Does Amcrest NVR work with HA

Configuration
1

Trying to find a NVR alternative to Surveillance Station, preferably a Dedicated NVR. Amcrest is pretty affordable, but I haven’t seen many succes stories here.
All my Cameras are SV3C and I plan to connect the to the NVR via ONVIF and then hopefully be able to have HA pull the cameras from the NVR.
I haven’t had the greatest success connecting the cameras directly to HA. Currently using Synology Surveillance Station, but have added more cameras and their licensing model is ridiculous.

2

I am in the same position. Did you end up trying it?

3

I ended up sticking with Synology and paying for the additional licenses which are pretty pricey.
The Cameras can be accessed via HA directly:

camera:
 - platform: onvif
   host: xx.xx.xx.xx
   username: !secret onvif_user
   password: !secret onvif_password

But it doesn’t work very well. Laggy etc. so I connect via Synology now which works really well:

camera:
 - platform: synology
   url: http://xx.xx.xx.xx:5000
   username: !secret synology_user
   password: !secret synology_password
   timeout: 15
   verify_ssl: False
4

I ended using the rtsp streams for my amcrest nvr… the amcrest component doesn’t seem to work with cameras connected through the NVR (POE). I used the ffmpeg motion for motion detection but that was a pain to get dailed in but I’m content with where I have it finally. It’s good enough for me to do a quick check on the cams and if I see something I wanna look at I go to the amcrest app anyway

5

I’m trying to connect my Reolink NVR to HA and was wondering if you could show me how you got your Amcrest working in hopes the Reolink is similar. For example what RTSP path did you use? I can use rtsp://admin:[email protected] in VLC (for testing purposes) and I can get 1 of my 4 cameras to work. I’m thinking maybe adding a channel number to the path would let me see the others?

6

You would want to test which url works for your live stream probably preview. you can test in VLC first and then follow the instructions for the ffmpeg component here:

7

Thanks. I was able to get it in HA by adding this to my config:

camera:
  - platform: ffmpeg
    input: rtsp://admin:[email protected]:554/h264Preview_01_main
    name: Camera 1

Changing the 01 to 02 made Camera 2 etc.

How did you get yours into Lovelace? I just want 4 cameras live streaming together on one tab/page without having to click on them.

8

There is a few ways I use a picture glance card… then you have to have the “stream:” component enabled and use “camera_view: live” (must have version .92) I then have the entities that apply for that camera view on the bottom, the motion sensor, light, and door that apply to that area so you can toggle them and see status

I’m going to work so when I get home tonight I can show you the actual code sorry if not much help at the moment