Any recommandation for a camera with the following requirements?

Hi there,

I’l looking for a camera with the following capabilities :

  • ptz
  • rtsp/mjpeg/snapshot
  • position presets
  • tour presets
  • night vision (adjust sensitivity is a plus)
  • motion detection (with zones)
  • FTP upload of snapshot/footage taken by motion detection
  • good api !
  • works with HA of course :wink:

I’m currently testing a Amcrest and this brand is horrible ! (very poor api, poor and bugs in the built-in web interface)
e.g. : api => unable to check if night vision is enabled, the current preset position is always = 0, and a snapshot from the api is detected as a motion …

Thank you.

i have a foscam F19828P V2 that has all that.

and i am quite pleased with it.

with hadashboard i have it look like this:

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This is perfect !
Thank you very much . I wish I had known Foscam before.

For other people who could be interested I found Foscam API doc (I’m not sure it’s the latest version though)

@ReneTode has done a lot of the work on that and posted here on the forum. Might be a good place to start rather than wading throught he API doc.

@silvrr : Bookmarked ! Thanks.
The link to his Github leads to a 404.
This is the good one

i use that doc to control the cams.

i am still working on V2 from my Appdaemon app to control the camera.
its coming quite good together now.

i am documenting on github now and still doing the last parts for people with old foscams. (which isnt easy because i cant test that :wink: )

my app is now also able to generate dashboards like i have shown and show fullscreen dsahboard on motion detection.
and it generates the latest warnings on screen

and yeah sorry i completely rearranged my github :wink:

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@ReneTode : Very good job ! Can’t wait to get a Foscam and try this out !
Dank u ! :wink:

but i have to warn you @HooverG:

allthough i am very pleased with the cam and with the pictures and possibilities it has some flaws.

it is working very good on its own and its quite reliable, but integrating it and controling it through HA isnt perfect.
i noticed that as soon as the cam is recording because of motion, it gets to busy and it isnt reachable for a short while.
probably because at that moment a lot of things happen at the same time:

  • cam is recording
  • cam is sending data to FTP
  • cam is sharing live video with HA

when these things are happening the cam wont react to cgi commands.
most of the time no problem unless you want to automate actions around the cam in HA.
motion detection in the cam works perfect (with all possibilities) but in HA all you will have is an motion sensor that checks every 10 seconds for the state.

dont want you to be dissapointed because i didnt tell the downsides.

graag gedaan :wink:

I can understand those downsides and I can deal with it.
I don’t want to do crazy stuffs with the cameras. Like probably 95% of the users the purpose is to monitor and record if something happens when I’m away

The final goal is to use the cam on a tablet with AppDaemon (+maybe screenshots every 10secs on HA I won’t need a live stream) but the starting point is HA for now.
In parallel I’m building 2 Dockers to combine them with the cameras and I’m not in a rush :wink:

  • automate tablets screen on/off based on pir (or other events) + config with adb and mqtt
  • automatically upload the new cameras snapshots/footage from the local ftp to dropbox and delete local files.
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i got an FTP server on my RPI.
i have 3 foscams that upload to that FTP server when motion detected
an AD app automaticly uploads the files to my PC when its on, so i can view it easy on my PC.
i have two tablets (livingroom and kitchen) that monitor 2 cams continously
on motion detection it goes to full screen.
i have 1 app running that takes a picture every full hour to a different directory.
i use that to get speedy view from my garden over time.

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I always recommend Axis cameras but they’re not on the cheap side

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what is not cheap?

the cam i have is near 250 dollar

250 dollar for a ptz cam is cheap :slight_smile:

depends on how you look at it.

the cheapest PTZ that are out there are 50 dollar.
compared to that 250 isnt cheap.

but compared to the most expensive once it is cheap :wink:

My comparison was with Axis cameras. But you are right :slight_smile:

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oke, so i must conclude that the axis cameras are very expensive :wink:

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Good evening Rene, I have the same camera but i don’t fix it. Can you help me with the code.
Thank you.

Kind regards
Ed

sorry but i think your translator is defect :wink:
which camera are you talking about, and what doesnt work?