Can I Reprogram my IP Camera?

..probably NOT! This is a risky procedure which can kill, or BRICK, your camera.

The problem is, IP camera's are by-design, made to be connected through a network. Unlike a computer to which you have a keyboard-and-mouse direct-connection to the bios, you can only communicate you an IP camera through the network.  In the process of updating camera software, you could potentially loose all ability to connect, and at that point your camera is DEAD.

So I don't recommend it, unless (a) you REALLY KNOW WHAT YOUR DOING [1], and (b), you don't care if your camera becomes a useless brick.

OK so if you want to proceed, here is an example of hacking a LINKSYS WVC54GCA.

Remember- its possible that 

 Your camera may never work again!

[1] - you should understand details like unix/linux commands, and in some cases, even how to disassemble the camera and solder on a new connector, and so on.

From the Box to Broadcasting, What do I do?

Using the Loftek Spectre, I'll explain the steps to go from a boxed camera, to broadcasting. Most of these steps are described in detail in my other posts.

1. Your new camera is HERE! Carefully open the box and unpack, saving all packing materials in case you have an issue. In the box you should find:

• a driver Disk
• the camera
• a manual and maybe a quick-start guide (these may be on the disk)
• possibly a CAT-V cable
• possibly a separate mount
• an antenna (if its wireless)
• an A/C Power Adapter 

 

2. Consult the manual. It will tell you how to do the install. Usually the next step is to load the software. This is pretty straight-forward on a windows machine- you know the drill.

3. Assemble your camera- attach the antenna if there is one, plug in the cat-V cable, and plug in the power. The other end of the CAT-V goes into your router or switch.

4. This next step varies, but your computer needs to *discover* the camera. You may find it using an address such as 192.168.1.22 (fouidn in your manual). Or you may find software to do the discovery. The manual will tell you how to do this step.

5. Once you find the camera, you need to set up its network config, user access and other configs. I likwe to go through every menu option to be sure I set up everything properly.

6. TEST! Can you see the image? 

7. Set up your router. I describe this in detail in other posts. Initially you can set up to run on the WAN with your WAN DNS address. Later you can use DDNS and get yourself a cool domain!

8. Locate and mount your camera. I describe this is detail in another post.

9. Save all the packing and boxes in case you need to return the camera.

10. Tell your friends (if its open), and set up your phone and browsers to view your new camera.

Those are the major steps- ENJOY your new IP camera!

OK 'Nuff Yakking Let's SEE SOME SITES

OK, here are some (sometimes) interesting Open IP Camera Sites, in no particular Order. These may not always be online. Have fun!

a really FAST PTZ at a busy Airport Missoula, MT. this is a great PTZ 

 this was dark, PTZ control

PTZ a control room

PTZ somewhere in Asia

PTZ A busy Dock Somewhere

Pitt State College?

Looks REALLY COLD wherever this is!

 Somewhere in Macau

What is an IP Camera Hack?

Some tricks are popping up, particularly on YOUTUBE, to use Google to locate and view open IP Cameras. More on this topic soon, I'm doing research now.

Here are a few strings you can enter into GOOGLE, and then comb through the results. You'll find a few cameras in there.

Looking for AXIS cameras

A general IP Camera search

Another one

What is DDNS and Why Do I need it?

DDNS stands for Dynamic Domain Name System.  This is a very-tekkie discussion of DDNS, in more detail than previously presented.

Each website, FTP site, device, and even your cable modem, has an Internet ADDRESS. This address is how the Internet locates nodes, aka computers, or routers, or anything else that might hang on a CAT-V cable [1].

The numbers aren't *too friendly* however. They're hard to remember and for the most part, meaningless as far as their significance. Think about it. If your friend says 

Did you check out my latest pix on 66.220.149.11??

You'll be like HUH? But if they instead say

Did you check out my latest pix on Facebook??

THEN you'll know what they mean right? Well on the INTERNET, FACEBOOK is the domain NAME (at least part of it), and 66.220.149.11 is the Internet address for that name. This might be called the IP Address, or even the WAN address.

So they have to have a system that can TRANSLATE a name into an address,  so when you enter FACEBOOK into your browser, it knows to send you to 66.220.149.11 , and that's what a DNS or Domain Name Server, does. This is called NAT, or Network Address Translation.

