I received an Amcrest 1080P outdoor camera yesterday. I’d like to use SmartThings to enable or disable the camera’s motion detection based on my presence. That is, record when motion’s detected and it’s night or I’m away and don’t record if I’m home.
I looked at a lot of threads on integrating cameras, but I’m a noobie and don’t really understand the whole camera/ST integration thing.
Can anyone offer a suggestion as to how to do this and/or point me towards documentation that might be easy for a neophyte to digest?
Welcome! As you’ve noticed, this particular device is not on the official “works with smart things” list.
So the next thing you need to do is decide whether you’re willing to use custom code. Custom code is created by community members and announced in the forums. It’s usually free, although some developers do offer paid licenses.
To get an idea of how this process works, take a look at the overview FAQ for using custom code and smartthings. It’s pretty straightforward, basically you’re going to copy someone else’s code and paste it into your account.
If after reading the custom code overview you decide that something you’d like to try, the next step is to check the community and see if someone has created custom code for The device or feature you’re interested in.
You can just search the forums, but to be honest it’s pretty hard to find things that way. Instead, you can use the quick browse lists in the community – created wiki to quickly find just the code for a particular group of solutions or devices. In this case, I recommend you look at device type handlers (DTHs) for cameras. That’s the second set of lists on the page.
As you’ve noticed, this particular device is not on the official “works with smart things” list.