Streaming cameras remotely via 3rd party apps is not supported under UI5.
- Garrett
I wonder why your FosCam installation with Vera has been so difficult. Perhaps you installed your cameras before you installed the FosCam plug-in. But if the FosCam 2.2 plug-in is in place before a FosCam camera is installed, your Vera2 should have no trouble finding the FosCam camera.
The device file I use for my Foscam FI8910 cameras is D_DigitalSecurityCamera2.xml. You appear to be using D_DigitalSecurityCamera1.xml. Using D_DigitalSecurityCamera2.xml will help with your FosCam camera plug-in installation.
If you want the FosCam plug-in motion sensor to work properly you may need to set the “Do you want to secure this Vera?” setting to No. MCV may have removed this restriction, but with @MCVFlorin on vacation, I doubt this has occurred.
Finally, as @garrettwp has mentioned, don’t get too excited about the possibility of streaming Foscam cameras remotely with 3rd party apps at this time. It may be coming soon, but using Vera with Wi-Fi cameras is still a developing technology.
Here is an off topic question, but it might be helpful. Are you logging log files to an external USB flash drive on your Vera2 unit? If you are not, you should do so. It will really speed up the performance of your Vera2 unit. I used a SanDisk - Cruzer Fit 4GB USB Flash Drive on my Vera2 before I upgraded to a Vera3.
The streaming worked fine under UI4, when it came to UI5, MCV removed this feature or more or less did not add it back. Not sure why they did this and if they will ever put in back. What MCV did was when calling to stream the camera via Vera’s api call, Vera would try and port tunnel the camera to Vera and open a upnp port call to the router. This would then provide a return request via the api call providing the details on how to access the stream. The port tunnel and port punch through the firewall would only be accessible for I believe 15 minutes or something like that. This is one of the reasons why I have not added camera streaming into my app as I have no way of testing it and not being supported in UI5 would be a waste of resources right now.
- Garrett
I wonder why your FosCam installation with Vera has been so difficult. Perhaps you installed your cameras before you installed the FosCam plug-in. But if the FosCam 2.2 plug-in is in place before a FosCam camera is installed, your Vera2 should have no trouble finding the FosCam camera.
I lost track of all the machinations I went through to get it working, but I started with manually adding the Foscam plugin under UI4, then upgrading to UI5, trying to re-add the plugin from the app-store in UI5, then removing the plugin and re-installing when it didn’t work originally. You get the idea
The device file I use for my Foscam FI8910 cameras is D_DigitalSecurityCamera2.xml. You appear to be using D_DigitalSecurityCamera1.xml. Using D_DigitalSecurityCamera2.xml will help with your FosCam camera plug-in installation.
I guess I was having delusions of getting things to work under HomeBuddy (remote app). Homebuddy does not recognize D_DigitalSecurityCamera2.xml, but does recognize D_DigitalSecurityCamera1.xml
If you want the FosCam plug-in motion sensor to work properly you may need to set the “Do you want to secure this Vera?” setting to No. MCV may have removed this restriction, but with @MCVFlorin on vacation, I doubt this has occurred.
I have not secured my Vera, and the motion sensor does work: I was able to trigger scenes with it!
Here is an off topic question, but it might be helpful. Are you logging log files to an external USB flash drive on your Vera2 unit? If you are not, you should do so. It will really speed up the performance of your Vera2 unit. I used a SanDisk - Cruzer Fit 4GB USB Flash Drive on my Vera2 before I upgraded to a Vera3.
I’ve just started doing so as part of this whole upgrade process I’ve been going through. I have no idea how to access the logs, I’m sure there’s a path to the USB stick locks documented somewhere. It would be way to difficult to add a link from the web-GUI I guess 
@garrettwp
The streaming worked fine under UI4, when it came to UI5, MCV removed this feature or more or less did not add it back. Not sure why they did this and if they will ever put in back. What MCV did was when calling to stream the camera via Vera’s api call, Vera would try and port tunnel the camera to Vera and open a upnp port call to the router. This would then provide a return request via the api call providing the details on how to access the stream. The port tunnel and port punch through the firewall would only be accessible for I believe 15 minutes or something like that. This is one of the reasons why I have not added camera streaming into my app as I have no way of testing it and not being supported in UI5 would be a waste of resources right now.
I started reading all about the UI5 streaming AFTER I upgraded! I held out so long on upgrades because I was reading about the train-wreck of UI5 on the forums. However, it seemed that things had settled out. All I can say is that under the “Wintop zCam” version of the Foscam driver, I am able to get some level of streaming over to my remote device. It’s intermittent, and only works when on my local LAN – but I did see it with my own eyes.
In summary, it’s been a somewhat frustrating experience, but I only add to the existing level of frustration I see from the community on the MCV product in general. Luckily, there’s a pretty good community of folks like yourselves who’ve mostly figured out this beast.
Could anybody please confirm if this plugin works fine with Foscam new models which have H.264 video format, such as FI9820W or FI8601W.
Thank you Best Regards.
Chemy
No, The plug-in does not work the h.264 cameras. You can view the camera through Vera but functions like Pan & tilt and motion senors won’t work.
