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LIDL silvercrest ip cam s-k 1920

Igotadose

Bought one couple days back. Seems to only be good for livestreaming. Anyone got it working using an Android phone? Thinking of returning it as it's pretty useless without alerts and sending notifications, but no way to configure them despite the documentation claiming the opposite.

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From what others have said on other threads about this camera, it sounds like you might be better off with one of the Yi Cameras on Amazon, cheap, but work pretty well, notifications, recording to SD card, record 6 second clips of movement to the cloud for free, optional paid cloud services, etc.

Igotadose

bk wrote: »

From what others have said on other threads about this camera, it sounds like you might be better off with one of the Yi Cameras on Amazon, cheap, but work pretty well, notifications, recording to SD card, record 6 second clips of movement to the cloud for free, optional paid cloud services, etc.

Yah, unfortunately I've got this one

And, I really dislike the idea of yet another cloud service to sign up with.

But, it's pretty useless unless I can figure out how to get it to record movements, send notifications, etc.

Among other gotchas, in order for it to send e-mail, you have to use a gmail account as the originating account. That's buried in the documentation.

Just to point out the Yi Cloud service is free to sign up for. Only need a subscription if you want it.

Igotadose

I actually got this camera to work.

It cannot be 'armed' or 'disarmed' to notice movement and log it. It just 'does it.' Not clear what triggers it, but it appears to be both movement and some amount of sound. Waving my arms in front of the camera and yelling at it, indeed got it to log an event. It recorded a minute of video (with sound) and stored it on the microSD card.

It then e-mailed me the time & date of the event. I could then access the camera and download the video to my phone.

"Streaming recording," that is, recording to a device for a duration, is limited to an hour, and frankly I've not yet gotten it to even reach that far before the wifi hiccups (though, that might be my router) and it stops. In any event, an hour recording's not useful.

So, in summary:

1. It records 1 minute of video at a time on its microSD card, based on some non-configurable trigger, that seems to involve noise & movement.
2. It then, via a gmail account whose information you store on the camera, sends you a notice with the time and date to the account you've configured.
3. It can, via the windows app, record up to an hour of video.

The software described in the documentation that talks about enabling the triggering, doesn't match what I see on the Android app. Maybe it's available on IoS but I strongly doubt it.

I've emailed the developer, no response (q'uelle surprise). Their webpage doesn't exist either. I also e-mailed Lidl support, who, amazingly, said they'd contact the developer.

Sounds poor.

With the YI Cameras, you can opt to have them record just detected movement to the SD card or record constantly to SD card (movement or not).

Independent of the above, notifications can be turned on or off, scheduled to be on during certain hours only and you can adjust sensitivity and how often it sends notification. You can also create an activity zone where it only notifies you if movement detected inside that zone (like ignore the road outside that it might be covering).

When movement detected it records 6 second video to the cloud and sends you a notification in the app (this is in addition to the continuous recording to SD card).

It isn't quiet perfect, I do find it can be over-sensitive some times, moving light, shadows, branches and the neighbours cat all often trigger a notification. Other cameras like Nest and Logitech Circle support additional person detection and only notify you when they think they see an actual person and not random movement. But they cost significantly more and require a subscription for that feature.

Igotadose

Does the YI camera work if it's on the other side of a window from the outside? It's pretty regularly windy out here; I'd much prefer to have the camera indoors and not have it triggered by the wind, but have it triggered by movement.

Zones would work, shrubs are always waving in the breeze, wouldn't want them to trigger it.

BTW If you head over to the Home Automation forum, folks their have a lot of experience of different IP cameras.

Igotadose wrote: »

Does the YI camera work if it's on the other side of a window from the outside? It's pretty regularly windy out here; I'd much prefer to have the camera indoors and not have it triggered by the wind, but have it triggered by movement.

Zones would work, shrubs are always waving in the breeze, wouldn't want them to trigger it.

Yes, I had it set up like that for a while. Obviously picture quality suffers, but still good enough to see friend or foe, but perhaps not sharp detail.

Note you have to turn off the IR at night. If you don't the IR reflects off the glass and you can't see anything. With IR off you then have to depend on the lighting outside. PIR activated flood lights or an external IR luminator are options if it is dark out there.

Thing about the Yi camera is that it is just €20, so little risk in buying and trying and seeing if it suits your needs. It may or may not. You could always reuse it inside the house (in the hall looking at front door) for extra protection if it doesn;t work out as an external camera.

BTW Yi also have a more expensive waterproof external camera, I haven't played with that yet.

tinliz

Hi Igotadose,
I got one of these cameras recently and found set up ok. I've installed an SD card and am able to record, BUT can't figure out how to access the recordings. I'm using an Android phone. The app generates a notification everytime the camera detects something (via PIR) and it looks like it records then for about a minute.
You said you were able to access the camera and download the video to your phone. How were you able to do this?
BTW, I didn't bother setting it up to send email notifications.
Any help appreciated.

Igotadose

tinliz wrote: »

Hi Igotadose,
I got one of these cameras recently and found set up ok. I've installed an SD card and am able to record, BUT can't figure out how to access the recordings. I'm using an Android phone. The app generates a notification everytime the camera detects something (via PIR) and it looks like it records then for about a minute.
You said you were able to access the camera and download the video to your phone. How were you able to do this?
BTW, I didn't bother setting it up to send email notifications.
Any help appreciated.

I can view the videos on my phone with the android app that the instructions tell you to load on the phone. It's not a very good UI - you have to go to "Edit Setting" then "Event" then search for events (by day.) *then* you can download the videos to the phone and view them.

You can configure it to send an e-mail notification, restricted to a gmail account, when an 'event' is detected (someone walking in front of the camera, for example.) But, the notification is simply date and time, there's no other data like a video clip included. There certainly are better webcams out there that send video clips, upload them to a server, to the cloud, etc. Most of those cost a lot more and sign you up for a software service

But, overall, it's a pretty crap interface.

Cerco

Igotadose wrote: »

Does the YI camera work if it's on the other side of a window from the outside? It's pretty regularly windy out here; I'd much prefer to have the camera indoors and not have it triggered by the wind, but have it triggered by movement.

Zones would work, shrubs are always waving in the breeze, wouldn't want them to trigger it.

In my experience, cameras will not work on the other side of a window at night time. It will not see through the window as night vision signal will be reflected back off the glass.

Johnboy1951

I also suspect that if the camera is inside glass (lots of glass has various coverings/treatments) it will not detect optimally and will probably need very high trigger event to start a recording.

I bought a couple of exterior cameras (weatherproof) which will do it without interference from glass.
One of them even has LED lights which when it is triggered by movement turn on and illuminate the area.

I did not pay more than €35 for either.

tinliz

Hi Igotadose,
Yes, as you say a crap interface. I never noticed "Event" under the Edit Settings menu - not exactly intuitive - thanks for the tip. Working now. I guess it's not too bad for the money, once you get it working!
Thanks again, for your help.

Astraone

Iv'e got one of these Camera's , i am really disappointed that it only notifies my of the Camera being triggered by email, is there anything i can do so i get a Notification, rather than an email?