So that's a little bit of background for you.  Now what about DYNAMIC DNS (DDNS)?

You actually could get a NAME and a FIXED IP ADDRESS [1] for your camera, and never worry about DDNS. But for most of us, that's impractical. A fixed address is expensive. So instead let's look at DDNS.

Your CABLE or other type of provider temporarily assigns an IP address to you. They own a pool of FIXED UP Addresses, which they dole out to their subscribers on a round-robin or other type of sequence. So when you woke up this morning, your IP address could potentially be different than it was when you went to sleep.

In practice they don't really change that often. If your router hasn't been off line, its possible to have the same IP Address for weeks, or months. In that scenario, you might consider just using the current IP, not worrying about DDNS, and resign yourself to having to adjust it ever month or two. Or six.

But if you want your Camera to automatically be ADJUSTED to use the new IP address, then that's where DDNS shines.

Here is how it works. 

You sign up for a DDNS service. There are dozens. Some are free, some charge $1-2 a month, others more. One caveat- your selections may be limited by your camera or router, read on..

Next, you need to configure one of your devices to *talk to* your DDNS provider. You can locate DDNS settings in your router, camera, and even on some computers.

Then you configure it to tell your DDNS provider about your IP address. When it changes, it tells the DDNS provider, and it adjusts your NAT (Network Address Translation) so someone who types in tammycam.com ALWAYS finds you, even if your address changed.

For details on settings at both the DDNS provider and your router or camera, you'll have to consult the associated guides. They're all different. 

But the part to remember is that many devices can only support CERTAIN DDNS providers. You'll find the list in that guide. Be sure to select one in the list. The other important thing is that you only need ONE device to communicate to the DDNS provider, so you can select it based on which is easiest to configure, which is always-on (like your router), etc.

With lots of study and some trial and error, you can set-and-forget this and never have to worry about it again (hopefully!)..

[1] Most network connections are made with CAT-V cable. The connectors look like really big telephone jacks (remember those?)..

[2] a FIXED IP Address is one that stays the same, and essentially you OWN (or, more often, lease) it. A fixed address is expensive, and for most consumers, not used.

What Can My IP Camera DO Besides Showing me Images?

Good question.

If you're not a surveillance company glued to a wall of monitors, you probably don't have time or patience to sit and watch your IP Camera 24x7. And if you watch even an hour a day, you're only monitoring about 4% of the time.

But you're in-luck (probably), because many contemporary IP camera offer tools for round-the-clock monitoring. Here are some:

1. Motion Detection (MD): Many IP cameras can detect motion, which in-turn triggers an event.  An event might be turning on a siren, or texting a photo to your phone. 

Motion-detection can be difficult to *dial-in* however, since you have to set thresholds. You have to instruct your camera how much of the image has to change, in how little a time-span, to trigger. With pets walking about, branches waving in the wind, rainstorms, too-low a threshold can produce false triggers. And too high can miss real events. 

So MD is useful but you may have to experiment to get the camera isolated from false triggers, and also experiment with thresholds.

2. FTP: your IP camera may support FTP, where an image is sent to a disk on some interval, or on a trigger like MD. Like a *poor-man's-DVR* this is essentially a slide-show view of the scene.

Some FTP systems can also transfer video clips, or even audio clips.

3. EMAIL: Your camera can email you. This service can be difficult to set up as it seems to require an SMTP(Mail Service) server, but it can be done with some config settings. If you set up your pop-client on your PC, you can probably set up this.

4. Two-way audio: You can broadcast audio TO The camera area with your cellphone or PC microphone. Why would you want to do THAT? Say Fido has been getting into your garden digging it up while you're at work? You set up MD on the garden, get an alert, look at your cell, and THERE Fido, digging. 

You get into your IP Camera phone ap, press TALK, and say GET OUT OF THERE FIDO!

FIDO looks totally confused, and wanders off.

Of course there are far more sinister activities you can intercept, such as a burgler. I'm thinking Mr Burgler hears STAY RIGHT THERE, I'M LOADING THE SHOTGUN out of the darkness, he's headed for the nearest door!

Even though all of these utilities can be very useful and even life or property-saving tools, I expect with the explosion underway we'll see even more utility of IP Camera like interfaces to social media, podcasting, etc.

Have fun!

Can I FOCUS an IP Camera?

