This new IP Camera is very portable and is a small box shaped camera, you can pop it up anywhere you want it to be, as long as you setup the camera with your Mi Home App and you are good to go.
Please download APP "Mi Home" from Apple Store or Google Play.
The first time you use the Mi Home App you need to set the usage area for China
Yes, you can do this.
Latest firmware for the cam seems to have disabled the video recordings on the servers. My cam was upgraded for the firmware last week and I have since lost my capability to download motion detected videos.
I thought that the latest ones didn't work outside of China. Still hackable via Fanghacks but no good with the Mi app.
I used an older MiHome app using an app extractor from my other phone which was not upgraded. It was the firmware to the camera that I updated last week that started this. Cam firmware is now 3.3.3.25. before this version it was working.
Is there an ELI5 explanation of how to hack these? I bought 2 a couple of months ago and I've struggled with the guides.
Burn the fanghacks image to an SD card.
Power up camera without SD, wait until it's fully started, insert SD, done.
@zfa: I wish it were that simple for me… I always get "The requested URL /cgi-bin/status was not found on this server." No matter how many times I try. So frustrating.
I dont know if this is similar to the rectangle one that pivots but mine works. I have the latest app and have even updated the firmware. My accounts a chinese mi account though as my friend bought me the yi cam some time back. Think that one required the hack
@zfa:
Lol. "Burn"
I'll try it tonight. Thx.
I'm interested in trying this myself on my multiple new cameras. Thanks for the links.
Looks like it's all working again. I think it must have either been a server issue or restarting my router. I can now view my motion detected videos and playback recordings from the sdcard.
Xiaomi fanboy here, but the one that I have send to have a very short range and needs seeing up with the wifi every time I power cycle.. dont know if it's just my unit.
same here I have mine permanently on but it keeps losing connection with the router that it sits next to. Good quality picture though
Same here..I have to power cycle it almost everyday so that it works otherwise it just wont.
Yep. Seems to just crap itself and now allow connections.
I have connected my cameras to timer plugs so I do not have to power cycle them regularly.
Good idea! $10 for 2 at bunnings.
That looks like a good idea,
Some people here say they have no issues running the camera 24/7. Is your setup any different? Why do you need power cycling?
I thought that the power cycling needs resetting the configuration or some manual input each time versus a simple reboot?
I have a few Zigbee/wifi plugs around, can I just remotely power off and turn it back on if issues arise?
Is that possible to write a few line in the script to enable restarting the camera remotely?
My dafang used to do this a lot. The firmware updates look like it fixed it
Looks like $82 USD when I click through… is it expired?
I switched the "Ship To" to Australia and it gave me the deal at $16.08
I'm not getting an option for free postage with my order for 3 Xiaofangs. message I'm getting just before checkout is "not allowed for better customer experience" and the option is greyed out. Pretty shifty.
Put through three single orders is usually how you have to do it. I haven't tried for this item, but sometimes they limit it to one order of one item at the cheap price per account. That's why most of us have multiple accounts with each of these sites (LITB, gearbest, geekbuying, everybuying, rosegal, banggood, …).
thanks. price has gone up or something because it's $23.21 each now. no deal! if it was limited to 1 per person, this should have been mentioned.
Could this send data to a cloud account in real-time?
How does it compare to dafang?
Dafang better but no rtsp hack.
None of them has RTSP mode? How Dafang is better?
(apart from the phone movement control which Dafang supports looks like everything else is the same? Like movement and sound detection and two ways communication,… Am I right?)
Could they both be hacked? If so would they still work with the Mi home app?
RTSP streams available on Xiaofang by implementing fanghacks which isn't available for dafang. But Xiaofang isn't moveable etc like the dafang is.
@zfa: RTSP will probably happen soon, they've managed to build their own firmware and get most of the other parts working
Thanks a lot, I hope we get a few more people talking about their experience
@pal:
I've got four Xiaofang cams bought from the various specials at GearBest and after being hacked I think I've had to do maybe two or three reboots across all the devices over the few months they've been running. And generally that's probably because I've been taking the network down around them or something.
One thing I will say is that there is an extra script for the fanghacked cams you can install to restart the RTSP server should it die which I have in place. I've no idea if that is restarting behind the scenes for me? If I get a bit of time I could add some logging to that and get some proper metrics but all that being said with the hack and restart script in place I'd say they've been pretty solid.
@zfa: Thanks a lot. With a bit of work looks very promising!
2 questions:
After being hacked, does it work with the Mi Home App for automation/ motion and sound detection/ two-way communication or it loses some capabilities if so is the hack reversible?
After all, can I hook a camera to my Onedrive/Dropbox/my phone app or even a youtube live video to be recording you say 1 frame every 5 seconds or something similar?
@pal:
I think you just pull out the SD card and reboot without it to revert to original functionality but there would be more info on that on the github page. It may well be a one-way street as whilst you're ever running in 'standard' mode you are at risk of a firmware update coming down to prevent the hack working later… You probably want to stick with on mode of operation or the other. When you're running in 'hacked' mode I think you can still use the app unless you disable the cloud functionality (which is the main purpose of the hack…) and/or enable the RTSP stream. Once you're using RTSP then the app stops working and so motion detection etc will not work via their app / servers. You would need to have some other service reading your cams, such as BlueIris, TinyCam etc. to reproduce that functionality.
