Media and Thermostats

Paulo_Nogueira · March 8, 2018, 6:37pm

Can’t find how to authorize Nest thermostats. Are you doing it via SmartThings or directly through the Nest app?

josh · March 8, 2018, 6:39pm

Paulo_Nogueira · March 8, 2018, 6:46pm

Thanks, haven’t bothered with NST Manager since the Nest app is basically a “set it and forget it” scenario and manual and voice controls are easier to use. However, I can see the appeal for people that need an overview. Keep up the good work.

Paulo_Nogueira · March 8, 2018, 6:55pm

With the media tile is there any way to capture Yi or Wyze camera images/video. IP cameras are easy to stream but these cameras are extremely cheap and easy to setup. Any thoughts?

josh · March 8, 2018, 7:03pm

I have a Yi cam and installed custom firmware on it which provides access to additional streams. I haven’t looked into it to see if I can pull the snapshot or MJPG directly from the Yi Cam as I run everything through Blue Iris and then just pull the snapshots or MJPG streams from Blue Iris.

I don’t have a Wyze cam, but I did a quick search and it looks like there is third-party firmware for it as well which provides an RTSP stream that you could integrate into Blue Iris or another DVR/NVR system:
https://openip.cam/

James · March 8, 2018, 7:03pm

FYI, just posted the steps how to setup the map tile with real-time traffic. The dashboard looks really awesome!

Paulo_Nogueira · March 8, 2018, 7:24pm

Thanks. I was hoping there was an easier workaround. Blue Iris is excellent as is the IP cameras viewer app. My days of flashing Android ROMs and installing firmware are over. Trying to simplify things for the family. They complain that every week things change an I have to agree with them so I’m trying to funnel everything into a few interfaces and voice controls with Chromecast seem to be the most accepting of the bunch.

josh · March 8, 2018, 7:56pm

From what I saw on Reddit, the WyzeCam guys are looking at adding in RTSP support in a future release which would allow you to integrate the camera into Blue Iris.

I guess that’s the trade-off with cheap cameras is that they are usually not quite as feature rich as the pricier ones.

I was able to pull snapshots and streams directly off my Amcrest and Reolink cameras. Prior to picking up a Yi Cam, I would have called the Amcrest and Reolink cheap. I guess they’re just in the middle-ground now in terms of pricing and features.

Edit: From what I can tell, TinyCam Pro on Android supports whatever custom protocol the WyzeCam uses. And TinyCam Pro has a built-in webserver which provides an MJPG stream so you could use TinyCam as a proxy for your dashboard.

I just tried pulling a stream from the TinyCam demo webserver into SharpTools.io and it worked great, so that might be an option for you:

Paulo_Nogueira · March 9, 2018, 3:01am

Got it to stream into the TinyCam app. Haven’t bothered with the web server as I’m sure it will work. I’m waiting on my version 2 camera and hope they add RTSP support when it comes out. If the night vision is as significantly improved as they claim, then this may be a viable option for really cheap security/monitoring. Thanks for the info.

josh · March 9, 2018, 4:43am

I ordered two of the WyzeCam v2 cameras and will test them out when they are released and shipped.

Tommy · June 20, 2018, 12:15am

Can you stream video to sharptools? I’ve got tinycam pulling in Wyze cam.

josh · June 20, 2018, 1:19am

You can stream certain video types to a SharpTools Media Tile. Here’s a knowledge base article on how to use the Media Tile feature of SharpTools:

Using the TinyCam app on an Android device or Fire OS device, you can stream your Wyze cameras or other cameras to your SharpTools dashboards. Be sure to check out the videos linked below; the high-level steps include:

Add your Wyze Cam in TinyCam
Setup the TinyCam webserver
Use the following format for the URL in the SharpTools Media Tile:
http://{tiny.cam.address:port}/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?camera={id}

For example, you might end up with something like:
http://192.168.1.11:8083/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?camera=2

You should be able to test your URL directly in your browser and it should start streaming your video. You might have to play with the camera ID to get the right camera.

Note that if you have a username and password enabled in your webserver, you can add it as a URL parameter:
http://192.168.1.11:8083/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?camera=2&user=admin&pwd=mypassword

You can also get an image snapshot by using image.cgi instead:
http://192.168.1.11:8083/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi?camera=2

On Chrome 85 and newer, you will need to allow mixed content / insecure content.

