Hey All. I’m in the process of building up my smart home, and I’m currently hunting for security and privacy-oriented indoor camera that can integrate with HA.
My requirements are the following:
Must have Ethernet port - I do not wish to rely on Wi-Fi
Supports http/https AND RTSP
Can rotate at least 180 degrees
Must NOT be POE only - I want to be able to plug it in the rig
So far my search lead me to Reolink E1 Zoom. I’m searching for alternatives that are in the same or lower price range. AI features/autodetects are not important for me, as I’ll be monitoring just two points of my room and I just need to be able to remotely rotate the camera.
With every post like this i always give the same answer
Foscam
I have 9 of them and they work great.
The only thing that I’ve seen is that after several years (I’ve had some for 8 or 9 years now) the light sensor on a couple have started to get flaky so the night vision LED’s pop off and on during the day. It’s not a big deal but the camera switches to night mode which is only back and white.
I have experience with Foscam, Dahua & Reolink IP cameras (amongst a few other).
I currently have 8 cameras connected to a Dahua NVR (6 Dahua fixed outdoor poe & 2 Reolink wi-fi)
I used Foscam for many years as they offered in my opinion the best value for money in the “BUDGET” IP camera market but over the years other manufactures have overtaken Foscam and offer more spec for less money.
Finding the Holy Grail of budget cameras is difficult but I believe that Reolink aren’t far off, offering models with decent spec and image quality for well under £100.
I recently bought and installed a Reolink Video Doorbell which I’m generally very pleased with and it integrates well with Home Assistant. I also have an Reolink E1 Pro and an E1 Zoom.
The E1 Pro lacks a web interface which the Door Bell & Zoom have and also lacks an RJ45 (all 3 have ONVIF support) The Doorbell & Zoom also both offer a web interface.
My Dahua cameras are great outdoor cabled cameras but they are not very readily available in the UK and certainly not at less than £100 a camera.
I’m currently looking at buying some camera and NVR for my daughters house and will almost certainly go for 2 x Reolink RLC-810A or RLC-811A outdoor cameras plus a couple of E1 Zooms for indoors.
The mobile phone App for my Dahua NVR is really good but I’m also quite impressed with the Reolink 1.
So in answer to your question, I would recommend the Reolink E1 Zoom BUT unfortunately it doesn’t quite tick all your boxes (no LAN port)
The E1 Pro offers the LAN port but lacks Home Assistant integration.
Looking on the Reolink website, the E1 Outdoor Pro PTZ camera would meet all your requirements if it can be removed from its wall bracket
Following @finity advice, I looked up Foscam cameras and found a budged solution - R4 (the older, non M version) for little over 60 euros (returned Amazon product…). I’m still waiting for delivery and hopefully soon I’ll share some feedback.
Regarding Reolink E1 Zoom (this was my candidate, but the price kind of cut me off) from vendor’s website there are photos of the product and at least from there, I see RJ45 port on the back of the body:
I’ve also had experience with the Foscam R4 (bought my brother 1 a few Christmas’s back) but I thought the Reolink was a better buy.
The E1 Zoom is currently £79.99 on Amazon UK with a 18% Off voucher so you actually pay £65.59 so about the same price as your Warehouse deal Foscam.
I’m currently at work so couldn’t remember if my Zoom had a RJ45 port, after looking on Reolinks website via your link I see it has
You are right, unfortunately I don’t have Amazon in my country and shipping + import taxes are ruining the deal for me. The camera is being sold locally here as well via reseller, but the price is higher. Also, looking at the local dealer’s pictures, the E1 Zoom lacks the RJ45 port… Perhaps there are several versions of this body.
Try looking for Amcrest cameras. Better than Foscam, in my opinion.
I understand Amazon is not an option, but the link is for your information and reference.
If you want good quality for decent prices and full local RTSP / Onvif, there’s only really three options: Reolink, Dahua (+ OEM: Amcrest, Foscam, etc) and Hikvision (+ OEM: Annke, etc). In order of increasing quality and price. Their OEMs are usually a little on the lower quality end and don’t have the latest and greatest sensors and AI / ML features you’ll get with the real brand.