..not really. Like point-and-shoot cameras, most IP cameras do not have a manual focus. This is generally not a problem however, since the objects in view are distant enough to not require focusing.

And also like point-and-shoots, you cannot vary the depth-of-field, aperture or F-Stop settings, so a shot like this would not be easy!

You can, in some cases, find alternate lenses for your camera. I've seen wide-angle, fish-eye and other options. Note that since these lenses tend to distort the photo geometry, they may not be useful for details like facial recognition, license-plate legibility, etc.

You can also sometimes find interchangeable lenses which offer other lens diameters.

What WOULD be nice, but I haven't seen, are UV or other filters.

I have noticed that some IP Camera controls do offer focus- so I tend to think that some manufacturers probably offer it. I haven't seen one yet, however.
 

How do I Mount and Install an OUTDOOR IP Camera?

...coming soon!

What software do I need for my IP Camera?

Starting with a question- what software do you (probably) already have? Correct- some flavour of Microsoft Windows, and Internet Explorer.  That means that for like 90% of IP Camera, you already have MOST of what you'll need.

Unfortunately for linux or BSD or other OS-users (AIX?), it's gonna tough for you to use an IP Camera unless you're particularly handy and clever. Even in Windows, its not always easy.

The main challenge is the video content, and how to display it. I see ACTIVE-X as the most common transport, which is both good and bad. The bad news- you probably don't already have a compatible copy of Active-X on your system, which means you have to load it. Luckily you'll probably get prompted to load it (if not you may have to fiddle with IE Security settings).

The other problem is, many suppliers offer unsigned-copies of Active-X, which likely means even MORE fiddling with security settings to get it loaded. In IE these settings are found in the CUSTOM ZONE menus. Look for the radio buttons that allow prompting for download of Active-X in various states (ie, unsigned).

Life can be a bit simpler if you need less functionality, and you elect another transport like server push, or VLC. Those may also need plug-in installs, but they can be less-daunting than Active-X.

If you're actually INSTALLING the camera, you may also need the software from the camera seller, provided on CD, DVD, or downloaded from their site. It seems that unlike modern routers, you can't just plug the camera into a CAT-V cable, type 192.168.1.N into a browser, and voila there it is! Loftek and others provide *discovery software* that sort of locates the camera, and leads you through some steps to do preliminary configuration. I believe much of this will soon vanish- early routers had this same issue, but quickly evolved past it. But for now you may need to install and run this from the Camera's CD or website.

There are various other utilities and software you might need such as DDNS-disable, net-config, etc. These should be described on the camera webpage, or in the manual.

Once you're set up and stable, you won't need to worry about all of this again unless your settings go haywire. Pray that doesn't happen!

OK I Want an IP Camera- How do I get one ON A BUDGET.

You can get some great deals on IP Cameras, if you're willing to (a) take some changes, (b) live with poor or no customer service, (c) get used gear, (d) possibly have to return for a , and replacement, and (e) live without leading-edge features.

Having said all that, here is my my personal strategy. Personalize this for your own use!

1. Go to AMAZON.COM . Search for IP CAMERA
2. sort by price, lowest first.  Start drilling down on some of the more attractively-priced options
3.  look at the 1-off sellers, that is, Amazon sellers who sell on Amazon, but are not Amazon proper.
4. Check their feedback, and even send them a message (to see how quickly and comprehensively they reply)
5. When you're confident you found a bargain, and you trust the seller and his feedback, order a camera
6.  When you get the camera, inventory and test it quickly. If there is a problem, message the seller quickly. It may not be an issue if software is missing - check the manufacturer's site for downloads.

As I check today, I see most indoor PTZ IP Cameras are in the $100 or so price-range, yet using these steps, I see some under $50, NEW! That's a nice savings.

And if you're an Amazon Prime member, you may get even more discounts.

In contrast, I checked EBAY and although I found many options, I found higher prices, in general.  The best Foscam deal I found was about $75 shipped, which isn't bad, but is of course not $50 !

NOTE- this selections are not H.264, so you're gonna give up some  image quality in return for your savings.

Happy shopping!

What is an OPEN IP Camera?

Historically, IP Cameras have been *focused* on monitor and surveillance, and locked down for the people who are designated to monitor them. I personally think this is about to change, because that's only ONE application, and there are both millions of things people want to watch things, and millions that people want to show things.