If you do hack then you can output the image to ffmpeg and I tested uploading to YouTube Live with this a while back. It seemed to work but I wasn't very successful because my upload speed is crap. Similarly you can mount a network share and record to that if you like - that could be your Dropbox folder etc. I guess if you wanted it to be.
To be honest if you want to use the existing app and are happy with it I would just use that and forget about the hack.
If you don't want to use the app then hacking it enables you to just grab the stream and process it elsewhere - I personally have an old Android tablet running TinyCam Pro which acts as my head. I can connect to that from outside my home and it exposes the streams on a web page. It has motion detection etc. but I've never used it.
In summary, modding removes your reliance on the Chinese backend but then you lose the associated functionality and have to jerryrig it yourself somehow. If you are happy setting it all up it's probably worth it but if you want something to just work then consider staying on stock. At the price though I'd just get on and have a play and see what you think.
@zfa:
Same as this for me. 4 Xiaofang cams. The only issues I had after fanghacks was them getting hot and the RTSP server stopping intermittently.
I added a script to reduce the heat and also added the script to restart the RTSP server, and they haven’t skipped a beat in weeks.
I'd recommend doing Research before upgrading firmware. There are hacks that let you use rtsp mode however i don't know if you can rtsp hack on post firmware upgrade. Check Google xiaomi xiaofang hack.
I had to downgrade my camera firmware before it would let me install fang-hacks.
do you lose motion detection and night vision with the fanghacks?
No it shouldnt. It adds functionality
@CVonC: consensus seems to be that with the hacks enables then you aren't able to use the default app. You would need one that can read rtsp streams like tiny cam. Good news is that the hack only applies to the sd card inserted so it doesn't carry over if you remove it or the files associated with the hack
So for those using the hack, which app do you use that also lets you use nightvision and motion detection?
@CVonC:
I use my Qnap NAS to record the RTSP feed using the built in Surveliance Station App. You need to buy a license for any more than 2 feeds though. It just records the feed and you can view it live or the recordings from the Qnap Vmobile iphone app. (Remote access too with Qnap VPN.)
No motion detection but you can skip through the feed pretty quickly. Can also view the live RTSP feed in the VLC iphone app or PC.
bought thanks
It's showing up as 80$ for me and was an hour ago..
change the "Ship to" from the us to aus and the price will change,
Excellent Camera, have this installed in my AirBNB.
Yep, hopefully installed in all the bedrooms and showers :P
Sorry just the toilet…
Can someone explain to me in plain English, what does the hacks do? I still don't know what it could do after the hack. Thx in advance.
My understanding is that it enables RTSP, amongst other features. And RTSP essentially makes it work with any security video recorder..
Can I use a USB drive directly into the USB port at the back with the hack or it has to connect to a network drive or NAS?
Thanks monty!
I'm interested in a couple of these for use in the foyer / landing of my house, what's their motion detection like? Does it work well with the app? I run iOS so not sure if I'm able to do the "hacks" listed above…
I run one of these through iOS and haven't made it changes. The initial setup was a bit daunting, but now I've got it running, apart from a few menus still being in Chinese, it's pretty good.
Motion detection seems fine to me (although no expert). There's 3 levels, and when it detects motion, it records 15 seconds and sends a notification to my phone.
Great! Thanks for the input, any links to setup help are also appreciated :D
I think I just got guidance from previous Xiaofang posts here, about how you have to change the language (think I did to spanish or something) to get it working, than can change back to English. I will have a look to see what post helped and link back if I can find it.
The hacks are applied on the camera itself, so they're independent of your mobile OS.
The motion detection isn't good. Lot's of false positives for flying insects, bits of dust, rustling leaves etc.
Indoors with lights on it's passable though. In IR night mode it picks up specs of dust floating in the air as motion.
Thanks Monty. I managed to grab two without the shipping jumping, and because of beign based on USD, it came to $32.15, not $32.16, so another 96 of these and I can afford a soft serve from Maccas.
picked Australia and AUD: price is showing as AUD $ 23.21
ribenaboy, me too. Bugger
Yea showing up as 16USD …
I just got one of these from a previous Gearbest deal and for the price, it's amazing what it can do and the picture quality is not too bad. Only annoying this is that I have to set my locale to China.
And the times off by 3 hours. The hard coded time stamp on the feed that is. The in app time is local. You can either hack it or use the "correct image" on the dafang to fix it but that crops the image. Not sure if its the same thing for this one.
I would recommend people buy the more expensive "international" models when they decide to release them. No headaches
Camera is no longer available at the price OP mentioned
sob i missed out :(
Based on past trend another deal will come along that is a few cents cheaper.
Anyone get these to work?
I have my locale within the app set to mainland china, however keep getting error "Use only in mainland China, this product is only used in mainland china" when I try to go into the camera…
Hi does anyone know if they can all be hooked up with the 5 in one home kit?
I would like a monitor at home, and check the camera if it goes off etc.