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Camera continuously switching between day/night modes

Denis28

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I bought the camera Hikvision DS-2CD2421G0-IW. I was glad that it records a great picture even in low light conditions. So I decreased sensitivity in the settings from 4 to 6, so the camera switches to the night mode in the lower light:
DayNightSwitchSensiivity.png


But now I'm having an issue - the camera during dawning and sunset continuously switches every 5 seconds for about a half an hour.
I tried to find a solution on the internet and what I understood: when the camera switches to the night mode it removes IR filter from the lens matrix allowing more light to come on the lens, the camera thinks that now it's lighter and it switches to the day mode where it puts IR filter back. This causes to receive less light from the environment and the camera thinks that it became darker and switches back to the night mode causing endless looping...

I found on the internet the following solution for other cameras: it's required to increase hysteresis - set different sensitivities for night and day modes. For example - set 6 for switching to night mode and set 3 for switching to day mode. This prevents continuous switching.
The problem is that I haven't found how to do it for my camera. On the above screenshot, we can see that the camera provides only one common setting that serves for both switches - from day to night and from night to day.

Are there some tools or some sort of hidden settings where I can configure it?
If not, what else can I do in order to solve this issue?

What I already tried:
  1. Updated firmware from manufacturer site - this didn't help - nothing was changed.
  2. I tried to enable and disable Smart Supplement Light and its modes - nothing helps.
  3. I tried to disable IR light at all - the camera switches every 5 seconds during a half an hour even without embedded IR light!
  4. Tried to increase filtering time - everything remains the same except one thing - now it switches not every 5 seconds, but every 20 seconds or like this.

I would be very grateful if someone helps me or gives more ideas on how this issue can be solved.

Thanks in advance!
 
Hi @Denis28

If you look at the user manual for this camera you will see an explanation of the sensitivity and filtering time settings:

The sensitivity ranges from 0 to 7, the higher the value is, the easier the mode switches. The Filtering Time refers to the interval time between the day/night switch. You can set it from 5s to 120s.

So by going from 4 to 6 on the sensitivity scale you have actually made it more sensitive to light level changes which is probably why you are seeing this issue at sunrises/sunsets, if you want the IR switch to happen later you need to reduce the sensitivity to 2 or maybe lower.
 
The manual confuses matters in the way the operation is described. The Hikvision tutor explained during the HCSA course. When it says "the higher the value is, the easier the mode switches" - it's actually saying that the camera will switch from monochrome to colour easier IE in lower light. In essence the higher the number, the longer it stays in colour - it will remain in colour later into the evening and switch back from monochrome to colour earlier in the morning (at the expense of more visible noise). Because of this as you've seen, you get the issue where it switches back and forth during the transition at dawn and dusk. You need to set the filtering time up to at least a minute to reduce the issue, but it will still switch a few times as the ambient light fluctuates.
 
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