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OpenIPC: Open IP Camera Firmware

306 points by zakki 1y ago

roscas 1y ago
We need more projects like this. I have a tp-link "tapo" home "security" camera. Setup is made online. Then try to use that without a permanent internet connection... it turns itself off. It needs a permament connection to tp-link. Now you imagine why.
- cnst 1y ago
  Yup, requiring permanent internet connection is such BS. I had one of these "no-brand" cameras that had an integrated MicroSD card, which would make you think that it'd work just fine even without the internet. We had no power in Austin for several days, but I kept my camera on a portable battery, because, why not? After the power and the internet were restored and I checked the app, turns out, nothing was recorded! Even though it was online the whole time. Such a major disappointment.
- Sanzig 1y ago
  I have two Tapo units at home, they seem to be working fine without an internet connection. I created a new subnet and an associated WiFi SSID for it, connected the Tapo cameras, and set them up to act as RTSP cams. I then firewalled the subnet off from anything other than my Frigate NVR server and gateway. They still work fine, they are streaming video to Frigate without complaint. Maybe because they have DNS from my gateway still? (I should probably block that off, it's a common data exfil vector). Very annoying that internet connectivity is required for initial setup, I'll agree there. They could have just had a bare bones web interface.
- raffraffraff 1y ago
  It's hard to say for sure if this firmware will work on a specific Tapo camera, but the Tapo TC60 uses the Ingenic T31 SOC, which is supported. If there's a strong chance that their cameras use any of the Ingenic SOCs on this list, it would be worthwhile trying.
- Klaster_1 1y ago
  I disassembled my Tapo C110 recently to change the case, it has a SSC333 inside, which is listed a compatible with OpenIPC. Worth a try.
systemswizard 1y ago
This is great
happyPersonR 1y ago
Is there a list of camera models that are known compatible? I took a quick glance, this looks really cool!
- efrecon 1y ago
  Link from the homepage: https://openipc.org/supported-hardware/featured https://openipc.org/supported-hardware/featured
  - stragies 1y ago
    This is a list of SOCs, not a list of devices containing these SOCs. And for most cameras sold, you'll have a hard time figuring out pre-buy, what SOC it contains.
  - cnst 1y ago
    I'm happy for anyone who can make a use out of it, and it's nice to see one of the only examples where non-US users are ahead of the US, but… Do you have any Amazon ASIN for any of these products, available for sale in the US? There's a whole bunch of random no-name IP cameras available on Amazon US, often costing as low as $15 USD, possibly because some of them are subsidised by their cloud offerings, but I've never seen any of these brands listed on OpenIPC. I'm sure some of the brands we see, are simply whitelabels, but, how do you figure these things out, without a disassembly to look at the boards?
- cure 1y ago
  There seem to be a few camera manufacturers listed under "Supporters" on the introduction page, namely Goodcam and RunCam.
  - cnst 1y ago
    It'd be really nice if any of the $15 cams on Amazon were supported.
cnst 1y ago
I've looked into it a few years ago when I was shopping and setting up my security cams. Super cool! But, unfortunately, I wasn't able to translate any supported devices into an Amazon ASIN in the US. Normally, many services on the internet only work in America. With OSS security cams, it seems to be the exact opposite. Eastern Europe and China are way ahead here.
roacato 1y ago
Despite the name, openipc isn't fully open - the main recorder/encoder app (majestic) is closed source. Many openipc developers have moved to an alternative project named "thingino" which has a fully open source recorder/encoder/streamer.
- stragies 1y ago
  This project only seems to support Ingenic SOCs (as per https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware). A far cry from the list supported by openipcam. Edit: But they have a list of product names, where they support installation of Thingino: https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware/blob/master/docs/supported_hardware.md https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware/blob/master/d...
  - cnst 1y ago
    > https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware/blob/master/docs/supported_hardware.md https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware/blob/master/d... Good list. Happy to see Imou and Wansview on the list, these "unknown" brands have been selling directly on Amazon US for a while now: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Wansview/page/1E1F86AB-C01A-4575-8EE7-86A7CD7D18B3 https://www.amazon.com/stores/Wansview/page/1E1F86AB-C01A-45... https://www.amazon.com/stores/Imou/page/73EC8A3D-1E78-42C5-8DF9-A91CF2D4A88E https://www.amazon.com/stores/Imou/page/73EC8A3D-1E78-42C5-8...
  - wltechblog 1y ago
    The ING in Thingino stands for Ingenic. The Ingenic chips are MIPS, all the other cams are ARM. Focusing on these chips allows us to produce a firmware that actually works (not my experience with openipc) and is already configured for a specific product so you don't have to spend hours figuring out specifics for your camera to enable the hardware features!
