Camera 1 (don’t remember brand) ordered from Amazon. Looked at the link DETAILS and it explicilty said “No API or ONVIF support”. I immediately cancelled before it shipped.
Camera 2 - Reolink Solar powered, 2K, WiFi. After some discussion and explanation here about solar (battery!) downfalls (the camera won’t constant stream - it’ll kill the battery). I never opened it.
Camera 3 - Dahua Wifi, 2K. After 3 days of no success finding the camera on the network at any advertised address either with a browser looking for the page, a network IP scan, Dahua’s app, and the IP Camera Binding, trying both 192.168.0.x and 192.168.1.x (Dahua says their default is 192.168.1.108). Fine print - this is a “white box” OEM unbranded Dahua camera. “No support”. Well - it appears the OEM requested a different default IP. But I don’t know WHO the OEM is, so can’t find any info.
Camera 4 - Reolink 2K WiFi. Instructions imply DHCP. I plugged it in. It found DHCP address. The Reolink app found it immedately. Less than 5 minutes. I don’t know yet how the IP Camera binding will work (I’m not at home right now). But I suspect it will be happy.
So - Camera’s 2 and 3 go back.
I will let you know tonight how the IP Camera Binding does.
So these cameras have a static IP address? That’s pretty presumptive on their part. What if your network isn’t even on the 192.168.1.x subnet?
Assuming the camera joined your network though, you ought to be able to see it in the DHCP table of your router. Or you could use a tool like Fing to scan your network. It’s pretty good at identifying at least the basic type of devices. I bet it will recognize it as a camera. If not, you ought to be able to use process of elimination.
Regardless, you’re sending the camera back to the above is mostly academic. I only posted it in case someone else encounters this problem in the future.
Dahua themselves say that they default to (a static IP of) 192.168.1.108. Yeah. You think I wasn’t tearing my hair out because my network was not ON that block in the first place? In this day and age, why would ANYTHING be “forced” to an address to start?
I finally created an isolated test network with DHCP, my laptop and the camera. Tried the 192.168.1 and the .0 with no luck. Was worth a try since they SAID is was .1. No matter what, no camera. Just my PC.
The Reolink didn’t explicitly say it was DHCP, but the way the instructions were written implied it. Popped right up, just like one would expect ANY new network device to work!
Remember - the fine print on my Dahua: “OEM. No support”. Which means all bets are off. It may be that a “branded” Dahua camera works just fine. My bad for not reading the fine print. I’m guessing that OEM means: “I am a company that installs SYSTEMS. And I ordered 1,000 cameras from Dahua to my own specs pre-configured to work with my pre-configured systems”. Not meant for the public in the first place.
Everybody - do not take my Dahua comments as meaning that Dahua is a problem. Read carefully. It was an “unbranded OEM” camera made by Dahua which may have been any kind of custom config. The fact that it did not work may well have been my fault for not reading the fine print. Dahua branded consumer cameras may work just as well as my Reolink has so far.
A note about Reolink. Their website states that their goal is to support exactly the type of use we have here. They want to support the open-source community and let you (us) use it exactly how we want to.
I was very pleased by that statement.
Unlike things like Ring for instance. “Oh - we decided to remove support for certain things. You have to now get a subscription to access… (your cameras?)”
Didn’t get much time last night for my fun stuff. Had to do some urgent house maintenance. Sigh…
Anyway - Plugged the Reolink in at home, set up wifi, and bazinga! Up and running. Only one quirk. When switching from Ethernet to WiFi, the camera does not show up in an IP scan. However - the Reolink app and web interface do find it. And are quite happy. I just have to mount it in it’s new home watching the back door, shed, and carport.
Using the IP Camera binding, I did a scan it could not find it. When trying to manually add as a ONVIF camera, I got a config message - “Cannot get HTTP for the snapshot directory, or password wrong” type message. “Getting” this info from this camera in the generic camera section may not be supported. And I didn’t know what to enter. And – had run out of time. So I left it for now.
If I get a chance tonight, I will try the Beta Reolink binding.
How did your camera experience go? The reolink api support has just been merged into the ipcamera binding and will be in 4.0 milestone 3 and newer when released shortly.
Any feedback to improve the binding or the documentation would be great. Knowing what trips people up can be used to either improve documentation for those that take the time to read it, or place logging comments that are useful to help people find a solution quicker.
Some quirks (partially due to my improper handling of 3.x vs 4.x) so I went back to 3.x until the M3 releases. Then I will probably totally migrate to 4 since I am only using the cameras and (at this point) several Sonoff Zigbee temp/humid sensors and door sensors. I’d be surprised if they don’t work in 4. Then I will go forward from there.
I assume there will be a “big announcement” when M3 releases?
There really hasn’t been much work on Zigbee so if it’s not supported now I’m not sure it’ll be supported in 4. On-the-other-hand, if it does work now it should definitely work in 4.
A new reply will get added to openHAB 4.0 Milestone Builds - #2 by Kai when the new milestone is released. A new thread will be created when 4.0 reaches release status.
No, just that if these temperature sensors are not supported in 3.4, no work I know of has been done to make them work in 4.0. But if they work in 3.4 already they almost certainly will continue to work in 4.