Presenting the OPEN IP Camera, which is, in short, a camera with no password protection, or perhaps one with a known, public password. Although technically the latter would not be open per se, but it sort of fits the definition of being open.

 Your IP camera is on your walkway to your door? OK, maybe that's not a great candidate for an OPEN IP camera. What about an IP Camera on Mount Rushmore? An active bird's nest? Jackson Hole?

But wait..  You don't have to live in a historic or scenic area to offer up some interesting cam shots. How about your AQUARIUM? Your garden? Your shop?

Surprisingly there are few sites with OPEN IP camera links. I plan to start one on ipcameras.us soon. Be part of the revolution and all!

So there you have it, not much else to say on this topic, share your thoughts?

How do I Get my Very own DOMAIN for my IP Camera?

This is an intimidating challenge for many users, particularly those who never had their very own domain. But it might be easier than you think... Or maybe not, depending on how much of a tekkie you are.

The good news is, this stuff is a LOT easier now than it was even 2-3 years ago.

You don't NEED a domain, but they make you *search-able* on the search engines, and the *coolness* factor can't be beat! They are also much easier to remember, and unlike your WAN IP address, they don't change. Think about it- if you tell your BFF:

hey check out my new camera on my dog fido at http://43.54.122.34:2033 .. 

You can imagine how long your BFF will remember that! But what if you said:

hey check out my new camera on fido! Its at fido.timmycam.com

Well THAT might get remembered, right?

There are 3 basic steps to obtain a domain and configure your camera to be on it:

First, Obtain your domain name. To do this, get an account at a domain provider's site, choose the name, and snag it. I use GO DADDY for for my domains; they have great prices, and awesome service, and lots of eye-candy! You can get a domain for a year for under $5, some under $1!

Choose your name carefully- Be CLEVER so you get something people will remember! Like danacam.com (if you happen to be named Dana, otherwise this may not make sense), or chicagocams.com (this may be taken) and so on. .us and other domain types are often on-sale. As I write this, .us domains are only $3.99 for year 1.

 

Next, set up DDNS (DYNAMIC DNS). This is the way you associate your (changing) WAN IP address with your domain and port.

If you want to find out what your WAN IP is, use this site. It may not work properly in some cases depending on your browser REFERER settings, but it seems pretty good in general.

There are MANY DDNS Providers, but unfortunately, not all cameras/routers cooperate with all DDNS providers.  Here is a list of providers.

To make this work, you must have ONE device on your LAN that can communicate with the DDNS provider. TZO or DYNDNS are providers commonly supported by many cameras [1] (particularly LINKSYS/CISCO), but it's about $2 a month to use their service. A FREE provider, and the one I use, is afraid.org , which is FREE! FREE is good. You can get detailed set up instructions on these sites.

Finally, you need to configure your router or camera to exchange information with the DDNS provider. You only need to configure ONE device- one camera, or one router, etc.  But it needs to be a device that is always on.  Go into the ADMIN page for the device, and select the DDNS option, and enter your information. If you use a PAID service, they may assist you if you get confused.

OK that's done, let's go live. We'll use ports to do this.

What are PORTS? Well, PORTS can be YOUR FRIEND! PORTS are used to route requests to each of your cameras. Its like your WAN is the switchboard phone number, and ports are the phone extensions.

Let's take a look..

Say you have 4 IP cameras, and you own the domain ilovecams.com. How can you access FOUR cameras, with one domain? Simple - with PORTS! Here is what you can do..

Set up camera one on port 2001, two on 2002, three on 2003, and four on 2004. To do this, simply go into EACH camera's admin page, and enter the port on the network config page. Almost all IP cameras will allow you to do this.

Next, back to your router's admin page, you will set up PORT FORWARDING, associating camera 1's FIXED IP address with port 2001, camera two with 2002, and so on. It sounds hard, but it's not. Sometimes this function is sort of disguised under GAMES/APS, or some other tab.

Now you can access each camera using ports. For example you can view camera 3 using

http://ilovecams.com:2003

BUT we can make this even better! Go Daddy, and/or your DDNS provider, may allow yuo to do DOMAIN or SUBDOMAIN forwarding! Which is very cool.. 

