Astak Camera

Community Playground General Discussions
1

Has anyone tried to use
ASTAK WiFi Enabled Night Vision Pan/Tilt Plug and Play IP Camera 700
http://www.smarthomeusa.com/ShopByManufacturer/astak/Item/CM-IP700/

if so, could you post the url for getting a snapshot. I am having trouble figuring this
out.

Frank

2

I hunted high and low for an answer to your question, or device manual with the information you seek. All I got was this lousy video (which doesn’t touch on the “Snapshot URL” topic, but is so awful, I had to share):

When you click CAPTURE on the 700’s control screen, does any URL appear in your Web browser? If so, this may provide a clue.

Does the resulting snapshot appear as an image within an otherwise blank .ASP page (or similar)? If so, this camera may not be compatible with Vera (see Wiki).

3

Thanks. you did not have to do all that. I have seen the video :-)…
I will try to get the info via tech support and post it here when I find out.
There is no visible url when you capture the snapshot and I don’t know
any other way to see what it is sending. The camera logs dont tell me
anything.

Frank

4

I enjoyed looking, and was amazed (appalled, actually) at the lack of technical support for this camera, despite its alleged ease of use. Turns out I’m saddled with a camera which does not offer a Vera-compatible URL for JPG snapshots (it’s a CGI or ASP-generated image “page”, rather than a straightforward .JPG file by itself).

Either way, I’m hoping MCV expands Vera’s capacity for grabbing these stills/images/snapshots!

5

I have a vivotek camera also and could not figure out how to get it working. Any chance that is the one you are using/

6

Mine’s the D-Link DCS-1110, which was never worth the money I spent on it. (Always down when I wanted to view anything through it!) eBay, here I come!

7

Hrm, I think the dlink model you mention is the model I was looking at because there was a plugin for Windows Home Server to record it.

8

Boyo, if you’re in the market, make me any reasonable offer, and it’s yours (with camera, mount, CD, manual, Ethernet cable, power supply, latest firmware, etc.). Works like a charm connected to a PC and what-not; my complaint is that I wanted a snapshot URL and better uptime during storms. I went to a lot of trouble setting up port forwarding and a DynDNS account just to use this camera.

If you want it for normal use through its proprietary Cam software, you’d be OK.

9

I was wrong, I was looking at the DCS-3410 Needed an outdoor camera that had POE, wanted one for the front door.

10

Forgot to mention that the DCS-1110 permits PoE just fine, but I never tried it.

11

lol, just like you, I want one that works with Vera as well as Windows Home Server.

12

I’d be curious to know which brand and model you wind up with, Boyo. All my (extensive) shopping comparisons keep pointing back to the Panasonic line, although surely something “adequate” is out there for much lower cost?!?

One nice thing: It’s fairly easy to weed out the crappiest cameras based on user reviews.

13

I am in the same boat. I purchased the IP700 for its features (large pan/tilt, night vision, etc), but found out that it is not compatible with Vera. I suggest that we put pressure on both Micasaverde and Astak to get this working. Let’s send email to their tech support about that.

14

The most disconcerting thing about that video - they actually show the sign up form that has a field about “household income”. :o Great, we’ll keep you secure, but we’ll blast your email address off a bunch of telemarketers. Yeah, that’s just the sort of company I want to trust with access to a video camera.

But hey if the hardware doesn’t suck and it can work with Vera, all the better. :slight_smile:

15

I think you want to check this out
http://icamview.co.uk/new%20ipcam.html

And it costs less too