Any experience with WatchNet?

Other Devices & Integrations Door Locks & Sensors
#1

Hi Guys,
Any experience with WatchNet out door POE cams in this group?

Can / will it hook into any other camera hooks? Excuse my naivety, am using foscams for interior but my alarm guy wants to go with Watchnet.

Second is the weather: in Southern Alberta, averages -5C to -10C in winter but we to -30C about 10 times a year.

Comments, suggestions, thoughts and thanks!

#2

In most cases, they would install them into a DVR, and in some cases they will have IP capability. You should be able to add them if that is the case.

If your DVR won’t support IP camera functionality out0of-the-box, then just ask the camera installer to at least put in the connections that will allow you to connect them to an IP video encoder.

Look for devices like the Grandstream GXV3504 IP Video Encoder, you can gather up 4 cameras on a unit like this and broadcast like an IP camera. I have installed this unit and have been able to successfully get the video to Vera, however not PTZ capability and a very slow frame rate.

#3

Ahhh thank you very much. The Watchnet alarm guy suggested is an IP camera which should make this easier but will add the Grandstream info to my rusty memory for future endeavours. And my DVR is a Synology NAS.

[quote=“Bulldoglowell, post:2, topic:179466”]In most cases, they would install them into a DVR, and in some cases they will have IP capability. You should be able to add them if that is the case.

If your DVR won’t support IP camera functionality out0of-the-box, then just ask the camera installer to at least put in the connections that will allow you to connect them to an IP video encoder.

Look for devices like the Grandstream GXV3504 IP Video Encoder, you can gather up 4 cameras on a unit like this and broadcast like an IP camera. I have installed this unit and have been able to successfully get the video to Vera, however not PTZ capability and a very slow frame rate.[/quote]

#4

Thanks to fing and no thanks to google, determined my Watchnet is actually a Dahua (no, I never of them either!). While I can’t get the rtsp url to work, my around is that my synology NAS surveillance station works out of box with Dahua. No about those SS license prices…

#5

I’m also pretty new to Vera.

I have several older CCTV camera’s I would like to connect to my vera.
I purchased the Grandstream GXV3504 IP video encode and need some help getting vera to recognize it.
What did you put enter for the URL??

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Rob

#6

[quote=“dinkeldorf, post:1, topic:179466”]Hi Guys,
Any experience with WatchNet out door POE cams in this group?

Can / will it hook into any other camera hooks? Excuse my naivety, am using foscams for interior but my alarm guy wants to go with Watchnet. [/quote]

Comments, suggestions, thoughts and thanks!

The WatchNet products have been rebadged Dahua equipment for the past several years. So, depending on the model of the camera/DVR and weither WatchNet has released recent firmware for it, it should work with UI5 just fine. As for interoperability, the Dahua based NVR units with firmware 2.600.0 (if memory serves… mid to late 2012… Web 3.0) and greater support ONVIF and generic HTTP cameras. You should be able to use the foscam or any other IP camera with ONVIF or (m)jpeg support.

To get it to work with the build-in camera support…

  1. Click on Devices / Add Device / I want to add an IP Camera
  2. Click on Manually Add
  3. in the text entry box enter “http://:/cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi?channel=”, substituting the values in <> as appropriate.
  4. Click next. Enter the username and password that is appropriate for your device. Click next.
  5. The next page may or may not display an image from your camera. Either way, click on next to add the device. Once the device is added, close the device popup (if displayed) and return to the dashboard.
  6. click on “reload” and allow your unit to reload completely.
  7. click on “reload” and allow your unit to reload completely. (Yes! Do it a second time!)
  8. Once your Vera/Veralite has reloaded, go to the device page and open the device setting page (the wrench) for the new camera device.
  9. Click on the settings tab. Scroll to the bottom and enter “/cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi?channel=” as the URL (even if it is already there… erase it and re-enter it". Erase and re-enter the values in Username and Password as well.
  10. Click on the close button to close the device settings popup. Click on “save” and allow your device to reload.
    You should not have the video from the IP Camera displayed in the device icon on the dashboard and the camera control popup. If it doesn’t work or the icon shows an error, reboot your Vera and allow it to sit for a few minutes after it starts back up… If it still doesn’t work, you are using an older firmware and should try to upgrade to a newer version.

For those who may be interested, I have been working on a plugin that implements the Dahua DVRIP, Dahua CGI/HTTP and Dahua RPC2 API, and allows almost insanely easy setup of a Dahua based DVR/NVR with all the devices automatically configured, and supporting motion detection, video loss and channel masking alarms. I hope to have a beta version ready very shortly.

You should not have any problems with the IP Cameras in cold weather. I’m also in South Central Alberta (insert obligatory stampede cheer here). I have several Q-See QCN7001B (bullet) and QCN8002D(dome) cameras (both are rebadged Dahua cameras) That I installed in our outdoor parkade last year and survived the winter without any problems. No shutdowns, outages or adverse Operation at all. In fact, they performed better in cold temperatures than the GeoVision Vandalproof outdoor dome camera rated to -30 that I also have.

Regards,
CybrMage