    - stragies 1y ago
      Thank you for your work! Can you recommend a compatible LAN POE camera available on Amazon(.de?)
cnst 1y ago
I looked at the list on https://thingino.com/ https://thingino.com/ , and one of the cheapest cameras supported by thingino is Wansview Q5. I'm NOT exactly sure on the exact version, because 2 different versions exist on Amazon, 3MP/2019 and 5MP/2024, in 2 colors each, but the older 3MP version is available for under $20.00 USD with FBA: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Wansview/page/1E1F86AB-C01A-4575-8EE7-86A7CD7D18B3 https://www.amazon.com/stores/Wansview/page/1E1F86AB-C01A-45... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QKXM2D3 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QKXM2D3 — $16.14 FBA for black 3MP Q5 Wansview https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QKWPT8J https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QKWPT8J — $19.78 FBA for white 3MP Q5 Wansview It's also been on sale at $9.99 on Woot a few months ago, but sold out. https://electronics.woot.com/offers/wansview-2k-ip-security-camera-1 https://electronics.woot.com/offers/wansview-2k-ip-security-... EDIT: looks like the cheapest one in the US is actually Cinnado D1 2k, it's under $14.99 on Amazon. https://github.com/wltechblog/thingino-installers/tree/main/cinnado-d1 https://github.com/wltechblog/thingino-installers/tree/main/... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CBBT5RMP https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CBBT5RMP — ≤$14.99 FBA for Cinnado D1
- thatcherc 1y ago
  Cool! It looks like the Wansview Q5 has a similar SoC/camera/wireless setup as the Wansview W7, which as an installer guide on the Thingino wiki [1]. I wonder if that same installation process (but with the q5 firmware) would work. For $16 I'm inclined to try it out. [1] - https://github.com/wltechblog/thingino-installers/tree/main/wansview-w7 https://github.com/wltechblog/thingino-installers/tree/main/...
- wltechblog 1y ago
  Generally the cheapest fro Amazom is by Cinnado. I have a video on installing it my channel as well. I've bought this model for as low as $9.50 shipped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phqR49t75Ak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phqR49t75Ak
  - cnst 1y ago
    Wow, under $14.99 for Cinnado D1 2k is nice! Thanks! It looks like right now it's available for 14.99 less the 25% promo code, that's $11.25 USD shipped, for OSS hardware? Niiice!
ck2 1y ago
this is neat too as it can control some of my cameras https://team.openipc.org/ipcam_dms/ https://team.openipc.org/ipcam_dms/ (note the english translated link)
miiiiiike 1y ago
Whenever I look into IP cameras I close the tabs because it feels like I walked into a store brand cereal aisle where all the boxes are exclaiming “Now with fewer razor blades!” or “Only half the reported cases of salmonella than similar store brands!” What’s a good brand for IP cameras? What’s the best, in terms of open source support and reliability? I need a mix of PoE indoor and outdoor cameras. 15 outdoor/10 indoor. Cost isn't a factor, I need something reliable.
- dekhn 1y ago
  I have used MindVision gigabit cameras, I believe they have some POE models (but they are mostly indoor-industrial-machine-vision. They do have a Linux SDK (basically a .so and a Python wrapper for the .so). I'm going to look at all the links in the comments in this post to see if I can find things which are: better documented, more affordable, and easier to integrate.
- fullstop 1y ago
  While not open source, I have had good experiences with Reolink. They integrate well into Home Assistant and Frigate.
  - miiiiiike 1y ago
    Yeah, I need open source firmware.
    - formerly_proven 1y ago
      Yeah, you have to choose. Either a decent camera, or open source. Can't have both.
      - hungmung 1y ago
        You could rig up some rPi's, but then you gotta maintain everything yourself. Weatherproofing is probably a PITA too.
pbasista 1y ago
This seems nice. But if I am looking correctly, it does not support the devices from the mainstream brands like Hikvision. I am unaware of how good those typical $20 cameras are. Maybe they are decent. But for instance some of the Hikvision ones with 8MP sensors support 4K@25 fps. I think that it would be great if there would be an open source firmware for higher-end cameras like those.
- wltechblog 1y ago
  Thingino doesn't support cams with ARM processors, we only support the chips made by Ingenic (which are a MIPS superset they call Xburst). We have a number of 4 megapixel (not 4k) devices we support, and are in the process of adding support for the next generation of Ingenic chips (Xburst2) which will bring up support for 8 megapixel (4k) devices. We're also focused mostly on the less expensive models, because they're obviously within reach for a lot more folks but also they're almost always subsidized by the expectation that a discounted purchase price is made up for by the vendor's cloud subscription. You can get a LOT of great camera models for a low price. I will say that there is a story about Hikvision that would likely steer most folks away from their brand.. it's bad enough that Google won't index it... With that said, I don't believe anyone should be trusting any third party with their video data in the first place...
  - pbasista 1y ago
