Troubleshooting
Learn how to setup and troubleshoot your Morepork monitoring system. Follow along with ADT's step-by-step guides and handy resources.
FAQs
Have more questions? Get in touch with our friendly team today.
What happens if I lose power, WiFi or the mobile network?
Unfortunately, bad things happen. Morepork is designed with all sorts of clever backup systems to make sure you stay protected as much as possible.
If you lose power:
- You’ll get an alert if your control panel loses power. This is usually followed by another alert about power outages in your area, so you know if power loss has occurred just at your property or in the wider neighbourhood.
- Your Morepork control panel automatically switches over to a backup battery that will last 18-24 hours (based on a fully charged battery, if your battery is low please follow instructions on battery reset here). It will disable non-essential services to conserve energy, meaning you may not be able to remotely communicate with your Morepork, but if there is an issue your Morepork will communicate with you.
- If your Morepork is armed, your door & window sensors, image sensors, smoke alarms and motions sensors will continue to function and monitor your home. If triggered they will activate the control panel siren and any alerts you have set up. Your video cameras (including video doorbells) won’t work without power so you will not be able to peek-in or record video clips.
- You won’t be able to remotely lock and unlock your smart lock from the Morepork app or web portal, or create any new access codes until the power is restored. Any existing codes will still work on the lock keypad, and as a last resort you still have the key.
- Once power is restored, your Morepork will resume all functions and continue to work as normal, as well as recharging the backup battery. If your system is armed when your Morepork goes flat, the siren may sound once power is restored.
If you lose WiFi:
- Morepork predominantly uses the Spark mobile network to communicate with you. If you lose WiFi, the main impact is that your video cameras will stop working and you won’t be able to peek-in or record clips until the connection is restored.
- All other Morepork components will function as normal without WiFi, provided the Spark Mobile Network is available.
If you lose the Spark mobile network:
- If for some reason the Spark mobile network goes down in your area, your Morepork will not be able to upload images or data to the app or web portal.
- However, these are stored on the control panel and will automatically upload once the network is restored. You will not be able to control your Morepork from the app or web portal so you will have to arm or disarm directly from the control panel.
- Your Morepork will also be unable to send you alerts. However, it will continue to work like a traditional alarm system with the siren sounding if it is armed and one of your sensors is triggered.
Dual Path Communications:
- If the Spark mobile network is unavailable and your control panel is connected to a working WiFi network, Morepork can use this to communicate with you and operate as normal. For more information on connecting your panel to WiFi, please see here.
- In order for this to happen you will need to have ‘Dual Path Communication’ enabled on your account. This has been automatically enabled for most customers, but if you would like to check you have this feature please contact our Support Team.
How do I set up video motion detection (VMD)?
You can enable motion detection on your indoor or outdoor video cameras, to record clips around 40 seconds long when it detects motion.
Please note:
- Your indoor or outdoor video cameras will never trigger your alarm, even with motion detection enabled.
- Motion detection on your indoor and outdoor video cameras is a lot more sensitive than your image sensor and may respond to light changes. We recommend you test it out and update your settings to ensure you are recording only what you want and don’t run out of storage.
To get started, follow the step-by-step guide below.
How to set up VMD
1. Log in
1. Login to morepork.nz/portal using your username and password you set up and purchase.
2. Click ‘Video’ then ‘Settings’
3. Click on ‘Video Motion Detection’
2. Customise your motion detection settings
- Sensitivity – this is how sensitive your motion detection is. We recommend setting it to 5 to start with.
- Target size – this is the percentage of the VMD window that needs to change before it will record. Depending on the size of your window, this might take a bit of trial and error – the smaller the window, the larger you should make the target size, to prevent too many false motion recordings.
- Window size – this is the area the motion detection will record light changes in. We recommend drawing windows only where there shouldn’t be movement. (i.e. for an outdoor camera, exclude adding a window on a tree, as there will be a lot of light changes).
3. Add a recording schedule
Important – you must also add a recording schedule – without this, your motion detection won’t record anything.
1. Click ‘Recording Schedules’ at the top of the screen
2. Click ‘Add Schedule‘
3. Click 'Video Motion Detection‘
4. Customise your recording schedule
1. Set up your recording schedule time frame, delay, at home settings and recipients.
2. Click ‘Save Schedule’
If you and your sensitivity is too high, or not high enough, you can change these settings at anytime.
