Cameras

What is everyone favorite cameras both indoor and outdoor. Both for usability, compatibility with HE and integration into Dashboards????

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I'm never really sure what people are asking for when they want cameras that are "compatible" with Hubitat (or any smart home hub). For Dashboard, those are just webpages, so if whatever solution you end up using has a way to display a still or stream or whatever you want in a way compatible with a modern web browser, you can make that work. I don't have any desire to do this but know some people here have, and I'm sure you can find some ideas with a search.

Personally, I use Wyze Cams. Mine are all outdoor (at entrances to my house), which they aren't technically designed for and should soon be coming out with one that is, but they're working fine reasonably protected in an enclosure for me. They have downfalls (for one: the stock firmware only allows local recording--super local, like to the onboard SD card--and something like free 20-second cloud clips; so if someone steals the camera, you'd better hope the cloud has what you want). But they're so cheap (around $25 USD) that I don't care. They also don't really integrate with Hubitat, though both Wyze and Hubitat have IFTTT channels and you can use that as an intermediary to control some aspects of the camera if you want. I don't really use this much because the camera does everything well enough on its own (you have options to record all the time, record only on motion, get notified of motion or just people--or will when person detection comes back if you're on the latest firmware--and more), though I do have it send motion events to Hubitat via IFTTT so I can use it as part of a Zone Motion Controller for outside (which is otherwise quite sensitive to false motion events). I think you can also enable/disable recording via IFTTT (you certainly can from Wyze itself), but with them being only outside, I've never found a reason to want to.

I'm sure you'll get better ideas if your specific requirements are important to you. I once thought they may have been to me, but for $25 and how reliable they've otherwise been for me, I stopped caring that much. :slight_smile: (Oh, and they do have RTSP firmware available, but it's stuck at an old version and will never get things like person detection. Still, it may help, depending on what you need--and then it would be more usable with full-fledged software you might want to use in conjunction with it.)

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Thanks for the info. I have been checking into the Wyze cams lately, mainly due to price. Do the Wyze cams offer the stream address so they can be tiled on a dashboard? Likewise do you now if they integrate with Google Assistant / Nest Hub for display?

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I don't have GH/Nest but I don't think they do. For Dashboard, I'm not aware of any native way to do that, but with software and the RTSP firmware you might have some hope. I don't do this so you'll probably get better information by searching and reading other forum threads (or waiting for someone who has to chime in here).

I have these kind of links on image tiles with one second refresh:

http://user:password@ipadress:port/cgi-bin/currentpic.cgi

I cannot get video in format that video tile would accept, so that is the one that works with my Xiaomi Dafang cameras.

I've been here for about a year and I still don't know what we're doing with cameras. Wyze would be my choice because of their 'disposable' price and several of us here have had good luck with using indoor devices outdoors. RSTP seems to be the way to go, and I'm currently watching this thread

Wyze cams are on sale at home depot for 12.50.... they work great outside, i dont even have them in cases, just under the eaves on the house so they dont have water pouring into them when it rains. 9 months going strong...

The recording doesn't have to be super local, use the rtsp firmware and record to a server as well :wink:

As for hubitat integration, with a little hackery you can easily have your your rstp feeds on your dashboard

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I have not been able to get my wyze cam to display on my Google Home for months. Several people on the wyze forum have had the same problem. You cannot display either the stock stream or the RTSP stream from the alternate firmware on a dashboard without running through another program to render it into an HTTP stream.

How? Your browser can't display an RTSP stream. it has nothing to do with hubitat . Your browser is the issue. You have to render them into HTTP in another place to display them on a dashboard.

motioneye on a pi works great for this.

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That's what I use too.

As a Wyze owner and intrigued by this topic, the first thing I thought of is “VLC can probably do this” and some light searching turned this up

Old thread but probably still valid as it has some discussion from last year in there

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My IP cameras around my home are all Dauha camera with Hikvision doorbell camera. So far nothing can beat them at night time and smart motion detect are awesome on those camera.

If you have Alexa, you might want to check this app out ... it to integrate the ip camera into it. I have not use it but maybe it something that could be bridge to HE?

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I have HK IP cameras and use ShinobiCE on my debian office box and use the url it generates for a image feed in HE.

@anon62731458 where did you see this HD sale? Is it just local for you?

With these WYZE cams? can THEY be used as a motion sensor to trigger other events?

The wyze cams can talk to IFTTT so they can be used for motion sensors. I would not use one to be the only motion sensor in a zone.

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All home depots in the US. Not sure if they are no longer going to be carrying them at all or if they are clearing inventory for a newer model. But i went 2 weeks ago and wiped out my local HD, got the last 8 of em they had.

I downloaded the latest list of supported devices and found that there are no cameras in the list. Though I would really like the video, I would settle for motion detection. Battery level would be a plus, and video would be awesome.

I have Eufy and Foscam cameras, and would prefer not to replace them, but I will if the functionality is worth it.

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It's not the feeds I'd be interested in if I asked for something compatible with a smart home system I'd be wanting it to receive their motion notifications etc as a means to triggering something - maybe lights or sirens. The feed isn't the issue since it's usually quicker to get the feed opening the camera's native app or come to that, your NVR cos if you get your lights and sirens responding right there is probably nothing happening by the time you wake up :slight_smile:

Out of the box, working IFTTT is the best you can hope for to get motion events. I consider that too slow, imo. There is no business case for Camera builders to do the integration with Hubitat and I wouldn't expect Hubitat to do the work for every camera brand and model out in the wild. It's a little better if you have a popular NVR system/software that has API. Some of those have integrations.