    > I don't believe anyone should be trusting any third party with their video data in the first place Of course. No one is suggesting that storing video data from cameras in a cloud system over which the owner has no oversight and no control is reasonable. I was mostly interested in what kind of image quality can an end user expect to get from a camera with open source firmware. The mainstream brands like Hikvision had cameras with 4K@25 fps capabilities several years ago. And if I understand what you have written in your message correctly, the Thingino may possibly, start supporting similar cameras sometimes in the future. Which is great. But it does not support them now. I fully understand that the focus is on the mass market where the devices are cheap. It makes sense. It is reasonable. But it is also necessary, in my opinion, to fully openly acknowledge that there indeed is a fairly broad gap in capabilities of what you can get with this kind of firmware when compared to the mainstream offerings.
infogulch 1y ago
Does this firmware work with open source camera recorders ("NVR") like Shinobi [1], Frigate [2], ZoneMinder [3], etc? [1]: https://shinobi.video/ https://shinobi.video/ [2]: https://frigate.video/ https://frigate.video/ [3]: https://zoneminder.com/ https://zoneminder.com/
- baby_souffle 1y ago
  Yes. I have a few of these cameras all pointed to a frigate instance. This firmware offers a variety of protocols so basically anything designed for viewing streaming video should just work
boredemployee 1y ago
tangentially, does anyone know of any open-source and reliable implementations of the "AI" algorithms used in those expensive cameras? I'm looking to use features like face recognition, people counting, and similar capabilities, but with my own hardware and regular cameras. someone said to "avoid at all costs yolo" so i'm looking for alternatives
asdefghyk 1y ago
I would post this if to IPVM ( IPvm.com ) if I had not been kicked out, because I did not have a company email address ...
- moontear 1y ago
  Is this a spam comment or what is the relation of this service to the topic at hand?
  - asdefghyk 1y ago
    Not spam, but it could be discussed on that site. Lots knowledgeable people on that site. Although not so much discussion of low level firmware issues. A issue that I would have liked to change , as I think firmware and its discussion etc is very relevant to camera and performance.
KyleBerezin 1y ago
I actually tried this before and it led nowhere. The list of supported hardware is specifically referring to the SoC, not a brand or anything. It can be very hard determining which physical cameras have which chips. On top of that, despite the name, most of the supported devices seem to be for webcams, and not chips used in modern off-the-shelf IP cameras. I really wish there was a ground up guide that used an obtainable, normal camera.
- wltechblog 1y ago
  You might have better luck with the Thingino project, we target specific devices.
  - KyleBerezin 1y ago
    This looks great! Do a PoE outdoor camera! I'll keep an eye on your project, maybe I will find some time to contribute.
    - baby_souffle 1y ago
      When I last looked into a PTZ capable outdoor camera, the best advice was that I can probably get a supported camera module but I would have to source my own enclosure, lenses and everything else. There are standard dimensions for lenses and mount points ...etc but it was not going to be a straightforward thing that I could bang out in a weekend.
      - wltechblog 1y ago
        We have a bunch of ptz outdoor units supported by Thingino. Check out thingino.com for the full list of supported devices!
        baby_souffle 1y ago
        > We have a bunch of ptz outdoor units supported by Thingino. Check out thingino.com for the full list of supported devices! Compared to when I last looked ~ a year ago... yeah, the list certainly has gotten longer. For anybody else that clicks, all of the outdoor cameras are all WiFi based, though. The dream of "at least 2K, PTZ, PoE and rain-proof" is still a pipe-dream :(.
codr7 1y ago
Sounds promising but soldering electronics is pretty far outside of my comfort zone, think I'm going to let this marinate for a while.
jtchang 1y ago
A number of years back I got bored during covid and decided to reverse engineer as much of the Wyze Cam V2 camera I could and make some custom firmware for it. Right now that lives at https://github.com/openmiko/openmiko https://github.com/openmiko/openmiko That said it's really hard to make long term supportable open source camera software/firmware. And when picking cameras it is even harder because the market as it stands now does not let you have it all. You need to pick what facets you really care about. Also keep in mind even the above code is not really opensource all the way: I still had to load the driver binaries. Not sure that source will ever be released. The kernel is also old as heck. What I do feel good about though is saving these old cameras from the dumpster if Wyze ever stops supporting them. The firmware works for simple cases: just load it up and you can start curl'ing frames. I used it in scripts to put together timelapse videos with ffmpeg. No need to screw around with authentication, phones apps, email, etc.
- themactep 1y ago
