Camera: image transmission takes far too long (latency to high)

[loftmyndCH]

I am aware that this topic has already been discussed several times here. But it is important to me to take it up again to show Meraki how urgent this is.

The cameras in our company have a latency of about 15 seconds. This is simply too long for a security camera. Is there a way to intercept the stream directly and display it live on a monitor? What measures can I take to reduce latency?
We use Cisco Meraki switches, firewalls, access points and cameras.

Is anyone from Meraki reading here?

Mike

[BrechtSchamp]

They are reading here frequently yes, but this is not the best channel to reach out to them. The community forum is a sort of crowd sourcing for help. I suppose it's a form of marketing and also to take part of the load off of the helpdesk.

As for your issue, are you viewing the footage over the cloud connection or are you locally connected? You can know based on the icon shown at the bottom left of the video screen, a cloud means over the cloud, a checkbox means local. I tested it on one of our cams and I have a 5 second delay for the footage when locally connected, not 15. According to the docs it should be between 5 and 10 seconds.

[loftmyndCH]

ok, thank you.

the latency is about 15-20 seconds when i'm locally connected. over the cloud, the latency is not the point. we need a fast connection, because the camera monitors an area of a machine that cannot be seen from the machine control panel. if there are people in the area, the machine must be stopped manually. but if the latency is about 15-20 seconds, thats too late to stop it....

[BrechtSchamp]

That seems like a safety flaw indeed. But usually this kind of thing should be handled using a cage with safety contacts right? Something like this:

https://www.pilz.com/en-GB/products-solutions/sensor-technology/safety-gate-systems

Relying on manual intervention based on camera footage seems like a bad idea?

What does your network look like, how many components are in between the camera and the client watching the footage? 15-20 seconds is adding 5 to 10 second on top of what the docs describe and 10 to 15 on top of my test. That seems like an eternity to me in the networking world.

[loftmyndCH]

Yes, of course, but that's not the point. to explain I've probably abbreviated too much. but the functionality of the machine doesn't really matter. what's important is that we have to maintain a latency of less than 10 seconds, that's why my questions are also important.

there is a meraki ms355 X2 switch between the camera and the computer that displays the camera. It's interesting that the camera once had a very short latency shortly after installation (at a height of 10m), which gradually increased.

[BrechtSchamp]

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@loftmyndCH wrote:

It's interesting that the camera once had a very short latency shortly after installation (at a height of 10m), which gradually increased.

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That's bizarre. Does a reboot of the camera reset the delay to the original?

Do you have another camera that is more easily reachable? If not it's going to be hard to test stuff. In that case I'd recommend to get in touch with the helpdesk and ask them to send another camera on trial, so you can check whether you have the issues with that one too.

[NolanHerring]

When you do get the camera feed, bottom left corner, is it stating LOCAL LAN or CLOUD?

[BrechtSchamp]

@NolanHerring 

@loftmyndCH wrote:

the latency is about 15-20 seconds when i'm locally connected. over the cloud, the latency is not the point.

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😉

[NolanHerring]

Ah didn't see that. Was just double checking that it was actually setting up the connection as Local LAN, instead of assuming it is because 'it should' 😃

[BlakeRichardson]

@loftmyndCH  I suggest if this camera is used as a safety device you would be better to have a system that has a local NVR or better yet coaxial. If latency is an issue I would not be installing Meraki MV for that role.

[PhilipDAth]

From my experience using a Meraki camera over a LAN typically has a latency of 7 seconds.

What is the ping time to the camera from the machine watching the camera?

Are you using the 3.33 firmware?

[BlakeRichardson]

@loftmyndCH  Also no your cannot intercept the stream, Meraki has this locked down very well. RTSP is not supported on Meraki cameras.