[RELEASE] Amcrest IPM-721 & IP2M-841 LIVE Video/PTZ/Night Vision/Motion/Video Record/+More IP Camera DTH

Just to be sure, the IP3M-954E is a POE device? I am now strongly leaning in that direction regardless what camera I ultimately go with. Seems like their cameras will generally work with your DH and App, makes sense they don’t reinvent the wheel for each device.

That is 100% correct.

I have 2 of these running with my DH (along with 4 other Amcrest cameras):

http://www.amazon.com/Amcrest-Outdoor-Megapixel-Bullet-Security/dp/B01BN1FD7E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485553727&sr=8-1&keywords=ip3m-954e

And here is the power injector that I am using:

http://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Gigabit-Ethernet-Injector-TL-PoE150S/dp/B001PS9E5I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485553572&sr=8-1&keywords=tl-poe150s

The rest are PTZ cameras… they all work. :thumbsup:

LOVE THIS!!! Thank you @Belgarion… Sorry for the newb question, But Is there an easier alternative to remote connection (Outside of Wifi)… Besides VPN or any kind of DNS??? This is crucial since we are not home much… if so could you please show a possible way to set this up on the app?? thank you

I am glad you are enjoying the DH! :smile:

The short answer is: Not really.

The issue boils down to “How can I find my camera if I do not have a local IP?”

With DDNS and name resolution you can have a service that is running on the web that keeps track of your ISP public IP and links it to a server name that you specify, allowing you to find your home IP in the public venue. You would then need to configure your firewall to allow traffic to come into your local network on the specified port. You can then have your router redirect that incoming traffic to the IP and port of your camera. All of this presents several security risks (for various reasons) which is why I only recommend a VPN connection.

The only secure way to handle accessing your cameras remotely is by establishing a VPN connection. This does not require any additional configuration modifications as your camera IP’s are “local” again due to the fact that you are connected into your local LAN.

Since the DH is executing the requests locally (between itself and the ST hub), there are no “cloud storage” options here.

Sorry that this is not the answer you were hoping for, but it is the way of things in the IoT home automation world.

Hi, I know this isn’t the place for that but anyway you can quickly explain how to set up a vpn? any help will be appreciated :slight_smile:

I’m sure I know the answer but for piece of mind… Will the IP2M-943W work OK? I just ordered one on Amazon.

I have couple Amcrest IPM-721 cameras. Using the latest DH I can take snapshots from cameras. However, I can’t do live streaming. I tried both RTSP and MJPEC stream.

Edit: I changed video channel to 1 and change to RTSP stream and it worked.

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Umm… no. LOL! Seriously, it is entirely dependent on your environment and what you have available to you. Some routers have built-in support for VPN (ASUS AC3100, for example). Other scenarios would require having a server constantly running on your network to receive inbound connection requests. And there are other permutation in-between.

I would recommend hitting Google for OpenVPN and start from there. Something like this is outside of the scope of this thread and, to be perfectly honest, I am not the best in the world at laying stuff like this out in simple terms.

What I will say is that I have the ASUS router and while the configuration is definitely not the most straightforward in the world, once the VPN is enabled and you have your DDNS setup, it is a breeze to use.

Tim, are you sure you have that model right? I can find no information on that model.

If, however, you meant the IP 3M-943W then yes, my DH will work fine.

Yeah sorry about that. I mistyped it. Thank you! Installed and ready for when it a arrives.

Lol I see. I have a TP Link Archer C9. I will do some research on OpenVPN. Thanks :slight_smile:

I have the camera up and working.(through the amcrest app)
I have port forwarding set to 37777 (thats what the cpu software was using)(Also tried 27272,27282,27292 with no luck)
I have an account with noip.com setup and hosting.

I still can’t get it to work. I can see the camera through the amcrest android app no problem. I can see it through the ipconfig program on the computer no problem. but I can’t get the smart thing app to see it.

When setting up the camera in smartthings does Device Network ID have to be something specific?

UPDATE:

ok. I have it working when the phone is connected to wifi but only through RTSP stream. But when I try to put the direct ip to my network in, it doesn’t work. I’ve even tried forwarding port 554 to the camera IP but no luck.

UPDATE2:

Even with it set to local IP numbers and RTSP video, I can’t get it to trigger routines or Core pistons with motion. I must have something very wrong somewhere.

Hi Tim,

I assume by this comment that you are trying to get to the camera from a public IP. In order for you to see my DH you need to either:

  • Using a local IP (so either WiFi or a VPN connection)
  • Direct access to the camera using DDNS (which you have with NoIP.com) and a hole punched into your firewall.