  Hey, Openmiko is a nice project. With your baggage of knowledge, I would love to see you contributing to Thingino as well. While we still depend on binary blobs from the manufacturer SDK, there is a work on alternatives to replace what is replaceable with open stack. Join the team, have fun.
- n8henrie 1y ago
  Learning to do something like this (reverse engineer electronics and flash them with custom firmware) from scratch is one of my life dreams! Having read https://github.com/openmiko/openmiko/blob/master/doc/development.md https://github.com/openmiko/openmiko/blob/master/doc/develop... -- is there anywhere that you document how you learned to do this / how you got started with this project? I would love to find a "zero to hello world, from scratch" type tutorial for putting custom firmware on a camera not supported by one of the existing projects (or a similar writeup detailing how one of these projects got started in the first place).
dang 1y ago
Related: Show HN: WFB-ng – long range high speed link for drones and robotics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41293934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41293934 - Aug 2024 (3 comments) Thingino: Camera firmware derived from OpenIPC focused on the Ingenic SoC - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40261046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40261046 - May 2024 (2 comments) OpenIPC is an alternative open firmware for your IP camera - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39571025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39571025 - March 2024 (70 comments) OpenIPC: Alternative open firmware for your IP camera - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37812217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37812217 - Oct 2023 (59 comments) OpenIPC: Alternative open firmware for your IP camera - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35975383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35975383 - May 2023 (1 comment)
john_kl79 1y ago
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illwrks 1y ago
Somewhat related… I have an old dead Wi-Fi camera, it was always buggy but was useful when it worked initially. With a spare raspberry pi kicking around, I’ve put together a better solution using Motion, a Webcam, iNotify and a Dropbox uploader script. It works like a charm, after a powerloss etc the pi boots up, starts Motion and then starts watching for events, motion triggers and saves video clips to a folder, iNotify watches for new files saved and then uploads to Dropbox.
MostlyStable 1y ago
I recently got a FOSCAM 3k wifi camera. It supports the RTSP stream standard and CGIProxy commands over http. After the initial setup (mostly just providing it with your network details), you never need to use the official app or cloud anything and it can be restricted to only your LAN with router firewall rules. This is, at least for me, a "good enough" solution that is not dependent on any cloud infrastructure and can be integrated, completely locally, with whatever services you want.
- TheCondor 1y ago
  Their cameras and hardware are pretty solid. They work with ONVIF reasonably well too. It would be awesome if there was an openfirmware option for this hardware.
radredgreen2 1y ago
This may be a good place to introduce my HomeKit based Wyze v3 camera reflashing side project. If you're already in the apple ecosystem and want cheap, secure cameras, Wyrecam is an open source, vanilla HomeKit Secure Video (HKSV) firmware: https://github.com/radredgreen/wyrecam https://github.com/radredgreen/wyrecam.
cyanydeez 1y ago
Seems like figuring out the SoC is the hard part.
geophph 1y ago
would love to see something like this for ycam homemonitor products
john_kl79 1y ago
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TheMagicHorsey 1y ago
The licensing on this project is wonky. They have an MIT license, but then they say you can't use the software for commercial purposes without contacting them. That's in contradiction to an MIT license. An MIT license is basically "use it for anything". If you don't want that, then use some kind of "copyleft" license for non-commercial users, and specify separate commercial terms for users who want to keep closed source with their modifications.
- ACCount36 1y ago
  Most of their code is MIT, but there's a proprietary streamer engine at the heart of it.
- ZigFisher 1y ago
  Are you a representative of a camera installation company or do you sell services? Please do not distort the information that is written on the site. And it says there that the project ASKS everyone who uses the firmware for commercial purposes to contact. You are simply confusing MIT with real life realities.
ACCount36 1y ago
Fun fact: none of the cheap IP camera SoC vendors implement v4l2. They all have their own off-spec kernel drivers, compatible with absolutely nothing. You even have to rewrite camera sensor drivers from scratch for every vendor's middleware.
- arjvik 1y ago
  I'm confused why such a device needs to run Linux instead of an RTOS
  - ACCount36 1y ago
    Because using an RTOS for anything complex sucks, and Linux is nice and easy to work with. Same reason why routers run Linux.
miladyincontrol 1y ago
I'll admit I use reolink, however isolated on vlans with zero connectivity allowed other than caddy's L4 module encrypting and encapsulating it's stream which then is restricted to only my frigate setup. Even if I had a higher level of trust on the hardware and firmware, principle of least privilege.