Keep in mind that while all these cameras allow full local RTSP / Onvif access, they’re everything but privacy oriented, will phone home (usually to China) as soon as they get the opportunity and may have backdoors in their FW. Never let a camera access the internet. Isolate them on a separate LAN / VLAN and you’re good.
Both are Dahua rebrands these days (with different firmware), but Foscam is definitely on the low end. Amcrest is higher end.
My version which I bought from Reolinks ebay outlet and is a refurbished unit does NOT have the RJ45 port but I think the newer versions DO have the port.
Thanks for the advice. I’ve chosen the Foscam R4, and while I understand it may not be the shinest one, this cam will never see the Internet.
I’ve already prepared a sterilized VLAN that will not be able to phone the Internet and will only have access to HA and whatever NVR solution I will choose to go with. I’ll also try to re-flash the firmware because I don’t really trust those returned/second hand devices.
Edit: Can you explain about the connection beween Amcrest and Foscam? Are they just re-branded Dahua?
Amcrest is rebranded Dahua hardware, but they have some modified firmware. They’re pretty decent. Foscam US used to have their own hardware, but switched to Dahua rebrands. Foscam China may still use their own hardware.
The Foscam R4 just arrived and my first impressions are horrible.
When you visit the cam’s IP you are being forwarded to HTTPS (so far so good), and upon attempt to login, a broken translated message tells you that logins via HTTPS are not supported:
EXCUSE ME!?
So, upon attempting to visit the cam on port 88, and attempt to login, you are left to hang for 5 minutes at blank screen until either your browser tells you that your session has expired or the webpage tells you that Plugins are not found, and you should download our executable to login to the camera:
I’m spinning a VM for this executable, because I’m not downloading this crap on my personal computer and I’m gonna see if a firmware upgrade fixes this. If not, I’m returning it and never looking back. What a horrible, HORRIBLE experience.
Now about the lack of https for the web management interface, that’s not such a big deal since your camera will be entirely isolated on the LAN with no outside world access anyway. DO NOT forward any camera port to the internet. Never. Https or not. The entire camera needs to stay 100% unreachable from the internet on all ports. So http is fine for that.
What really matters (besides the image quality, but that’s usecase dependent) is how well and stable the RTSP stream is.
At this point I’m literally unable to login to the camera, regardless if I’m using http or https. I still haven’t got to use the extension, but I got bad taste in the mouth already.
I simply do not wish to rely on some fishy plugin for access to the camera.
I went through the camera with nmap but I don’t see additional ports that I cam use to login to it without the executable.
Edit: Correction - the webpage forces me to open HTTPS session, so I’m not capable of accessing the IP via HTTP only.
it’s not a fishy plugin. I’ve used it for years to set up the cameras and have never had any issues with it. It’s basically just a driver plugin for your browser.
you just download it and install it and it gives you access to the camera from the browser.
And I have all of my cameras isolated from the internet if they can be.
I just bought Wyze cam recently but apparently it doesn’t work without internet access.
EDIT:
also, tho I don’t have an R4 I have an R2 and lets me login over http. unless something has changed…
I did. I spinned up a VM and the only present browser is latest version of Edge (chronium). After downloading and installing the exe I no longer get the download popup upon visiting port 88. However, I’m also unable to login on port 88 - I just get the loading screen.
Additionally, I’m also not able to login to the camera on 443 and 80.
which IP are you using? did you plug it in with an ethernet cable I assume?
also if I remember right there may be a phone app that allows you to scan a QR code to do the initial setup on the camera.
I honestly don’t remember having any issues at all like you are having logging in to the cameras. even theg initial set up oin mine went fairly smoothly from what I remember.
and again I’ve done 8 or 9 of them now all different models.
I’m using the RJ45 port and I’m sorry but I’m not downloading phone applications to setup a dummy camera. On vendor’s website http and https protocols are stated as supported and I expect them to work as such. If I wanted a phone application onboarding, I’d get a Tapo C200 and I would have forgotten about this horrible user experience already.
