Reading the posts on this forum are fairly discouraging for me as I’m looking for an indoor PTZ IP camera that will work with my veralite. It seems that every post I see, people are having issues with their vistacams or foscams. Some can’t get an image, some lose connectivity, most can’t remotely PTZ, wifi issue, etc.
Has anyone out there actually gotten a reliable camera setup that they could recommend ? I don’t have the time or patience to try messing with a camera that requires a masters in engineering to setup.
Video does seem to be a bit of an adventure with Vera but I have been able to get Dlink fixed view, and Foscam PT (no Z) in both SD and HD working. In fairness it’s a bit tricky because the camera guys are constantly changing their software and that has a knock on effect on the Vera driver (plugin). My cameras work fine now, it was just a bit of trial and error getting them sorted out. Foscam’s seem popular enough to Vera users that eventually all issues get resolved.
How do you access and control your Foscam remotely? Do you have a separate app or is it integrated with the app you use to control your Vera linked devices?
I have the cameras running under Vera. So that by default gives you access via the mios site. I use this access for heavy duty changes and creating scenes and when I checking something from the office. For everything else I am an APPLE IPhone and iPad guy. I use the app Homewave which is really nice. Lots of flexibility to design the user interface you want and no need for a PhD in Comp Science to use it. Pretty simple and straight forward.
The nice thing with this stuff is you can start small and gradually build as you learn. I started with a deadbolt and one light. Now I have dozens of items under control including six cameras. I graduated to creating a few scenes and triggering and even a couple baby steps in Lua code. I’m not a software engineer so it’s a steeper learning curve than a lot of the s/w pros on here but most folks seem quite helpful to give guidance. There’s a couple deep experts who are very generous with their time and guidance.
My Foscam FI8910W indoor PTZ cameras where a breeze to get working under Vera. They got recognized as soon as they came online and Vera added them without a hitch.
My Foscam FI9821W V2 has been an absolute horror story. It took me a month to get an image. Still no sensor. I would not have been able to do it without a lot of help in the Foscam plugin thread. Thsi is not my first rodeo and I’ve been in the IT field for 25 years plus.
Although Vera can still access my camera’s, the primary controller for that now is the Blue Iris software. As I am running a WHS2011 server on an HP N40L micro server anyway, that worked out well. All troublesome other camera’s (wansview and some others) I could not get to work under Vera were setup up within minutes.
We’ll see if UI6 improves the camera support but as it is, I’m quite happy with Blue Iris and am now looking into away to get it to talk with Vera.
The issue with camera integration is the fact that there are so many cameras out there with different api’s, features, etc. It is really hard to support them all. Vera supports a small subset of these cameras out of the box or should I say with a plugin. Many other cameras can be added, but would require a plugin if someone has not already created or for you to create the appropriate files to support the camera functions. Not all functions of one camera will work with another e.g. like motion detection.
Garrett
Best Home Automation shopping experience. Shop at Ezlo!