On Chrome 111 and newer, you may need to use a free wildcard DNS forwarder like nip.io.

Video How To

The following videos by @Justin_Newbury from Simply Smart do an excellent job showing how to setup your Wyze Cams in SharpTools using TinyCam:

Step 1: Setup Wyze in TinyCam

Step 2: Display Wyze Stream in SharpTools (via TinyCam)

Tommy · July 8, 2018, 4:31pm

Thank you for the help. I got this working by the way

Guy_Katz · November 5, 2019, 2:51pm

Hi @josh
bringing this thread form the dead
from your experience how resource heavy is putting a tinycam with webserver/low bandwidth turned on on a fire HD for example?
I am planning to put tinycam with sharptools on a fire HD 8 (latest gen) for the sole purpose of using sharptools to control my home automation and I still need everything to work fast and nice when I click on a light switch tile for example. I dont wont things to hang…
I also noticed that there is ‘snapshot image’ url in tiny cam that I assume can be used along with a tile refresh of for example evey 20 seconds and maybe this can also help to reduce load?
thanks for your answer.

josh · November 5, 2019, 3:12pm

There’s lots of factors at play, so it’s hard to say for sure. In general, we don’t recommend running TinyCam as a transcoder on a Fire tablet which is also being used to display dashboards as they are fairly resource limited devices.

–

That being said, there are things you could do to minimize the resource impact. As you noted, you might try using image snapshots that are refreshed periodically. Even refreshing every few seconds should be significantly lower load than an MJPEG stream.

If I remember correctly, TinyCam uses an Axis Camera compatible API, but I don’t recall if they support all the parameters. For example, Axis supports parameters like:

Parameter	Values	Description
resolution	1280x1024, 1280x720, 640x480, 640x360, 320x240, 240x180, etc.	Specify the resolution of the returned image.
camera	1, 2, 3, 4	Select which camera you want to use
compression	0-100	Adjusts the compression level of the image. Higher values correspond to higher compression, i.e. lower quality and smaller image size.
fps	0, 5, 15, etc	Frames per second.

So you could build a URL like:

http://{tiny.cam.address:port}/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?camera=1&compression=60&fps=10

Guy_Katz · November 5, 2019, 3:15pm

thanks for the elaborate answer

Alex_Burrows · February 25, 2020, 11:39pm

Josh, Is there a more in depth walk through for setting up wyze cam via tinycam in sharptools? I know there are newer threads that speak of it. I tried using the URL format you described here, but I do not know where to input my own information.

josh · February 26, 2020, 7:07pm

Can you clarify what you’ve tried so far and where you’re getting stuck?

Have you already setup the Wyze Cam in TinyCam? And do you already have the TinyCam webserver running? When the webserver is running in TinyCam, it should show the IP Address and port in the left navigation drawer of the TinyCam app:

From there, you’ll want to use the URL format mentioned above.

So the format:

http://{tiny.cam.address:port}/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?camera={id}

Becomes the following (based on my screenshot):

http://192.168.1.102:8083/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?camera=1

Note that if you have different settings configured in TinyCam → Settings → Web Server, you may need to adjust accordingly. The default format assumes non HTTPS and either no Admin account set at all or the Guest Account enabled with an empty username and password.

Since the ‘Use HTTPS’ uses a self generated HTTPS cert, it won’t work properly in modern browsers anyway, so this should generally remain unchecked.

You can enable a username and password, but you’ll need to include it in the URL. For example:
http://192.168.1.102:8083/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?user=admin&pwd=mypassword

On Chrome 85 and newer, you will need to allow mixed content / insecure content.

Alex_Burrows · February 29, 2020, 10:29pm

Josh,
sorry for the delayed response, I just barely had the chance to sit down.
I eliminated my login and password and used that format and it works!
If I want the camera as a live stream do I enable autorefresh or leave it off?
And if i get the nvidia shield to be the server, how many cameras can be loaded and running?

josh · March 19, 2020, 2:56pm

If you’re using an MJPEG stream, then it’s a live stream and the Autorefresh option is not required. That being said, some people still keep autorefresh on, but at an extended duration - for example every 30 minutes or even every few hours - just to make sure the stream refreshes itself in case the stream dies.