306 points by zakki 1y ago

We need more projects like this. I have a tp-link "tapo" home "security" camera. Setup is made online. Then try to use that without a permanent internet connection... it turns itself off. It needs a permament connection to tp-link. Now you imagine why.

cnst 1y ago
Yup, requiring permanent internet connection is such BS. I had one of these "no-brand" cameras that had an integrated MicroSD card, which would make you think that it'd work just fine even without the internet. We had no power in Austin for several days, but I kept my camera on a portable battery, because, why not? After the power and the internet were restored and I checked the app, turns out, nothing was recorded! Even though it was online the whole time. Such a major disappointment.
Sanzig 1y ago
I have two Tapo units at home, they seem to be working fine without an internet connection. I created a new subnet and an associated WiFi SSID for it, connected the Tapo cameras, and set them up to act as RTSP cams. I then firewalled the subnet off from anything other than my Frigate NVR server and gateway. They still work fine, they are streaming video to Frigate without complaint. Maybe because they have DNS from my gateway still? (I should probably block that off, it's a common data exfil vector). Very annoying that internet connectivity is required for initial setup, I'll agree there. They could have just had a bare bones web interface.
raffraffraff 1y ago
It's hard to say for sure if this firmware will work on a specific Tapo camera, but the Tapo TC60 uses the Ingenic T31 SOC, which is supported. If there's a strong chance that their cameras use any of the Ingenic SOCs on this list, it would be worthwhile trying.
Klaster_1 1y ago
I disassembled my Tapo C110 recently to change the case, it has a SSC333 inside, which is listed a compatible with OpenIPC. Worth a try.

systemswizard 1y ago

This is great

happyPersonR 1y ago

Is there a list of camera models that are known compatible? I took a quick glance, this looks really cool!

efrecon 1y ago
Link from the homepage: https://openipc.org/supported-hardware/featured https://openipc.org/supported-hardware/featured
- stragies 1y ago
  This is a list of SOCs, not a list of devices containing these SOCs. And for most cameras sold, you'll have a hard time figuring out pre-buy, what SOC it contains.
- cnst 1y ago
  I'm happy for anyone who can make a use out of it, and it's nice to see one of the only examples where non-US users are ahead of the US, but… Do you have any Amazon ASIN for any of these products, available for sale in the US? There's a whole bunch of random no-name IP cameras available on Amazon US, often costing as low as $15 USD, possibly because some of them are subsidised by their cloud offerings, but I've never seen any of these brands listed on OpenIPC. I'm sure some of the brands we see, are simply whitelabels, but, how do you figure these things out, without a disassembly to look at the boards?
cure 1y ago
There seem to be a few camera manufacturers listed under "Supporters" on the introduction page, namely Goodcam and RunCam.
- cnst 1y ago
  It'd be really nice if any of the $15 cams on Amazon were supported.

cnst 1y ago

I've looked into it a few years ago when I was shopping and setting up my security cams. Super cool! But, unfortunately, I wasn't able to translate any supported devices into an Amazon ASIN in the US. Normally, many services on the internet only work in America. With OSS security cams, it seems to be the exact opposite. Eastern Europe and China are way ahead here.

roacato 1y ago

Despite the name, openipc isn't fully open - the main recorder/encoder app (majestic) is closed source. Many openipc developers have moved to an alternative project named "thingino" which has a fully open source recorder/encoder/streamer.

stragies 1y ago
This project only seems to support Ingenic SOCs (as per https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware). A far cry from the list supported by openipcam. Edit: But they have a list of product names, where they support installation of Thingino: https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware/blob/master/docs/supported_hardware.md https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware/blob/master/d...
- cnst 1y ago
  > https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware/blob/master/docs/supported_hardware.md https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware/blob/master/d... Good list. Happy to see Imou and Wansview on the list, these "unknown" brands have been selling directly on Amazon US for a while now: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Wansview/page/1E1F86AB-C01A-4575-8EE7-86A7CD7D18B3 https://www.amazon.com/stores/Wansview/page/1E1F86AB-C01A-45... https://www.amazon.com/stores/Imou/page/73EC8A3D-1E78-42C5-8DF9-A91CF2D4A88E https://www.amazon.com/stores/Imou/page/73EC8A3D-1E78-42C5-8...
- wltechblog 1y ago
  The ING in Thingino stands for Ingenic. The Ingenic chips are MIPS, all the other cams are ARM. Focusing on these chips allows us to produce a firmware that actually works (not my experience with openipc) and is already configured for a specific product so you don't have to spend hours figuring out specifics for your camera to enable the hardware features!
  - stragies 1y ago
    Thank you for your work! Can you recommend a compatible LAN POE camera available on Amazon(.de?)