So instead of remembering port numbers, you can redirect subdomains. For example, say camera 1 is on a birdcage, and camera 2 is on your front door. Well, go to GODADDY and using subdomain redirect (you can have up to 99 subdomains):

birdy.ilovecams.com directed to ilovecams.com:2001

frontdoor.ilovecams.com directed to ilovecams.com:2002

Isn't that a lot easier to remember? Now when you visit http://birdy.ilovecams.com , all of the numbers and gobbledygook are hidden- up pops your birdy cam!

One thing to be aware of- not all of these changes are active immediately. GODADDY changes can take hours (to update servers worldwide), so you may not see results right away. GODADDY has excellent support if you need assistance.

Have FUN with domains - grab a clever one and be an internet star!

[1] - actually this is a sore-spot among many tekkies, who oppose locking a router or camera to certain DDNS providers, instead of opening up the device to ANY and ALL. Oddly, some routers/cameras actually lock their device to only PAID providers. Some camera sellers offer their OWN DDNS service, free, but it is often in Asia so the ping times may not be stellar/

Is an IP Camera MOBILE?

The short answer? NO!

You generally won't be toting your IP Camera into Barnes And Noble, glomming onto their wireless connection, and broadcasting your reading-self.  But I suppose you could, perhaps.

But for medium stays like an overnighter, weekend, etc. it could be practical to set up and deploy an IP camera.  The problem is, each time you move, you'll need to reconfigure the camera, your router, even your DDNS provider and potentially even your domain provider. And since it can take hours to propagate a domain change, in some cases, this just isn't practical.

But let's say you live on a boat, and move around a lot. But at the same time, you tend to stay in one place for a week, or even a month or two. And you'd like to have a camera on the boat [1]. In that case you have some options. One, you can set up for the presiding wireless service, get the IP and port, and mail or text it off to your audience. But unless you can make changes to the wireless router, that can't happen. Read on.

You probably won't have access to the wireless router's port-forward or DNS settings, so you really can't configure your camera to respond over the WAN. Remember, the router has to know where to route requests to see your camera, and on a public net, and they are not likely to let you broadcast off of port 80 (the default for HTTP).

This is potentially a show-stopper. But maybe you can *buddy-up* to the Wireless LAN provider and get him to sneak a port-forward in for you! And a FIXED IP for your camera.  If you visit the harbour annually, perhaps the person would be willing to just leave the setting there- and even *time-share* it so others can use it when you're not there.

What if you have a domain name for your camera? Well that's a bit stickier, but even that can be somewhat mobile. You redirect your DDNS to your current IP/Port, and you should be online again in seconds. Read more about that in my post on IP Camera Domains.

If the router-admin grants you access, well, I guess you'd owe him AT LEAST a beer for that! Or two.

Happy mobility!

[1] this is actually a WONDERFUL idea- a PTZ camera (read about camera types in an earlier post), hi up on a mast, would potentially have splendid panoramic views of the harbour, waters, boats and more.

Who can VIEW My IP Camera, and from Where?

"What really sets IP Cameras apart is the ability to view them from anywhere."

With a few fairly simple actions, an IP camera can be configured to view from your smart phone, or any browser worldwide. Sounds amazing?  It is!

Our friends and family  get a great sense of security and virtual presence at home as we view our 4-5 cameras showing us every door, and the interior.  I can pan/tilt my outdoor cameras to see pretty my my entire yard, the street, and even adjacent buildings.

We can check on our home and pets while travelling, out on the water,  at work, whenever and wherever we are (except perhaps when SCUBA diving!)..

Is this secure? It sure is. Modern IP cameras have built-in security- the usual assortment of WEP, WPA, WPA2, etc.

And using the camera interface, you can force users to enter a username and password to view any images. In fact many PTZ cameras offer multi-level access, where you can allow users to view, view and MOVE the camera, or administrate- your choice.

The steps are easy:

1.  choose a PORT to use as your broadcast port. It needs to be > 1024, and unused.
2. set up your camera on your LAN. You'll want to set it up with a FIXED IP address (don't select DNS). Normally this address would be 192.168.1.XXX where XXX>128. Check your router status for unused ports.
3. In the same camera admin network page, and set it up to broadcast on the SAME port you selected.
4. Next, go into your router admin page, and find the page to set port forwarding. Then add the port you selected, and point it at the IP address you chose for your camera.
5. Repeat 1-4 once for each camera you have, each time selecting unique IP's and ports.

and Bingo- you're WORLDWIDE! You can access your cameras anywhere using the IP Addreses from your provider. You can determine THAT by checking your router WAN status or at a number of websites like this one.