The latter is definitely not recommended, but if that is what you are trying to do then it sounds like you have ½ the equation complete (DDNS through NoIP.com), which is getting you to your home network. Now you need to setup prot forwarding on your router to allow the camera to be found on your local network. You would need to setup the configuration setting to reflect the public name and port.

Assume for a second that you will be using port 8888 to access your camera for snapshots from the wild (e.g. “http//mydomain.net:8888”) and port 8554 for RTSP. Let us further assume that your camera’s local IP is “172.168.1.199”. You would need to go to your router and setup port forwarding for any inbound WAN traffic coming in to port 8888 to be directed to your camera’s local IP on port 80 (for snapshots and PTZ functions) and inbound traffic from port 8554 to your camera’s IP at 554. This should get you some love…

Okay, I am not sure what you have tried doing but if your expectation is that the camera detecting motion is somehow going to trigger a CoRE piston, you are misunderstanding the available functionality. Without wiring some other Z-Wave/ZigBee device to the “Alarm” contacts on the camera itself (assuming it has them) and using the Amcrest “Alarm” feature, this is not going to happen. The camera is not a ST device and CoRE cannot subscribe to it for events.

Let me know if that helps or if you have anymore questions and I will try to help.

Ok. So it can’t be used to trigger things? Strictly for live viewing? I didn’t realize that.

I’ve got it working over noip with RTSP. I guess that means I’m finished then if I’m not misunderstanding something. LOL

Thanks for your help!

Well, live viewing, snapshots, PTZ (if it is that type of camera), presets, turning features On/Off… it can do a fair amount.

It may be able to do more, I just have not had the spare time to dig into it.

Enjoy!

ok. Thanks so much. I’ll have to play with it from here.

Hi,
I am able to take screenshots but unable to see video.

I have camera channel set to 0 and video channel set to 1.

Not sure what I have configured wrong for it not to work. Can you help me debug this?

So I have Camera channel and video channel set to 0, this is the only amcrest camera i have… the IP2m-841

When I assign the local ip from the router to the config in ST apps i can’t get snapshot or camera.
If I assign the ISP ip address and use port forwading I can get the Snapshot to work but not the live video feed.

Snippet of log using local for snapshot
Take Snapshot
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:16 AM: info ¦±- parse -> END
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:16 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ parse -> Detected: Empty body response
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:16 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ parse -> descMap RAW = [‘index’:‘17’, ‘mac’:‘3CEF8CAC327F’, ‘ip’:‘C0A80165’, ‘port’:‘0050’, ‘requestId’:‘c522d8e7-b59b-40a1-ae97-ead39ea30814’, ‘tempImageKey’:‘dccf2234-c120-4e3c-96b1-6623ae2a6598’]
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:16 AM: info ¦±- parse -> BEGIN
b1024f1e-d349-467d-8173-605d2558e0c6 10:06:12 AM: debug Delay posting the device list to server
b1024f1e-d349-467d-8173-605d2558e0c6 10:06:12 AM: debug Devices updated: physicalgraph.app.EventWrapper@5800ae98 Device ‘{{ deviceName }}’ updated 85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ¦±- hubGet -> hubAction = GET /cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi?channel=0 HTTP/1.1
Accept: /
User-Agent: Linux UPnP/1.0 SmartThings
HOST: 192.168.1.101:80
Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46QXZlZTE5ODI=

85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ hubGet -> headers = [‘HOST’:192.168.1.101:80, ‘Authorization’:‘Basic YWRtaW46QXZlZTE5ODI=’]
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ hubGet -> Network Device Id = C0A80165:0050
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ convertPortToHex -> Port passed in is 80 and the converted hex code is 0050
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ convertIPtoHex -> IP address passed in is 192.168.1.101 and the converted hex code is c0a80165
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ¦±- hubGet -> BEGIN
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ hubGet -> Using IP '192.168.1.101’
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ hubGet -> apiCommand = /cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi?channel=0 (size = 31)
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ hubGetImage -> Local IP detected: Switching to HubAction
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ ipIsLocal -> Host IP ‘192.168.1.101’ is Local
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ ipIsLocal -> Found = 1100000010101000
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ convertIPtoBinary -> IP address passed in is 192.168.1.101 and the converted binary is 11000000101010000000000101100101
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ hubGetImage -> Using IP '192.168.1.101’
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ apiCommand = /cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi?channel=0
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ±-- hubGetImage -> BEGIN
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info Taking Photo
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info configure -> Executing
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:06:12 AM: info ‘updated()’ called…
533ced66-c3ef-4a9a-b7f5-8662e3bbc657 10:06:05 AM: debug getChildDevices(false), children=1
4ca279a2-8ed7-4e6d-9df9-c8607df4a19d 10:06:05 AM: trace nowPlaying reports standby: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