cnst 1y ago

I looked at the list on https://thingino.com/ https://thingino.com/ , and one of the cheapest cameras supported by thingino is Wansview Q5. I'm NOT exactly sure on the exact version, because 2 different versions exist on Amazon, 3MP/2019 and 5MP/2024, in 2 colors each, but the older 3MP version is available for under $20.00 USD with FBA: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Wansview/page/1E1F86AB-C01A-4575-8EE7-86A7CD7D18B3 https://www.amazon.com/stores/Wansview/page/1E1F86AB-C01A-45... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QKXM2D3 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QKXM2D3 — $16.14 FBA for black 3MP Q5 Wansview https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QKWPT8J https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QKWPT8J — $19.78 FBA for white 3MP Q5 Wansview It's also been on sale at $9.99 on Woot a few months ago, but sold out. https://electronics.woot.com/offers/wansview-2k-ip-security-camera-1 https://electronics.woot.com/offers/wansview-2k-ip-security-... EDIT: looks like the cheapest one in the US is actually Cinnado D1 2k, it's under $14.99 on Amazon. https://github.com/wltechblog/thingino-installers/tree/main/cinnado-d1 https://github.com/wltechblog/thingino-installers/tree/main/... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CBBT5RMP https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CBBT5RMP — ≤$14.99 FBA for Cinnado D1

thatcherc 1y ago
Cool! It looks like the Wansview Q5 has a similar SoC/camera/wireless setup as the Wansview W7, which as an installer guide on the Thingino wiki [1]. I wonder if that same installation process (but with the q5 firmware) would work. For $16 I'm inclined to try it out. [1] - https://github.com/wltechblog/thingino-installers/tree/main/wansview-w7 https://github.com/wltechblog/thingino-installers/tree/main/...
wltechblog 1y ago
Generally the cheapest fro Amazom is by Cinnado. I have a video on installing it my channel as well. I've bought this model for as low as $9.50 shipped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phqR49t75Ak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phqR49t75Ak
- cnst 1y ago
  Wow, under $14.99 for Cinnado D1 2k is nice! Thanks! It looks like right now it's available for 14.99 less the 25% promo code, that's $11.25 USD shipped, for OSS hardware? Niiice!

ck2 1y ago

this is neat too as it can control some of my cameras https://team.openipc.org/ipcam_dms/ https://team.openipc.org/ipcam_dms/ (note the english translated link)

miiiiiike 1y ago

Whenever I look into IP cameras I close the tabs because it feels like I walked into a store brand cereal aisle where all the boxes are exclaiming “Now with fewer razor blades!” or “Only half the reported cases of salmonella than similar store brands!” What’s a good brand for IP cameras? What’s the best, in terms of open source support and reliability? I need a mix of PoE indoor and outdoor cameras. 15 outdoor/10 indoor. Cost isn't a factor, I need something reliable.

dekhn 1y ago
I have used MindVision gigabit cameras, I believe they have some POE models (but they are mostly indoor-industrial-machine-vision. They do have a Linux SDK (basically a .so and a Python wrapper for the .so). I'm going to look at all the links in the comments in this post to see if I can find things which are: better documented, more affordable, and easier to integrate.
fullstop 1y ago
While not open source, I have had good experiences with Reolink. They integrate well into Home Assistant and Frigate.
- miiiiiike 1y ago
  Yeah, I need open source firmware.
  - formerly_proven 1y ago
    Yeah, you have to choose. Either a decent camera, or open source. Can't have both.
    - hungmung 1y ago
      You could rig up some rPi's, but then you gotta maintain everything yourself. Weatherproofing is probably a PITA too.

pbasista 1y ago

This seems nice. But if I am looking correctly, it does not support the devices from the mainstream brands like Hikvision. I am unaware of how good those typical $20 cameras are. Maybe they are decent. But for instance some of the Hikvision ones with 8MP sensors support 4K@25 fps. I think that it would be great if there would be an open source firmware for higher-end cameras like those.

