The best cameras out there!

Kawboy12R

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Nov 18, 2014
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I got this in my email for some reason and thought some of you guys might like the laugh. We must be wasting our money on cams that cost more than $18. Looks like they're using Trump-like rhetoric to pimp their cams as well...

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Talking about $18 camera I just ordered Two models one Digoo 1.3MP (works P2P but also provide local RTSP) and also one Xiaomi 2MP $22 (this one is hackable to get rid of Cloud slave system) both having bidirectional audio, SDCard slot, 5V USB powered, only WiFi, the Xiaomi claims to have smoke and CO detector but for the price it will be just for hack & fun ;-)

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Will be interesting to see some day\night motion video samples from those.
Will you post once you play around with them a bit?

I could use a couple of unobtrusive cheap-o cams for a few places non-critical critter watching in and outside the house.
Either of those have IR?
 
Will be interesting to see some day\night motion video samples from those.
Will you post once you play around with them a bit?

I could use a couple of unobtrusive cheap-o cams for a few places non-critical critter watching in and outside the house.
Either of those have IR?
Yes but i'll receive them in only 3 weeks I guess so you can check for some youtube review, for example this one with Indian accent :)
 
Haarr!! lol. I was really expecting a hardcore hard to understand accent. The guy is actually pretty good.
Have yours arrived yet? Whats the verdict on them?
 
Haarr!! lol. I was really expecting a hardcore hard to understand accent. The guy is actually pretty good.
Have yours arrived yet? Whats the verdict on them?
Received only Xiaomi for now, works well, installed the "hacked" firmware to get rid of all Xiaomi "could only" interface (meaning you could only use this camera thru Smartphone Xiaomi dedicated APP aberly english translated, sending things to chinese Cloud), now using it as standard RTSP camera, have access to the embedded ARM Linux, filling exactly my front view with it's 110° for the price I am happy.
 
Do you suppose an $18 camera with $140-160 worth of lighting is as good as a Dahua 2MP Starlight? :) (never mind the ongoing costs of running like 100+ watts of LED lighting)
 
Do you suppose an $18 camera with $140-160 worth of lighting is as good as a Dahua 2MP Starlight? :) (never mind the ongoing costs of running like 100+ watts of LED lighting)
I never supposed antyhing nor said anything about it
 
And today I received the second camera a Digoo-M1Q even cheaper than the Xiaomi that do its first configuration thru sound emitted by smartphone app, back in 80's with my ZX81/ZX Spectrum/Oric Atmos/Commodre 64 audio tapes :)

Lesser wide angle than the Xiaomi, Smarpthone app well translated into english (better than Xiaomi with still a lot of chinese), bi directional audio is better, provided USB cable is much shorter than Xiaomi and no USB power converter provided have to use some 1A
 
@Dodutils im interested about the X cam! Can you link me some pages about the firmware? Maybe a link to this camera where YOU purchased it? I see some on eBay but Id like to see where you ended up.
Should work in Blue Iris after its hacked I bet?
 
@Dodutils im interested about the X cam! Can you link me some pages about the firmware? Maybe a link to this camera where YOU purchased it? I see some on eBay but Id like to see where you ended up.
Should work in Blue Iris after its hacked I bet?
I bought Xiaomi on banggood and you can find the hacked firmware easy just googling "fanghack", then it will provide RTSP_TCP stream you can change the RTSP resolution and bandwidth by changing the parameters that launch the RTSP server, here is the field view, my front wall is 30m large and camera is 10m from it, camera claims it is 110° and it is the exact view field I needed ;-) the Digoo M1Q provide native ONVIF / RTSP_UDP stream no need to hack anything, IR at night is better than the Xiaomi (because of more IR leds I guess) but they both are not outdoor cameras, but you can leave them outdoor if protected from the rain (I have an USB Logitech C520 outdoor for a year now and it still works fine)
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Wow so beautiful, you are truly blessed. Id show you my house but I live near death valley and its baron here with no trees or green. LOL

im still new, can this be recorded on an NVR?
 
Wow so beautiful, you are truly blessed. Id show you my house but I live near death valley and its baron here with no trees or green. LOL

im still new, can this be recorded on an NVR?
Yeah sure with RTSP stream, for now I am testing with Contacam (freeware) and NetcamStudio (free up to 2 cams), but they are WiFi only so you may need some WiFi extender or a wired WiFi router outside the house that will "grab" all outdoor cameras and send the network back inside the house thru the ethernet wire of the wifi router, all depend on how many cameras you have, how thick are your walls what resolution and bandwith you set... for 18-20€ each cam it is fun, you can test/play, teardown, change the lens for difference view angle without fear, and depending your requirements they could be sufficient but of course their are far to be as good build quality, night view mode capabilities and full featured firmware as ~150$ cameras like Dahua or HikVision many people talk about on this forum.
 
Just an example to show how Digoo M1Q 1.3MP performs day/night, and daylight (compared to previously posted Xiaomi example) it is far below Xiaomi quality but at night it is the opposite (may be because it's 1.3MP not 2MP) but for indoor (this camera is not for outdoor) this 18$ camera is fun the bi directionnal audio is good (whenever it's talkie-walkie unsynchronous mode), the smartphone APP is better than the Xiamomi (perosnnal opinion) I think the bad video is because you cannot set the video stream bandwidth compression like I did on hacked's firmware with the Xiaomi.

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Very cool!

Image is surprisingly decent
 
So dumb I am I didn't even tried/thought about doing a simple telnet on this camera and calling netstat I saw this Digoo has Telnetd so I tried it... typed root login and ... no password needed ... no more teardown I lost time but it was fun and Teardown is my second name ;-)
 
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Hum... played too much with the video_sc1135.xml xonfig file, Digoo got bootloop :-( but fortunately I made a .bak of config file in same folder and as the camera stay a few seconds "accessible" before bootloop I had time to copy/paste a "cp /ncp/config/video_sc1153.xml.bak /ncp/config/video_sc1153.xml" to restore original version and problem is fixed.

btw : U-Boot on this camera can be breaked/stoppped pressing any key (on some other cameras it is CTRL+U) but this give access to U-Boot commands only not the files inside the linux file system
 
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I bought Xiaomi on banggood and you can find the hacked firmware easy just googling "fanghack", then it will provide RTSP_TCP stream you can change the RTSP resolution and bandwidth by changing the parameters that launch the RTSP server, here is the field view, my front wall is 30m large and camera is 10m from it, camera claims it is 110° and it is the exact view field I needed ;-) the Digoo M1Q provide native ONVIF / RTSP_UDP stream no need to hack anything, IR at night is better than the Xiaomi (because of more IR leds I guess) but they both are not outdoor cameras, but you can leave them outdoor if protected from the rain (I have an USB Logitech C520 outdoor for a year now and it still works fine)
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@Dodutils Did I get this right, with the hack you mentioned, one could get the Xiaomi cam working with blue iris?