Frustrated by Sinocam Onvif wireless 1mp cameras

[virkdoc 0]

Hi all

greetings..My first post here. Purchased 4 WIFI IP cameras SInocam brand. Well came packed nice and look nice but the instructions were pathetic....after much head banging with a neighbors help I finally added the 4 cameras to the NVR....now the only problem was in the last step.

It says wifi setup......so that the cameras will connect to the router wirelessley. I have not been able to get it right with the result that the cameras wont work wirelessley. Any help will be appreciated.

I am using a apple time capsule as a wireless router.......I tried to read online about port forwarding and stuff but got confused.

Regards

Ron

[virkdoc 0]

Anyone?

[buellwinkle 0]

Anytime you see WiFi on inexpensive cameras you know you are in for a challenge. This is one of those brands that likely nobody has heard of, hence nobody chimed in. The problem with WiFi for outdoor use is getting good enough reception without interference so that that you can get the bandwidth to support a 1MP camera.

 

But for this science experiment, get the cameras in the same room as your WiFi router. First see if the cameras support encryption, WEP, WPA, WPA2, whatever you are using on your router and some WiFi products might not support current encryption methods like WPA2. So you could be banging your head against the wall if say the router is on WPA2 and your camera only supports WPA. Once you get everything to the lowest common denominator, the camera should have an option to search for SSIDs and you should be able to find yours, select it, enter the password and save it. Then you should be able to unplug the camera from the wall and Ethernet and plug it back in and it should recognize the WiFi.

 

It's best to use a fixed IP address in your network for each camera so the NVR can find it after a reboot, so don't use DHCP if that's even an option on this camera.

 

If reception is an issue, you may have to install repeaters. Post back if that's the case and I can share some repeater tech. Understand that in most cases, using WiFi is likely more expensive than using PoE wired cameras, because finding outlets or running high voltage along eaves and sides of houses is not as easy as running just low voltage Power over Ethernet and proper repeaters also add to the cost of WiFi.

[Borgie 0]

By default wifi is off on my camera's. You have to change the settings of the camera with the software that was delivered with it.

[dan732 0]

Using an Apple Time Capsule as a router sounds like a bad idea as well. I know Apple stuff can be a pain in the rear when interfacing with non Apple stuff.

 

However I never understood the point of "wifi" cameras, you still have to run a wire for power, if you are going to do that, you might as well just run Cat6, use Power Over Ethernet and call it a day.

[wsokol 0]

I had similar problems with this brand (ZSSinocam). Instructions that come with the product are useless, but I was able to Google the information. The main appeal of wifi is not having to run wires across the house to connect cameras to the NVR, I can simply plug them in to nearest power outlets. The cameras themselves seem to be working ok, although outdoor wifi connectivity is spotty. The main problem is the NVR that comes with it. It is basically garbage. The only functionality that it has is viewing images transmitted from cameras - it does not send any alarms over email, motion detection does not work, and it cannot be accessed remotely by the Super Meye app (or any similar app). Cameras' IP addresses have to be added manually since the "auto add IPC" function does not work. It cannot find cameras on wi-fi network and will overwrite the IP addresses entered manually if not disabled. There is no warranty of any kind - you are basically stuck with this POS.

 

As a security system it is a joke since none of the remote alarm or access functions seem to be working. Its only usefulness is remote monitoring. Since camera images can be streamed directly to a PC via Internet Explorer or ONVIF app that can be downloaded for free - they are the only usable part of this entire 'security' system, the NVR is a throw-away add-on. Having said that, however, most of "brand" name security system tend to get bad reviews as well but they cost more.

[eidwisam 0]

Hi

I bought this system. I agree it is not the easiest to setup, after few days of hard work, i managed to get this to work reliably. I will share the following with you because I know how frustrating it can be when you spend hours trying to get something to work with no success. I hope this will help someone to avoid the hours of work I spent to get this to work.

1- I use external (outdoor) access point to ensure quality and reliability of images. Configure Access point with static IP address on the same network extension e.g 192.168.1.180

 

2- Connect all cams and NVR and Router using Ethernet switch

 

3- Open the software that came with NVR which you should have installed on a PC connected to the same router, preferably with an Ethernet cable, on config tab add the 4 cameras that appear on the network. You will see the devices added on the left side of software window.

 

4- Right click the devices one by one and Configure Wi-Fi on each camera to a static IP with gateway and DNS server being same IP as Access point.

e.g

Cam1 192.168.1.100

Cam2 192.168.1.101

Cam3 192.168.1.102

Cam4 192.168.1.103

Gateway 192.168.1.180

DNS server 192.168.1.180

Mask: 255.255.255.0

 

5- Once done, disconnect cables on cameras. On NVR menu, add IP cameras manually using the IP addresses you assigned to the cameras.

 

6- On motion detection menu, enable that for all 4 cams

 

7- On record menu. Select motion and then highlight the days and hours you need this function to be active for, the grids should all be filled with green if you want it to work 24/7. Make sure you copy that to all cams, or you can do it for each camera separately if you need the dates and times to be different for other cams. this way you NVR will only record when the cams detect motion.

 

8- To view remotely. Go onto network menu on NVR, at the bottom of window you will see your NVR ID number (m followed by numbers), click on that and enable p2p.

 

9- The NVR will reboot. now you can view remotely on any PC by going to www.dddns.org , install GKPlugins, enter your NVR ID and password, once logged in, tick all under digital channel on the left top corner of the window, you should see all the cams now.

 

10- To view on mobile device, open browser on your mobile device, and go to www.dddns.org/m , this will take you to the correct software to download. Once downloaded, configure with your NVR ID and password, when you click on the channel number the video stream will appear.