wltechblog 1y ago
Thingino doesn't support cams with ARM processors, we only support the chips made by Ingenic (which are a MIPS superset they call Xburst). We have a number of 4 megapixel (not 4k) devices we support, and are in the process of adding support for the next generation of Ingenic chips (Xburst2) which will bring up support for 8 megapixel (4k) devices. We're also focused mostly on the less expensive models, because they're obviously within reach for a lot more folks but also they're almost always subsidized by the expectation that a discounted purchase price is made up for by the vendor's cloud subscription. You can get a LOT of great camera models for a low price. I will say that there is a story about Hikvision that would likely steer most folks away from their brand.. it's bad enough that Google won't index it... With that said, I don't believe anyone should be trusting any third party with their video data in the first place...
- pbasista 1y ago
  > I don't believe anyone should be trusting any third party with their video data in the first place Of course. No one is suggesting that storing video data from cameras in a cloud system over which the owner has no oversight and no control is reasonable. I was mostly interested in what kind of image quality can an end user expect to get from a camera with open source firmware. The mainstream brands like Hikvision had cameras with 4K@25 fps capabilities several years ago. And if I understand what you have written in your message correctly, the Thingino may possibly, start supporting similar cameras sometimes in the future. Which is great. But it does not support them now. I fully understand that the focus is on the mass market where the devices are cheap. It makes sense. It is reasonable. But it is also necessary, in my opinion, to fully openly acknowledge that there indeed is a fairly broad gap in capabilities of what you can get with this kind of firmware when compared to the mainstream offerings.

infogulch 1y ago

Does this firmware work with open source camera recorders ("NVR") like Shinobi [1], Frigate [2], ZoneMinder [3], etc? [1]: https://shinobi.video/ https://shinobi.video/ [2]: https://frigate.video/ https://frigate.video/ [3]: https://zoneminder.com/ https://zoneminder.com/

baby_souffle 1y ago
Yes. I have a few of these cameras all pointed to a frigate instance. This firmware offers a variety of protocols so basically anything designed for viewing streaming video should just work

boredemployee 1y ago

tangentially, does anyone know of any open-source and reliable implementations of the "AI" algorithms used in those expensive cameras? I'm looking to use features like face recognition, people counting, and similar capabilities, but with my own hardware and regular cameras. someone said to "avoid at all costs yolo" so i'm looking for alternatives

asdefghyk 1y ago

I would post this if to IPVM ( IPvm.com ) if I had not been kicked out, because I did not have a company email address ...

moontear 1y ago
Is this a spam comment or what is the relation of this service to the topic at hand?
- asdefghyk 1y ago
  Not spam, but it could be discussed on that site. Lots knowledgeable people on that site. Although not so much discussion of low level firmware issues. A issue that I would have liked to change , as I think firmware and its discussion etc is very relevant to camera and performance.

KyleBerezin 1y ago

I actually tried this before and it led nowhere. The list of supported hardware is specifically referring to the SoC, not a brand or anything. It can be very hard determining which physical cameras have which chips. On top of that, despite the name, most of the supported devices seem to be for webcams, and not chips used in modern off-the-shelf IP cameras. I really wish there was a ground up guide that used an obtainable, normal camera.

wltechblog 1y ago
You might have better luck with the Thingino project, we target specific devices.
- KyleBerezin 1y ago
  This looks great! Do a PoE outdoor camera! I'll keep an eye on your project, maybe I will find some time to contribute.
  - baby_souffle 1y ago
    When I last looked into a PTZ capable outdoor camera, the best advice was that I can probably get a supported camera module but I would have to source my own enclosure, lenses and everything else. There are standard dimensions for lenses and mount points ...etc but it was not going to be a straightforward thing that I could bang out in a weekend.
    - wltechblog 1y ago
      We have a bunch of ptz outdoor units supported by Thingino. Check out thingino.com for the full list of supported devices!
      - baby_souffle 1y ago
        > We have a bunch of ptz outdoor units supported by Thingino. Check out thingino.com for the full list of supported devices! Compared to when I last looked ~ a year ago... yeah, the list certainly has gotten longer. For anybody else that clicks, all of the outdoor cameras are all WiFi based, though. The dream of "at least 2K, PTZ, PoE and rain-proof" is still a pipe-dream :(.

codr7 1y ago

Sounds promising but soldering electronics is pretty far outside of my comfort zone, think I'm going to let this marinate for a while.

jtchang 1y ago

A number of years back I got bored during covid and decided to reverse engineer as much of the Wyze Cam V2 camera I could and make some custom firmware for it. Right now that lives at https://github.com/openmiko/openmiko https://github.com/openmiko/openmiko That said it's really hard to make long term supportable open source camera software/firmware. And when picking cameras it is even harder because the market as it stands now does not let you have it all. You need to pick what facets you really care about. Also keep in mind even the above code is not really opensource all the way: I still had to load the driver binaries. Not sure that source will ever be released. The kernel is also old as heck. What I do feel good about though is saving these old cameras from the dumpster if Wyze ever stops supporting them. The firmware works for simple cases: just load it up and you can start curl'ing frames. I used it in scripts to put together timelapse videos with ffmpeg. No need to screw around with authentication, phones apps, email, etc.