The Foscam h.264 cameras run on a completely different software system then their MJPEG cameras.
There is no way that I have been able to find. I think it is a hardware limitation of FI8910W due to a lack of internal storage. I am able to do it with my FI9820W as long as I have an SD card installed. Essentially, the FI9820W records the video locally on the SD card and then tranfers the video file to my network storage drive.[/quote]
OK, I have two FI9820W’s with a 32GB SD card in each but I want to store the recorded videos to my network sotrage drive. How did you set it up to transfer to your network drive? Also, what mobile app do you use to view your cameras? I used tinycam, IP Camera viewer, and soem other one not included in the Android Market Place. Tinycam was the best one out of the three but the videos keep resetting themselves randomly. It works fine on a web browser anywhere including on the phone though.
There is no way that I have been able to find. I think it is a hardware limitation of FI8910W due to a lack of internal storage. I am able to do it with my FI9820W as long as I have an SD card installed. Essentially, the FI9820W records the video locally on the SD card and then tranfers the video file to my network storage drive.[/quote]
OK, I have two FI9820W’s with a 32GB SD card in each but I want to store the recorded videos to my network sotrage drive. How did you set it up to transfer to your network drive? Also, what mobile app do you use to view your cameras? I used tinycam, IP Camera viewer, and soem other one not included in the Android Market Place. Tinycam was the best one out of the three but the videos keep resetting themselves randomly. It works fine on a web browser anywhere including on the phone though.[/quote]
My network drive supports FTP uploads so I just set-up the FTP upload on the camera and selected “Upload Video to FTP on Alarm” option.
I have an iPhone so don’t have any Android recommendations. FOr iPhone, the best app I have found is Live Cams Pro 2.0.
I figured it out… VERY FRUSTRATING
The lack of instructions is amazing. The Wiki REALLY NEEDS UPDATING!
– http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/IP_Cameras#Manually_adding_a_camera
… under Install Apps there is no “Generic” app for camera in UI5… it is built-in. Please state this as I was looking for this in the App installer!
… no mention of UI5 in the Wiki under the camera section.
All camera apps (and Wiki entries) should be required, at the top of the instructions, to tell the user the apps don’t install the cameras and cannot be used to do that!
They should link to the how-to for installing cameras so users don’t trying to use an App. I have not seen a single one that does.
The instructions to add a camera manually using the wizard are here: http://docs5.mios.com/doc.php?language=1&manual=1&platform=3Lite&page=ip_cameras
And to add a camera manually without using the wizard are here: http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/Manually_create_IP_Camera_device
I think that is MiCasa biggest problem. Aside from others!
[quote=“Aaron, post:89, topic:171931”]I figured it out… VERY FRUSTRATING
The lack of instructions is amazing. The Wiki REALLY NEEDS UPDATING!
– http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/IP_Cameras#Manually_adding_a_camera
… under Install Apps there is no “Generic” app for camera in UI5… it is built-in. Please state this as I was looking for this in the App installer!
… no mention of UI5 in the Wiki under the camera section.
All camera apps (and Wiki entries) should be required, at the top of the instructions, to tell the user the apps don’t install the cameras and cannot be used to do that!
They should link to the how-to for installing cameras so users don’t trying to use an App. I have not seen a single one that does.[/quote]
I have the plug in installed and working well but not all of my virtual switches are showing up under “Which lights should be turned on …” settings. I have virtual switches triggering scenes for my Insteon fanlinc controllers.
Edit:
Looks like what I see are combination switches, no virtual switches appear to show up.
Good Morning,
Is there any chance you might be working on an update that works with the new FI9820W?
I just received these and they do not work with the Pan/Tilt function or Motion sensors.
I would be glad to be a beta tester in yhou are interesed.
Thanks,
Brett
The FI9820W is a H.264 camera and uses a different protocol. It requires a major update to the plugin, but unfortunately I won’t have the time in the near future.
Can you tell me why I would not have the field “vera address?” See attached file.
Yesterday I published a new version of the plugin (version 2.3) which fixed the case where the motion sensor didn’t work if Vera was secured and improved the detection of the Vera IP address. Unfortunately it also introduced the bug you mentioned. I published version 2.4 today which fixes it. After the plugin is updated set the ConfiguredMD variable to 0 and reload LuaUPnP twice.
Also, the on time field is missing.
I am using the 2.4 release of the plug-in with Vera3 1.5.408 with a Foscam 8910. It looks like the account that is used to connect to the camera needs to be at “Admin” level (Operator and Visitor are both insufficient) for motion sensing to work.
@mcvflorin can you confirm this is the case? Is this a requirement of the camera API?
Also how many preset buttons should I see on the Camera Control tab?
Thanks
Yes, the plugin needs an admin account to configure the camera.
6 in 1.5.408, 8 in later firmwares.
@mcvflorin Thank you for the reply. The Foscam plugin is functioning properly for me. I have had some instability and Lua Failures with the DSC plugin since adding the Foscam plugin, whereas the DSC plugin was rock solid for months prior to that, however I am not yet sure that this issue is either plug-in’s fault. I will post another thread on that shortly.