Amcrest/IP Cam control

Is anyone aware of a amcrest ip cam integration. I see one for ST but haven't seen if it has been converted. If not, I may give it a go. I dont want to capture image or anythink looking primarily to control PZT based on events. I.e motion detected near front door swivel camera to pzt position of front door; Since I capture constantly to NAS, I don't need the integration to do anything but control camera position.

I've looked over the Amcrest API and it's pretty straight forward. I've also saw the ST driver which is fine but I will need to dig into conversions to do anything with it.

Thanks.

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+1 on getting something to work with Amcrest. I have their Doorbell video camera and the IP3M-941 cameras.

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Could be interesting, i has a few IP3M-943 cameras

I just got a Amcrest door bell. Any luck on this?

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Iā€™d be interested to see this as well. Specifically I would like to be able to have a series of snapshots, stored on my NVR, that are triggered by a motion event and would continue until the motion sensor is inactive.

I can't speak for the PTZ controls, but I know when it comes to automation, a few of us Amcrest owners, including myself, use Blue Iris. There is a Blue Iris app for Hubitat [RELEASE] BI Control - Local Blue Iris control. I'm literally working on mine as we speak, and have my cameras integrated on my dashboard. Unfortunately, I don't have a wealth of knowledge yet in this, but if you peak in the above link, you may find some solutions. Good luck and hope this somewhat helps.

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I have 8 amcrest cameras for years now. Just got HE and am exploring things. I also own an amcrest NVR which captures all video, keeps track of motion. The only thing missing is getting the amcrest nvr or cameras to tell HE about motion. I do not want to buy blue iris, not just for the cost but I hate hogging a system up with that and is why I got the nvr.

Someone mentioned an amcrest api?

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The amcrest API is available. I was going to see if I could at very least wrap the PTZ commands and maybe alarm into Groovy to play with but. 1. I've never written to Groovy or Hubitat before, 2. I probably don't have the developer chops. 3. I defiantly haven't had the time.

I would love to work on this if someone could give me a kickstart on groovy. My IDE is VSC I have the Groovy plug-in Just don't know where to start in using Groovy for Hubitat.

For anyone interested the link to the api is below. I have played with this outside of hubitat and have been able to control the camera with these raw api functions. . [Link to amcrest http api document]
This would be a fun weekend project for me if I could find a 'simple' example of writing groovy -> Hubitat

(https://s3.amazonaws.com/amcrest-files/Amcrest+HTTP+API+3.2017.pdf)

Thanks for the comprehensive API. I am a developer, Grovy does not look too tough. But like you I lack time :slight_smile:

I will study what can be done with this. Streaming video is not needed as I do that with my phone, pc and nvr. What I would like to master is capturing motion alarms and have that trigger a HE rule. I do not want to buy any additional software to do it, in case someone wants to suggest that :slight_smile:

Rule Machine rules can be triggered by http endpoints, so if the cameras (or NVR) can post to an endpoint when they sense motion, that can be used to kick off a rule in rule machine.

Rule Machine actions can also send http commands, so that may allow for the cameras to receive PTZ commands.

I have not tried to make extensive use of these rule machine capabilities, and I'm not a developer, but hopefully this helps :slight_smile:.

That document is over 3 years old and one of the changes is that they no longer support basic authentication. I know you can no longer access Amcrest cameras in a browser using a format such as http://user:password@ipaddress and I believe that is related. I think you can still use Digest Authentication but I am ignorant on that and have no idea how to implement.

I was able to use some of the urls on a very new camera. Snapshot worked for example

Yeah I've used it to do simple ptz movement it works. There is also a newer version. Out if you search amcrest http app is easily found. Id be happy just to wrap ptz, alarm into hubitat. PVR can donthe rest. But if ptz is achieved no reason not to use the other functions the app exposes

Anything ever come of this thread? I am deliberating between an NVR and Blue Iris. I would like to avoid BI if possible. If someone has Amcrest talking back and forth with HE, that would be huge news!

unfortunately Ive not had time to delve into Groovy. What I have done is setup a raspberry PI to to interface with Amcrests API using Python. for now I'm just using that to provide input for sharptool.io dashboards.

would love a simple groovy example showing hubitat sending http get

Not sure why you would want to avoid BI unless it is because it only runs on Windows. I've been using it for years and with the the recent addition of multiple AI options it is better than ever. I'm using an IP camera's motion sensor with AI to detect only people at my front door which triggers several rules in HE.

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For now, all I'm doing is using Rule Machine to send http post commands to enable/disable motion capture when my garage door is open. It works great.

would you be kind enough to share the rule as a starting point for me.
Thanks in advance

Once I finish with work later tonight I'll post what I have.

All I'm doing is using Rule Machine to send an http POST under "Select Actions to Run" when a trigger event happens. For me that's the garage door opening or closing.

The http post looks like this:
Disable Motion Capture

http://admin:password@IP ADDRESS/cgi-bin/configManager.cgi?action=setConfig&MotionDetect0.Enable=false

Where admin is the camera's user account and password is whatever you've configured it to. IP ADDRESS is self explanatory. To ENABLE motion capture, I just have another rule that detects the opposite trigger event and at the end of the above post statement,

Enable=false

is changed to

Enable=true

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