Hik-Connect Hik-Connect excessive data use

[canvcol]

Hello, I have a Hikvision IP camera in a remote location working via a 3G mobile broadband connection. It has been working well via the hik-connect app.

However, since approx December 2019, the system has been consuming a lot of data, I estimate 2GB a day. Before that we did not have a problem of running out of data bundle before the month's end. We are finding now that our bundle runs out in the 2nd week of the month and has to be often topped up.

Unfortunately I have not had a chance to try to set up data usage monitoring on the 3G router. But, I have a suspicion that the camera is connecting and streaming to the hik-connect server even when no-one is viewing the stream.

Does anyone have any insight to this? Have there been any recent changes to the hik-connect platform that might cause this? Any suggestions on what to check/set to minimise the data consumption?

Many thanks

 

[JB1970]

Check the Hik Connect app on the devices on which you're viewing the camera. If you've added the IP camera using the Hik Connect method make sure that the icon is showing "Basic" on the lower menu bar and not "HD". If you connected the camera to the app using the direct IP/Server address method make sure that the quality while viewing on each device is set to "Fluent" (sub stream) rather than "Clear" (main stream). Depending on how many users have access, someone may have changed the quality setting as above and this will massively impact the amount of data used, while streaming. Obviously you can switch to Clear/HD when necessary to see the higher quality main stream that the camera records but for normal viewing on a phone screen it's unnecessary and should be switched back when not needed.

Some years ago I left my phone viewing my CCTV set to Clear overnight on my iPhone, while connected to my home WiFi and connected to the external IP address of my router (some routers allow this loopback, some don't). At some point during the night, my iPhone dropped it's WiFi connection and reconnected to the stream over 4G..... In the morning I had three texts from O2. "you have used 80% of your mobile data", "you have used 90% of your mobile data", "you have used all of your mobile data" Lesson learned

 

[canvcol]

Thanks JB. There's only 3 of us with access (as far as I know) and our habits haven't changed since before december (again as far as I know!). Furthermore, when I recently logged in to the remote router which provides 3G internet to the camera, I noticed, in real time, the camera was sending a lot of data (streaming?) to an IP address in Germany (we are based in Kenya), which I presume was the Hik-connect server. Unfortunately I haven't had the time or skills to set up logging on the router to get a better idea, or to do any further investigation...

 

[Phil]

Check you are running the latest firmware.

And, set a new access password.