Snippet using local for live video
Live Camera
533ced66-c3ef-4a9a-b7f5-8662e3bbc657 10:12:05 AM: debug getChildDevices(false), children=1
4ca279a2-8ed7-4e6d-9df9-c8607df4a19d 10:12:05 AM: trace nowPlaying reports standby: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>


de3c78db-21ff-40a7-882c-942a3230fe18 10:12:01 AM: debug state: ready
de3c78db-21ff-40a7-882c-942a3230fe18 10:12:01 AM: debug schedule check, ts = null
de3c78db-21ff-40a7-882c-942a3230fe18 10:11:00 AM: debug state: ready
de3c78db-21ff-40a7-882c-942a3230fe18 10:11:00 AM: debug schedule check, ts = null
533ced66-c3ef-4a9a-b7f5-8662e3bbc657 10:10:11 AM: debug getChildDevices(false), children=1
4ca279a2-8ed7-4e6d-9df9-c8607df4a19d 10:10:11 AM: trace nowPlaying reports standby: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>


de3c78db-21ff-40a7-882c-942a3230fe18 10:10:07 AM: debug state: ready
de3c78db-21ff-40a7-882c-942a3230fe18 10:10:07 AM: debug schedule check, ts = null
f8b4ba79-84b3-48dc-a1e4-61c8b4bc55c6 10:09:51 AM: debug getChildDevices(true), children=0
f8b4ba79-84b3-48dc-a1e4-61c8b4bc55c6 10:09:51 AM: debug refreshDevices() called
f8b4ba79-84b3-48dc-a1e4-61c8b4bc55c6 10:09:51 AM: debug Doing Device Sync!
f8b4ba79-84b3-48dc-a1e4-61c8b4bc55c6 10:09:51 AM: debug refresh() called
de3c78db-21ff-40a7-882c-942a3230fe18 10:09:01 AM: debug state: ready
de3c78db-21ff-40a7-882c-942a3230fe18 10:09:01 AM: debug schedule check, ts = null
aef66777-9e47-42e8-b51e-051c0c013807 10:08:10 AM: debug streamHandler(stream: e81a09c0-ebb4-11e6-a12f-0a96fcbb7170), deviceId: 85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:08:10 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ ipIsLocal -> Host IP ‘192.168.1.101’ is Local
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:08:10 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ ipIsLocal -> Found = 1100000010101000
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:08:10 AM: info ¦¦¦¦ convertIPtoBinary -> IP address passed in is 192.168.1.101 and the converted binary is 11000000101010000000000101100101
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:08:10 AM: info ¦±- videoStart -> Streaming RTSP video; apiCommand = /cam/realmonitor?channel=2&subtype=0, IP = 192.168.1.101, Port = 554
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:08:10 AM: info ±-- videoStart -> camVideoChannel = 1, state.camVideoChannel = 1, camChannelModString = 2
85c08cc4-a48a-4db7-8081-916d5f414af3 10:08:10 AM: info videoStart -> Turning Video Streaming ON

I do not know which DH you are trying to use with this Amcrest camera, but it is not mine. At least the last log snippet is not from my DH.

What is listed as the “Type” in the IDE for your camera device? And how are you trying to view the video stream> From within my DH or are you using something like SHM?

Hi,

This is what i see
Amcrest Cam Amcrest Camera Home Home Hub C0A80165:0050

Im not sure of the acronyms…

what does DH, SHM mean?

I use the smartthings app to view.

can you tell me when DH is yours?

Some common acronyms.

DH = Device Handler (sometimes DTH or Device Type Handler). This is the code used to directly talk to your device. Belgarion is using DH as referring to his code for the Amcrest Cameras. You are using his DH when you are in the ‘My Home’ tab on your phone.

SHM = Smart Home Monitor. This is the screen on your phone app that is located under dashboard. Allows you to set Armed(Home), Armed(Away), Disarmed.

SA = SmartApp. This refers to code that interacts with DHs to perform more complicated tasks. One example of a SmartApp is Smart Lighting located under ‘Marketplace’.

Here is a much larger list of acronyms if you are interested
http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Acronyms

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