[klein2006 0]

I chose to change the password on this camera... big mistake. Originally there was no password, so when I put one in, and I know what the password was, i had to type it in twice to verify, now i can't log back in. There's no reset button to reset to factory default, and i can't find anything in these rediculous instructions to tell me how to get back into this thing.

[watchingfromafar 0]

@eidwisam

 

HI,

 

I'm not too up to dat on all this. You seem to be on the ball regarding set up can you answer me two things...

 

1. Do I need to use a PC ie Windows with this system or can I use a Mac? The reason I ask is I only have a Mac and the Mini software disc I received in the box won't work and there doesn't seem to be anywhere I can download this software.

 

2. Our house is quite spread out and I've found the only way I can get decent wifi is to use Devolo mainline adaptors with built in Wifi. So whilst I only have one main broadband feed into the house I have two networks, one is called front room and the second's called Kitchen. My reasoning behind this was that I found bridging simply reduced the speed and quality into the second area. Is it possible to use the four cameras over the two networks?

 

Thanks in advance...

[Sino Something 0]

I had similar problems with this brand (ZSSinocam). Instructions that come with the product are useless, but I was able to Google the information. The main appeal of wifi is not having to run wires across the house to connect cameras to the NVR, I can simply plug them in to nearest power outlets. The cameras themselves seem to be working ok, although outdoor wifi connectivity is spotty. The main problem is the NVR that comes with it. It is basically garbage. The only functionality that it has is viewing images transmitted from cameras - it does not send any alarms over email, motion detection does not work, and it cannot be accessed remotely by the Super Meye app (or any similar app). Cameras' IP addresses have to be added manually since the "auto add IPC" function does not work. It cannot find cameras on wi-fi network and will overwrite the IP addresses entered manually if not disabled. There is no warranty of any kind - you are basically stuck with this POS.

 

As a security system it is a joke since none of the remote alarm or access functions seem to be working. Its only usefulness is remote monitoring. Since camera images can be streamed directly to a PC via Internet Explorer or ONVIF app that can be downloaded for free - they are the only usable part of this entire 'security' system, the NVR is a throw-away add-on. Having said that, however, most of "brand" name security system tend to get bad reviews as well but they cost more.

 

 

Settings in NVR dont save well, they reset as soon you click on save settings

only the camera sinocam is good, the software and manual is junk and useless

I use genius vision NVR, that one works perfect

 

All i have to get is a NAS so i dont have to leave my pc on

[SebDin 0]

Hello guys,

 

hope it's ok not to open a new topic. I also bought a szsinocam and I realized, that I have thrown my money into a piece of chinese engineering crap.

Saving anything on network storage isn't possible. Has anyone a setup in browser settings that works?

My ftp-path is to long to type in to the textbox in software.

Has somebody a functional setup and can tell me, how he has done?

 

I have a network HDD and a usb stick on my router, where I wanted so save my records or even some captures.

 

Here's a screenshot of my setup of a stick put into my router.

 

I would be very happy for some help!

Thank you in advance!

 

Regards

Sebastian

[jefft104 0]

OK you need your ethernet connection established to set up wireless. Use search tools to find the ip address and then put it in your browser address bar. Log into the device on the web page. Now navigate to wireless. if you do not know how to manage your router leave it checked for DHCP....but you may have to use search tools again if your router reassigns the ip address. Setting up wireless is pretty straight forward. You should use search to find your ssid. Enter your username and password. That ought to get you going. Good Luck.

 

I have a different problem. I can get a picture wirelessly and over p2p but cannot use the control functions at all. They are all frozen. Anyone have any experience in this area?

 

thanks

Jeff

[meatypete 0]

Hi Jeff, I'm inspired by your success! Can you help me at all?

I've got the Sinocam working on WiFi, but when I use the dvripc.net website to try to view remotely, it takes me to my router's login page.

 

Am I missing something? I've tried forwarding ports 8080=>80 and 15961 but no joy.

 

thanks!

 

[update]

Ok i think i may have sussed it - a bit of careful reading of the pdf manual on the disc!

 

essentially i have done these things:

1. Port mapped 8080 (external) to 80 (internal) on my router settings to my camera's internal IP address

Then in "network parameter / DDNS setup / Port" changed this to 8080 (this is to set it apart from my router's web interface)

2. Also port mapped 8200 (ext and int) and port 554 to the same internal IP address

3. Then, to remote view the camera, I've noticed there are two sites. In the paper instructions that came with it, it gives you www.dvripc.net - but I've not had any luck with that. HOWEVER, if you go in the camera settings to "network parameter / Mobile Setup" you will see a box called "domain". This has an address in the format xxxxxxx.dvripc.cn (where the xs are my unique ID) and takes me to a different web page. Just enter the login and password and presto!

 

Not sure which of these points made the difference, but hey, it seems to work!

 

Re Jeff and frozen controls - same here. Wonder if the advertised existence of these controls is only on more plush models?

 

Re SebDin asking about NAS file path - you've entered the IP address in both boxes. May not be necessary (though having said that, I haven't got that to work yet...)

[JSeller 0]

I bought one of these just the other day and I certainly agree that the setup instructions are pretty awful. However the fact is that after a fair amount of struggling I now have a remarkably good camera for the money. It looks very well made - seems to be aluminium alloy not plastic or steel with a thick anodised coating for good weather-proofing.

 

I didn't fancy following the recommended route for remote (internet) viewing as this seemed to involve a lot of trusting to distant websites. I port-forwarded ports 80 and 554 for the camera using TCP protocol and then used the android app Onvifer to connect. This seems to be a brilliant app which after a couple of false starts (with excellent error reports to help you sort things out) I was able to view real-time video. Only snag is that you need to know your external IP address - easy enough to find out but a pain if (like mine) it changes periodically.

 

Bottom line: be patient and persevere - there's plenty of good advice out there.