New contender for cheapest off the shelf RTSP camera, Galayou G7

rubin110 · February 25, 2024, 1:40am

Edit: After a bunch more testing, soldering, and getting help from the super awesome OpenIPC folks, I’ve decided the Galayou G7 has bad heating issues on both stock firmware and OpenIPC. I had one unit where the wifi device no longer enumerated over USB, until left shut off overnight. Another would freeze up on boot if an SD card was present.

I do not recommend using them and I apologize for suggesting they’re good in the first place.

Galayou G7

Amazon US currently has these at $15 USD a pop (friend’s affiliate link).

I stumbled onto this camera a week ago, specifically the G2 with pan and tilt. Both cameras have an option to enable RTSP. Once the camera is isolated away from the internet, RTSP seems to continue operating fine. There’s an app that’s required for configuration and won’t work if the camera has no internet connection (and no there’s isn’t a web UI).

The stream comes out cleaner than I would expect for a $15 camera. Night vision is ok. About a 1 second delay, though I haven’t really benchmarked it. I haven’t tried using the SD card slot. You can find screenshots within the Amazon reviews. USB type-c powered. The stand is a bit flimsy, no magnets, and mounts via slotting over 2 screws.

Frigate and HA are able to connect via RTSP. HA will also connect over ONVIF. I haven’t done any more long term tests other than around an hour, so I don’t have any data yet if the stream or camera dies after a longer period of time.

I haven’t investigated more than just loading up what’s on port 80, but it does seem to have an API.

Right now the G2 with pan and tilt is $18 USD (another friend’s affiliate link), however I couldn’t get pan and tilt working through ONVIF or at least HA didn’t know how to interact with it. Once I realized that I returned it and grabbed a few of the cheaper G7.

If I see any disconnects I’ll post an update here.

jeffcrum · February 25, 2024, 2:04am

First, I’d be careful of the ‘cheapest’.
Second, I don’t like ‘app required’ to setup. But, I believe I do have some devices like that still. I’ll replace them as soon as I have an alternative.

I am a huge fan of complete self setup. App is bad. On device UI is good (as long as ‘internet’ is not required).

Thanks though for bringing this to the community. I am sure there are others that want this functionality and are less concerned than I am about what I posted above.

I get there are all kinds of situations for all kinds of users!

ferbulous · February 25, 2024, 2:24am

Does 2 way audio work if you’re using with go2rtc?

anonymousag · February 25, 2024, 4:10am

I have one of these in storage (used for an old project where I needed an RTSP camera), if anybody wants me to test anything ill be willing to as time permits.

anonymousag · February 25, 2024, 4:31am

If anybody wants to try it out, I believe you can install OpenIPC firmware on this camera. It uses the popular Ingenic T31 chip and has exposed serial pads.

github.com

OpenIPC/wiki/blob/28f1ed0f3c37ab82a2ff296e6239f5810771c1ab/en/installation.md

# OpenIPC Wiki

[Table of Content](../README.md)

Available Installation Methods
==============================

Unfortunately IP camera manufacturers aren't **yet** shipping hardware with
OpenIPC preinstalled, so to install OpenIPC onto a camera which is still using
factory firmware images, one of the following methods must be used:

* The [Coupler](https://github.com/openipc/coupler/) project makes available
  firmware images which can be installed using the firmware upgrade mechanisms
  which are built into the factory firmware of many cameras.

* Flashing the OpenIPC firmware using the [*U Boot*
  bootloader](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_U-Boot) which is included in
  the vendor firmware. This method interrupts the normal boot process of the
  vendor firmware, and instead instructs U-Boot to load the OpenIPC firmware
  over the network, and write it to the flash storage (replacing the main

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rubin110 · February 26, 2024, 5:15pm

Thanks for the OpenIPC tip.

After a bunch more testing, soldering, and getting help from the super awesome OpenIPC folks, I’ve decided the Galayou G7 has bad heating issues on both stock firmware and OpenIPC. I had one unit where the wifi device no longer enumerated over USB, until left shut off overnight. Another would freeze up on boot if an SD card was present. I do not recommend using them and I apologize for suggesting they’re good in the first place.

lzachary0323 · March 18, 2024, 7:08pm

Do you know if I can use this indoor security camara as a webcam? I have downloaded splitcam but can’t find the RTSp URL for this device.

anonymousag · March 18, 2024, 7:19pm

ffplay rtsp://admin:[email protected]:554/live/ch0

This works on a computer with ffmpeg. Take that as you will.

lzachary0323 · March 18, 2024, 7:26pm

Thanks, I’ll let you lnow how it goes

rubin110 · March 18, 2024, 7:32pm

So I gave up on the Galayou G7 as it was prone to overheat and restart often.

I have had major success with the equally affordable Cinnado D1. Through the Wansview app I was able to turn on RTSP and ONVIF. Both I was able to funnel into Fridge and HA. ONVIF provided pan and tilt control.

anonymousag · March 21, 2024, 12:54am

Hmm, I have no such overheating issues. I use it in the basement from 18-24C (to check for water leaks)