.

#2 - Constantly reports a problem with the internal temperature sensor (also upgraded the firmware)

#3 - Seems to be usable. Took it with me to the offsite location.

When I got offsite, I plugged in the USB cable but it wouldn't respond/be recognized by the Serial utility.

After power-cycling it, the Serial utility saw it but would never do anything. After selecting it, it said "Booting" but never finishes. So I replace it with the only usable Netbotz I had. But even the one I replace is saying something is wrong with the temperature sensor and it doesn't recognize the external temperature sensor I plugged it.

So, I basically have 3-$2000 boat-anchors and one barely usable.

For such an expensive device, I would have thought more reliability/life. The person who used to take care of these retired and before he left, he started looking into cheap IP cameras. For $70-each, I have 3-cheap IP cameras that can do pan/zoom/tilt, send snapshots via email (if we desire) and the software allows us to view 4-of these cameras in one window.

So, what gives? Why do these Netbotz have such a high failure rate? All they do is sit there and monitor temperature/humidity/camera?

Anybody else have such bad experiences? What other alternatives are out there for doing temperature/humidity monitoring/alerting?

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

Hi Zoltan,

If the units are less than 2 years old, they're still under warranty and if they won't even start, you should consider contacting your local support to get replacements. If these are the only 3 units you have, I can say that I've not see this type of failure rate (3 for 3) without there being some type of other potentially environmental issue.

They also sound like they may potentially have power issues. Are you using the NetBotz POE injector or do you have a POE switch? If a switch, can you share the make and model so I can verify the output is similar to the output of the default injector.

Again, if you do contact support, I would ask that you work with them to try and isolate what, if anything, in your environment (power, connections, temperature, humidity, dirt, etc) that could be leading to such high failure rates. I'm not trying to lay blame anywhere but if we don't at least look, there's no way to truly discover what is happening to these units.

Thanks,

Steve

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

Thank you for the quick response.

As I mentioned, this task was dropped in my lap last year so I don't have specific dates but am pretty sure they are at least 2-years since the person who purchased them left a year ago. I will have to do some digging to find a more accurate date.

These are kept/used in clean/power/air-conditioned regulated rooms so I doubt there are environmental issues.

The POE injectors (not switches - these are the only devices using POE) are TP-LINK TL-POE150S 48V .35A. All networking equipment is CISCO (this is a university).

I have a total of 4. Three are sitting in my office due to problems with them and the one in service is registering 66-degrees temperature which I know is wrong (I installed it myself and the room is usually in the 72-74 range) and doesn't recognize the external temperature sensor at all.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

Hi Zoltan, Even if you can't pull up any POs on these units, you can get an estimate on their age by looking at the serial number. A serial number of QA15xxxxxxxx for instance would have been made in 2015 so if it's even close, you can work with you. I can tell you that the POE that you're using are about the same as what we provide in their voltage and amperage outputs. Steve

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

Hi Steve, Then these are much older than I thought. The three in my office are all QA11 making it 2011.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

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