themactep 1y ago
Hey, Openmiko is a nice project. With your baggage of knowledge, I would love to see you contributing to Thingino as well. While we still depend on binary blobs from the manufacturer SDK, there is a work on alternatives to replace what is replaceable with open stack. Join the team, have fun.
n8henrie 1y ago
Learning to do something like this (reverse engineer electronics and flash them with custom firmware) from scratch is one of my life dreams! Having read https://github.com/openmiko/openmiko/blob/master/doc/development.md https://github.com/openmiko/openmiko/blob/master/doc/develop... -- is there anywhere that you document how you learned to do this / how you got started with this project? I would love to find a "zero to hello world, from scratch" type tutorial for putting custom firmware on a camera not supported by one of the existing projects (or a similar writeup detailing how one of these projects got started in the first place).

dang 1y ago

Related: Show HN: WFB-ng – long range high speed link for drones and robotics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41293934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41293934 - Aug 2024 (3 comments) Thingino: Camera firmware derived from OpenIPC focused on the Ingenic SoC - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40261046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40261046 - May 2024 (2 comments) OpenIPC is an alternative open firmware for your IP camera - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39571025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39571025 - March 2024 (70 comments) OpenIPC: Alternative open firmware for your IP camera - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37812217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37812217 - Oct 2023 (59 comments) OpenIPC: Alternative open firmware for your IP camera - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35975383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35975383 - May 2023 (1 comment)

john_kl79 1y ago

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illwrks 1y ago

Somewhat related… I have an old dead Wi-Fi camera, it was always buggy but was useful when it worked initially. With a spare raspberry pi kicking around, I’ve put together a better solution using Motion, a Webcam, iNotify and a Dropbox uploader script. It works like a charm, after a powerloss etc the pi boots up, starts Motion and then starts watching for events, motion triggers and saves video clips to a folder, iNotify watches for new files saved and then uploads to Dropbox.

MostlyStable 1y ago

I recently got a FOSCAM 3k wifi camera. It supports the RTSP stream standard and CGIProxy commands over http. After the initial setup (mostly just providing it with your network details), you never need to use the official app or cloud anything and it can be restricted to only your LAN with router firewall rules. This is, at least for me, a "good enough" solution that is not dependent on any cloud infrastructure and can be integrated, completely locally, with whatever services you want.

TheCondor 1y ago
Their cameras and hardware are pretty solid. They work with ONVIF reasonably well too. It would be awesome if there was an openfirmware option for this hardware.

radredgreen2 1y ago

This may be a good place to introduce my HomeKit based Wyze v3 camera reflashing side project. If you're already in the apple ecosystem and want cheap, secure cameras, Wyrecam is an open source, vanilla HomeKit Secure Video (HKSV) firmware: https://github.com/radredgreen/wyrecam https://github.com/radredgreen/wyrecam.

cyanydeez 1y ago

Seems like figuring out the SoC is the hard part.

geophph 1y ago

would love to see something like this for ycam homemonitor products

john_kl79 1y ago

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TheMagicHorsey 1y ago

The licensing on this project is wonky. They have an MIT license, but then they say you can't use the software for commercial purposes without contacting them. That's in contradiction to an MIT license. An MIT license is basically "use it for anything". If you don't want that, then use some kind of "copyleft" license for non-commercial users, and specify separate commercial terms for users who want to keep closed source with their modifications.

ACCount36 1y ago
Most of their code is MIT, but there's a proprietary streamer engine at the heart of it.
ZigFisher 1y ago
Are you a representative of a camera installation company or do you sell services? Please do not distort the information that is written on the site. And it says there that the project ASKS everyone who uses the firmware for commercial purposes to contact. You are simply confusing MIT with real life realities.

ACCount36 1y ago

Fun fact: none of the cheap IP camera SoC vendors implement v4l2. They all have their own off-spec kernel drivers, compatible with absolutely nothing. You even have to rewrite camera sensor drivers from scratch for every vendor's middleware.

arjvik 1y ago
I'm confused why such a device needs to run Linux instead of an RTOS
- ACCount36 1y ago
  Because using an RTOS for anything complex sucks, and Linux is nice and easy to work with. Same reason why routers run Linux.

miladyincontrol 1y ago

I'll admit I use reolink, however isolated on vlans with zero connectivity allowed other than caddy's L4 module encrypting and encapsulating it's stream which then is restricted to only my frigate setup. Even if I had a higher level of trust on the hardware and firmware, principle of least privilege.