Verkada Cameras Going Offline Overnight: The PoE Budget Problem Nobody Checks

This is the failure pattern: at 8 PM the lot cameras start dropping one by one off the Verkada Command dashboard. By 11 PM half are offline. At 6 AM as the sun comes up, they come back online. Verkada support says "no events on our side." The cameras are working — they are just not getting enough power. Here is why.

What is actually happening

Verkada outdoor cameras (D40, D50, V31, V41) draw substantially more power at night when their IR illuminators are running. A D50 that pulls 10 watts during the day can pull 25 watts at night. Multiply that by 12 cameras on a single PoE switch, and you have just exceeded the switch PoE budget. The switch then drops power to the cameras with the lowest priority, one at a time, to stay within budget.

This problem does not exist during the day. The IR cuts off, power draw halves, and everything comes back. Most NVR diagnostic logs do not even show the disconnect because the cameras come back online before the morning report runs.

How to confirm it is the PoE budget

1. SSH or web into your switch (Cisco, Meraki, FortiSwitch, Aruba — they all expose this). Pull the PoE budget vs. PoE consumed numbers.

2. If your switch is provisioned for PoE+ at 740 watts and you are seeing 720+ watts consumed at midnight, you have your answer.

3. Cross-check with Verkada Command bandwidth/power graphs. Each camera publishes its actual PoE draw. Add up the camera draws on that switch and compare to the switch allocation.

The three real fixes

Fix 1: Split the cameras across two switches. Move half the outdoor cameras to a different PoE switch in the IT closet. Most dealers we audit have a 24-port PoE switch sitting at half capacity in the next rack — use it.

Fix 2: Upgrade the switch to PoE++. A Meraki MS125 or Cisco Catalyst 9200 with 802.3bt PoE++ provides up to 90 watts per port and 1480 watts total budget. Right answer for shops with 10 or more outdoor cameras on a single switch.

Fix 3: Stop using the camera IR — install dealer-grade lot lighting. If your lot has proper sodium or LED lighting after dark, you can disable the camera IR illuminator and cut power draw by half or more. Cameras still see fine in color. This is the option most dealers ignore because nobody connects "the back lot is dark" to "my cameras drop at night."

The order to fix things

If your dealership is already short on PoE switch ports, fix 1 (split across switches) is the cheapest and most effective. If you are planning a switch refresh anyway, jump to fix 2 (PoE++) — it solves the problem and gives you headroom for the next round of camera additions. Fix 3 is the right answer in parallel; everyone benefits from a properly lit lot.

What we deploy when we onboard a dealer with this issue

Pre-scope the PoE budget across all switches. Document each camera day vs. night draw. Set thresholds in your monitoring tool (Auvik, Domotz, or Meraki dashboard) to alert at 80 percent of PoE budget. The next time a camera is added, you know — before midnight — whether you have headroom or not.

Half of every Verkada deployment we have inherited has had this exact problem. It is not a Verkada bug. It is a switch sizing oversight that compounds every time a new camera is hung.