Proper camera UK integrated with SmartThings

Hello, fellows.

Could anyone in the UK give me an advice about camera that can be properly integrated with SmartThings, please? Used to use D-Link cameras, they worked perfectly till switch to the new SmartThing app. Now it seems to me that there is nothing in the UK that would work as:

  1. Indoor wi-fi camera;
  2. No other hubs are required except SmartThing (for example, don’t want to have Arlo hub);
  3. Recorded clips stored in a cloud;
  4. Recording triggered by events linked to motion sensors;
  5. Does not cost “arm and leg”.

I don’t need cameras recording all time, because nowadays we work remotely from home. I checked SmartThings app what cameras are available. Arlo - “compatible but not certified” (what does it mean!? And I understand that you cannot arm/disarm these cameras from SmartThing ). Imilab - cannot find the model IOT-IPC019D listed as “certified”; Samsung SmartThings cam RC8335PRO - you cannot buy this bloody camera in the UK! Compatible but not certified in the UK! What is the point to have this camera in the list!?
Any recommendations?

Many thanks in advance,
Rustam.

I’m in a somewhat similar situation in Ireland. In my case, I’m looking for reasonably priced outdoor cams and keep drawing a blank. As for that Smartthings cam, its impossible to source. I’ve been trying for 6 months now without success.

This might be worth a look: https://www.vesternet.com/products/aeotec-smartthings-cam-360

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Thank you, Pogga! This aeotec camera looks like Imilab Home Cam 360, will give it a try when it is in stock.

That sentence is a joke. It means that it will work with SmartThings but it hasn’t gone through SmartThings’ certification process. How on Earth a Samsung SmartThings camera be not certified? Hahaha…

Otherwise if you consider Arlo cameras, have a look first here:

Regarding the Aeotec cameras, those are part of the new deal from SmartThings where they outsourced all hardware to Aeotec.

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Gabor, cool, thanks! hope that camera Pogga mentioned would work!

I am using the new Aeotec cam 360 and I think it meets your needs. The functionality is pretty basic (no zones, no person detection, etc) but it is good value and works seamlessly with Smartthings. I got mine in the uk from Aeotec SmartThings Cam 360 — Vesternet

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Thank you, Stuart. Was thinking about buying it, Pogga recommended it as well. Can SmartThing turn off and turn on recording on this camera based on the event such as motion sensor detecting movemenents?

Many thanks in advance,
Rustam.

You can turn on and off the camera from smartthings and there is a setting to record a video clip when it is on and sees motion. You can also trigger a recording if there is sound in the room and you can adjust the sensitivity of that.

You can trigger recording in automations and can trigger focusing on specific predetermined waypoints. I think you get a lot for the money with this camera even though it lacks some of the top end features I would have liked.

Can you write some details what do you mean?

And just for the record, can you state how long recording you can make and how you can access it, maybe download it. The same about still images.

Firstly, I do like this product because
a) it integrates seamlessly with Smartthings
b) it is low cost
c) the 360 degrees field of view with motion tracking is excellent
d) you can set it to face the wall when you want privacy
e) 2 way audio is nice
f) I dont have any monthly outlay

But, here are my main issues with it

  1. There are no zones so for motion sensing you have to be happy for it to trigger with anything in the frame. This makes it unusable for triggering an alarm as the headlights of passing cars will set it off. It would be much more useful if I could allocate zones that will trigger an alert and zones that will not (like you can with a Blink).

  2. The settings screen is too binary but in security I think you need a bit of fine tuning. So for example you either alert on motion or not, there is no setting to allow me to eliminate the "false positives like there is on other sensors.

Using an automation you can trigger the camera to record so you can get around some of this by turning off the instant alerts and setting up more nuanced conditions to record clips when multiple sensors are triggered.

The settings screen looks like this:

To answer directly your other point, the video clips are 10 seconds. I cant see any place to change that, I think they are held for 24 hours for free. On the Iphone app you can download the video clip to the camera roll or “share” using all the normal mechanisms. The only way I have seen to utilise still images is the capture button on the live screen which instantly saves a still image to my camera roll.

I have only had this for a week so there may well be features I have not discovered yet.

If you have any other questions, Id be happy to respond. I really couldnt find out much about this device till I actually bought it.

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@StuartB, thanks for the answer.

I like to compare it to this one.

Unfortunately it doesn’t integrates to SmartThings, but works with Alexa and Google Home. And you have a microSD slot to store the videos, even in continuous recording. And it is not cloud dependent.

It look like that has more functionality but not the integration. Its a choice. I havent seen anything that does both

However well the integration works with ST, being reliant on the Samsung cloud for a security camera is not ideal. The 10 seconds is very poor. The quality of the video recordings are not adequate. I like that when you turn off the camera the camera rotates away and down. The field of view is pretty narrow, and the following motion motor is quite slow, a burglar would have time to pick it and disable it. Maybe its better as a baby monitor, or in an extremely large room?

Thank you, Stuart B!

Hello everyone!

I bought this camera Tapo C210 | Indoor WLAN-Sicherheitskamera | TP-Link Deutschland and was able to successfully connect it to SmartThings.

The intention was actually that I could connect the camera to our Samsung FamilyHub. The camera is recognized, but a connection cannot be established. Very unfortunate.