More control over auto-discovery of cameras

[Latinum]

I would like to be able to distinguish between "disabling" cameras and the automatic discovery of cameras. At the moment I feel this functionality is a bit mixed together.

Basically I would only like to be able to add new cameras if I set the Camect into some kind of discovery modus. The workflow would be: enable discovery mode -> list found cameras -> select cameras to add/configure.

For instance, my current setup has 5 cameras. 4 active and one that I have disabled. It also shows 9 disabled cameras, most are the Foscam ones that I added manually as the automatic config doesn't work on those. Then there is my NAS which for some reason shows up as a camera. Every time I delete these, they simply show up automatically again.

Why would you waste system resources in continuosly searching for new cameras when realistically you probably only need to do that at the first install or if you add a camera, which is not something you do every day.

[CamectArup]

We are not wasting resources scanning .... There are a number of features that require the periodic scan. For example, most home users use DHCP on their networks -- and the scan is what allows us to automatically realize that a camera has changed IP address if the address changes. The scan is also what allows us to notice the presence/absence of your phone on the network in order to switch between home mode and regular operation. 

For the automatically discovered Foscams that don't work, we'd love to hear what model(s) you have, and what urls you had to add manually, so perhaps we can make them work automatically for the next person. 

Your NAS is probably being detected because it has some software listening on port 554, which is a standard port that cameras supporting RTSP use. Do you have a Synology running video station? 

[Latinum]

Basically none of my Foscams can be automatically configured properly, I had to add them all by hand.

I used the following connection URL:   rtsp://<USER>:<PASS>@<IP-ADDRESS>:88/videoMain

I have the following models:

• Foscam FI9928P PTZ outdoor
  
• Foscam FI9961EP Dome
• Foscam FI9900P Bullet
• Foscam R2 PTZ indoor
  

Video station was running on my Synology until I turned it off, I would like to "hide this forever". The fact that it just keeps showing up even after I delete it is a bit annoying. I would like to be a bit more in control over which cameras I add or have some kind of blacklist where I store a "camera" (like my synology) to ignore.

[CamectArup]

What was happening if you provided the correct username and password to an autodetected foscam camera? Would it accept the username and password and then say "unable to connect"? 

Would you mind testing with one of your cameras to see if it still fails to work? We have made some fixes to the foscam driver along the way, and it's possible that the auto-detected variants will work now.  

To test, delete one of the disabled cameras, let it be auto-detected, and supply the credentials. If it fails to connect, please use "Report Bug" from the home settings soon after trying it, and check the checkboxes to upload logs and settings from your device, so that we can see what happened. 

Re: blacklist ... How would your blacklist of devices to ignore be different from the list of disabled devices we have now? You'd need a way to display the list of ignored devices and delete entries from it ... Our list of disabled devices is basically that blacklist. (While a device is disabled it is ignored completely -- it not probed or anything else, in addition to being hidden from view unless you ask to see it.) 

We probably suggested the wrong thing by using a "trash can" icon. We actually call the action "forget" in the mouseover tooltip. Disabling a device is blacklisting it. Using the trashcan is forgetting any state associated with it -- which means it's taken off the blacklist and, if it happens to be on the network, it's rediscovered. 

Re: Synology ... It's almost certainly showing up because your Synology still has something listening on port 554. I own two synology NASes that are not running video station, and they do not show up. If you can ensure that nothing is listening on port 554 it should stay gone after you "delete" it. 

(Btw, since you may run into this: the most recent update introduced a bug in the "delete" action such that the deleted entry won't immediately disappear when you delete, but will be gone only after you refresh the page. We'll be fixing that in the next update.) 

[Latinum]

I just removed both the disabled and manually added foscam, when the camera popped up again I added the username and password and got a "-3" error.

My "nest smokedetector" also keeps showing up... I am pretty sure there is no camera in there. (if there is I have other things to worry about)

With regards to the delete/disable functionality it seems a bit mixed together. To me "disabling a camera" is something temporary, you disable a cam because you might want privacy for a while. To me "deleting a cam" means "remove the cam, recordings, etc". I noticed the "forget" tooltip, you are right... the trashcan adds to the confusion.

Perhaps the "show disabled camera's" should not be so prominent on the front page, it suggests it's something you use frequently. While in fact it is a bit confusing to the user to have it there. The same applies to the "look for cameras" button. This should be part of the setup/configure flows.

[Latinum]

On a sidenote: after I re-added my cam and gave it the same name I found that all the old footage was still available?

[CamectArup]

Yes, "deletion" just means forgetting the configuration data. The footage is not deleted by that operation. It's really just a way to forget the settings for that camera and start fresh -- but if the camera is still detectable and added back the old footage is still around and still attached to the camera. If not, it will age out like any other footage. 

Re: Nest ... We have no way to distinguish a Nest thermostat from a Nest camera unless we have sign-in info, so disabling Nest thermostats is the right thing to do. 

Re: Foscam. "-3" is a very strange error message and not one I'm aware of our code being able to generate. Did you use "Report Bug" after getting it? (I don't see a bug report from you. Sometimes the bug report submission is a bit slow, in case you tried it and it appeared not to do anything.) I don't want to waste too much of your time since you already have working cameras, but if you feel inclined try this again, please use "Report Bug" from home settings and include both the browser and device logs. There's also no need to disable the manually-added variant of the camera while trying an automatically-detected one. They're treated as distinct cameras. 

[Latinum]

I just deleted and re-added the camera again and submitted a bugreport, hope this helps :)

[CamectArup]

Thanks. It doesn't clarify what is going on, but it does give us a clear set of actions and the result from which to work to narrow it down. 

[Latinum]

 Ok, good to hear that! Did you just log in to the device? I noticed it was not available for a short time.

[CamectArup]

No. I don't have any ability to log into your device. We do take your privacy seriously :-) 

What happened is that I restarted a server on the cloud side to debug something else. When that happens, the restarted server does not show your device as connected until your device calls back in and registers itself... and that can take a few minutes to happen. 

[Latinum]

Hehe, no worries. I thought the debug / log files might have given you temporary access.

[CamectArup]

They do give us the ability to see more logs while investigating the problem report, but not to actually log in and/or access your data. Also, any logs that we see are also sanitized before upload to remove personal data like passwords. 

[Ryan Boyd]

I'd also like to be able to disable auto-discovery.  It's extremely frustrating to disable/delete and have the cameras pop up again.  I want to manually configure my cameras.  I have static IPs on all of them (well, statically-assigned DHCP IPs).