Upgraded Camera Support

[GrandWizard]

My next step will be adding video surveillance, and, noticing the "Cameras" section on the portal, something supported by EyezOn would have been my natural inclination. But EyezOn and video surveillance support is kind of looking like a poor stepchild kind of a thing. Other than one very poorly-reviewed exception: All that's supported is Foscam, and, reading up on their products it looks like they're trying to force customers onto their own portal. Not acceptable.

Or am I misreading things?

I don't really follow. Are you quoting someone else at the end of your paragraph?

Eyezon only supports Foscam because every camera manufacturer is different and they were the only one that allowed for an easy LAN API so we could control them from our app, which is what customers wanted. While the cameras aren't the greatest in the world, they are inexpensive and do the job.

[Crikey]

I don't really follow. Are you quoting someone else at the end of your paragraph?

No. That was a summary of some comments I read, elsewhere, relating to reviews of current Foscam products. The comments indicated they've added something to, or removed something from their cameras that make them less usable "generically."

Eyezon only supports Foscam because every camera manufacturer is different and they were the only one that allowed for an easy LAN API so we could control them from our app, which is what customers wanted. While the cameras aren't the greatest in the world, they are inexpensive and do the job.

Understood.

It's just that, back in Dec. 2015 you'd written "Support for many of the new HD cameras are already in BETA." I guess I misunderstood that to mean "other manufacturers' HD cameras." Then I saw those comments I did about Foscam, elsewhere, saw little (no?) recent activity regarding EyezOn video surveillance support, and...

My apologies if I've made unwarranted assumptions.

I'll continue my research. I'd like to add video surveillance, but, rather than the extensive system I'd originally been thinking of (six-eight cameras covering all approaches from two angles), I'm now thinking maybe just a couple external cameras and one or two inside.

[GrandWizard]

If you were to talk to a tech on the phone at Eyezon they would tell you that if you're looking for a full-house DVR solution then go get a full-house DVR solution as the Foscam/Eyezon combo is not that. Our offering is for the casual user that wants to look-in on their home/office without changing apps on their phone. While Foscam does offer a cloud DVR option, their is no integration with the Eyezon Portal at all.

M

[Crikey]

If you were to talk to a tech on the phone at Eyezon they would tell you that if you're looking for a full-house DVR solution then go get a full-house DVR solution as the Foscam/Eyezon combo is not that.

Yes, I understand that.

After commenting, above, I saw troyw22's and your comments in the other thread. So I went and looked-up some of the comments to which I'd referred. Here are snippets (reviews of Foscam R2 1080P Wireless Security Camera on Amazon):

2) CONSTANT badgering to subscribe to their monthly paid Cloud service to have access to past recordings. I get really tired of buying products that use that purchased product to continually either advertise on your bought device or pester you to buy more or subscribe to a monthly paid service. If you go to their web site, they brag in a full page splash screen at entry about how many people they convinced to sign up for their paid subscriptions. Annoying.

3) Apparently the photo message notifications of motion, human, or sound alerts that they say are features of the device are only possible if you pay for a subscription to their Cloud service. The text notifications are free but to get a picture of the motion that triggered the notification costs a monthly subscription fee.

Foscam have updated the firmware so that in order to access the web interface for the cameras you have to install a H.264 ActiveX plugin, which the web interface requires, or it will refuse to allow you to log in.

Since no current browsers support ActiveX on any platform, the web-based interface for the cameras is rendered non-functional.

This eliminates the user's ability to access many of the administrative and other functions that are specific to these cameras, such as the ability to record to FTP or an SD card inserted into the camera's slot.

I suspect this was done intentionally to sell Foscam's cloud service, because they have stripped the local recording features out of the Foscam app and now every time you use the app it nags you to buy their cloud service incessantly.

There's more, but, that was enough for me. (N.B.: I imagine Microsoft's current browser still supports ActiveTrojan, but, I do not use an MS products anywhere. Anything that depends upon them therefore is a non-starter for me.)

I guess I'll have to find another solution. Thanks for your time, GW.

[jac1987]

Regarding having web server in the camera, I access all the features using Firefox on windows and when I'm using MAC I use safari, never had a problem on that aspect with foscam cameras.

They are also working on not having to install a plugin but I don't know current status.

[jelockwood]

Just had a quick look at this thread and it seems only Foscom cameras are currently supported. Whilst these are widely used - although I would have thought more so in a business environment these days I would add my support for asking for alternatives to be added.

I personally have Netatmo Presence outdoor cameras and the API for this is published here - https://dev.netatmo.com/en-US/resources ... e/security

I am planning to get NetGear Arlo cameras for indoor use. Whilst there may be no official API resource for Arlo cameras there is a lot of unofficial resources so support should be possible.

Both these brands do give some free cloud storage or let you use your own cloud storage e.g. FTP or Dropbox.