Say your provider set you up on 46.43.66.55 (which you found in your router status, or from a WAN IP website). And you chose port 2222 for your camera. Just point your browser at 46.43.66.55:2222 and there is your camera! From anywhere.

You can ALSO view it from inside your LAN, using the local FIXED ip for the camera, and the port, such as 192.168.1.203:2022

But that ONLY works from inside your LAN. The WAN address works from anywhere on the internet.

For smartphones there may be another step, where you set up the MEDIA PORT to point at another port, say 557. In this case, select an unused port between 500 and 600, and add that to port forwarding too (step 4). This step may not be necessary, but certain apos may require it. I recommend IP CAM BASIC as the ap to use for your IP camera viewing from your Android.

Say you want a REAL web-page- not a number? I tell you how to do that in another post, where in a matter of minutes you can set up your camera with a name you select, for example:

http://frontyard.mycoolcam.com

Having fun yet?

Who Sells 'Em, and Where Can I Buy an IPCamera?

If there was such as thing as the gold standard of (home use) IP Cameras, I would have to nominate FOSCAM. In fact, many other cameras are described as FOSCAM clones, or rebranded FOSCAMs. So for now, I'd call them your leader of the pack.

And in fact it's true that many companies seem to rebrand. I don't know all the details of how much they *value-add* the product. Many seem to use identical hardware, and install their own firmware which includes their custom webserver.

Some of the names you might find include WANSVIEW, LOFTEK, EasyN (which curiously is generally NOT Wireless-N capable), VideoSecu, Hootoo, and Agasio. Most of these companies offer comsumer-use cameras in the $80-$200 range, some suprisingly feature-rich. For example, the Loftek Sentinel D-1, a personal favorite and one I own, is an outdoor Dome camera with 3x Zoom for well under $200 US.


Some bigger players, many of whom offer professinal products, and tend to have their own custom hardware include players like Trendnet, Linksys/Cisco, D-Link, Planex, Logitech, GE, Lorex, Grandstream, Toshibe (not a typo), CP Tech, and Vonnic. There are dozens of others.  Some of these companies offer consumer-quality products, particularly familiar names like Cisco and Logitech.  But many focus on hi-end pro gear.


..and what about TECH SUPPORT?

Well many of us are familiar with support from Logitech, Cisco, and other well-known companies, and in most cases, it's excellent.


From the lesser-known sellers, they try, but often fall short of providing assistance. There are language issues, and there seems to be significant delays, if they respond at all. I view all of that as sort of the price-you-pay to get discounts. 


For a tekkie, like me, it's no big deal. In fact it can even be an advantage to deal with small companies with few resources, because they have less rigid policies and standards. Ask Logitech for the SOURCE CODE for one of their camera's webserver; you pretty much KNOW what that answer is! But a smaller company might provide it. I had one provide me with much of the internal code detail already (which I hope to rewrite for my own customizations).




And shopping?

Where is the place to shop for IP cameras. Online, you can find a huge selection of providers, and products on Amazon (amazon.com). Search for IP camera, you'll get the idea! The major sellers seem to offer products here. You may not find many options for discounted used IP cameras here since many of the products are recently introduced. Users haven't had time yet to get frustrated or bored with them!


Of course Amazon's rival, EBAY also has a plethora of options you can discover with the same search. Sort by price to see the discounts. And provided that the lens and mechanism are not damaged, EBAY often has many viable used choices as well. Normally missing software is NOT a problem as you can often download your drivers and updates, but check first with the manufacturer's site.


You can sometimes order directly from the manufacturer's or seller's site- Foscam.us for example. You might pay a bit more on those sites however- since on the major auction and retailer sites, there are lots of competitors.


You might find some IP cameras in the big-box B&M stores too. I personally wouldn't bother- they will not offer tech support from the store, the prices tend to be higher (gotta pay the rent!) and the options are fewer.




So stay in your budget, and if you're a newbie, but ONE camera first and get the feel of what's involved. Read the reviews (amazon has tons of them!). And most of all have fun!