Is there a way to add a Hikvision camera without the MJPEG protocol?
I don’t think so. From memory the RTSP url won’t work as it you need to put ‘username:password’ in the address (rtsp://username:password@IP_address:RTSP_Port/Streaming/Channels/101/). Most browsers seem to block that.
I tried everything. In the end I got a Raspberry PI and added the cameras to that using MotionEye. I then just added the cameras using the PI’s IP address:8081 for cam 1, 8082 for cam 2 etc. I have one relevant camera on each dashboard, then I also have a hyperlink tile to open Hik-Connect via its app intent url.
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Sounds like John has you pointed in the right direction. The Media Tile supports image / media formats supported by the browser’s image tag – and browsers don’t natively support RTSP streams.
I think we chatted via the SmartThings Israel group on Facebook this morning, but a common approach is to:
- Check if your camera supports an MJPEG stream (the iSpyConnect Database is popular)
- Use something like TinyCam, Blue Iris, or Motion Eye to translate the RTSP stream to MJPEG
- Use an image snapshot from your camera with the refresh interval set to a short interval
Optionally: hyperlink to a native app to view the live stream