AD110 Doorbell Persistent Night Vision Off

This Forum its to discuss the new Smart Home Devices.
zeroohm
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2021 7:42 pm

Re: AD110 Doorbell Persistent Night Vision Off

Post by zeroohm »

My camera made it through the night last night with zero disconnects. Zero! And I am still using a 16V, 10VA transformer, so the transformer is obviously not the cause of my problems. I am still planning to replace my transformer with a 16V, 30VA one, but only because it is recommended. Not because it will solve any problem I am having.

By the way, with the light at 90, I get a very clear view of everything I need to see at my front door. I might play around with that setting a little in the hope that it will increase the life of the LEDs. Not sure if that is true or not, but it is reasonable to think that running LEDs at lower power will make them last longer.

Thank you to everyone in this thread who took the time to find out how to send commands to the AD110, and determine which ones actually work! You guys rock! Hopefully nobody bricked a doorbell in the attempts...
diyorbust
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Aug 14, 2021 1:35 am

Re: AD110 Doorbell Persistent Night Vision Off

Post by diyorbust »

I think the issue is the combination of "SmartLight"+RTSP+ONVIF at night. If I set Lighting[0][0].Mode to Manual everything is fine at night. However, if I start an RTSP stream Lighting[0][0].Mode reverts back to SmartLight. So this is not just an issue with BlueIris or another software changing the setting. Its the AD110 firmware.

A solution would be to use an RTSP proxy server that maintains a connection to the doorbell RTSP stream. I use Live555 proxy server on an RPi to stream from the doorbell to the RPi. An additional advantage to this is that the RPi is hardwired (ethernet) so all other devices that will connect to the view of the doorbell will get it from the RPi instead of having multiple connections going back to the doorbell leading to less bandwidth over the wifi and also having offloading the RTSP streaming to the RPi instead of the AD110. So less processing and less heat on the doorbell. The ONVif portion comes from the fact that I am using "Amcrest View Lite" on iPad to view the doorbell and use the talk feature. I intentionally chose this app as its not internet connected. My AD110 is and the iPad are on a local connections only VLAN. The RTSP proxy allows me view the stream on multiple devices on my LAN and from the RPi instead the doorbell. Have not set up BlueIris yet.
diyorbust
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Aug 14, 2021 1:35 am

Re: AD110 Doorbell Persistent Night Vision Off

Post by diyorbust »

As I mentioned in my previous post, I suspected it had to do with whenever new RTP sessions were created at night. Whenever I used VLC or another ONVIF app to view the camera, Lighting[0][0].Mode would automatically switch from Manual to SmartLight - this happens during lowlight (night time) and doesnt happen during the day. One solution was to have a cron job on my home automation server check the value of Lighting[0][0].Mode every 30 seconds and if it was anything other than "Manual", do a set command and revert the value back. I wanted a much cleaner solution.

I already have a python script on my home automation server that uses Python Amcrest module to collect events from the doorbell and perform other tasks on motion detection and doorbell press. What I discovered was that anytime a new RTSP session would start , the event server on the doorbell would trigger even with code "RtspSessionState" and state of "PLAY".


You can run an eventManager session with curl and watch what happens when a new RTSP session starts

Code: Select all

curl -s --digest -u admin:<password> 'http://<ip_address>/cgi-bin/eventManager.cgi?action=attach&codes=\[All\]'
Once an RTSP connection start you get the following event:

Code: Select all

--myboundary
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Length:345

Code=RtspSessionState;action=Pulse;index=0;data={
   "Device" : "<ip address>",
   "Port" : 33869,
   "SessionId" : "58458504",
   "State" : "PLAY",
   "Url" : "rtsp:\/\/<hostname>\/cam\/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=1",
   "UrlType" : "live",
   "UserAgent" : " ProxyRTSPClient (LIVE555 Streaming Media v2021.08.14)",
   "UserName" : "admin"
}
My solution was that anytime I get this request, I wait 5 seconds, check the value of Lighting[0][0].Mode and change it to Manual if it is was anything else: Here is the relevent python code but you can also use a bash script with curl to check and reset.

Code: Select all

    for code, payload in camera.event_actions("_DoTalkAction_,AlarmLocal,VideoMotion,ProfileAlarmTransmit,RtspSessionState", retries=5, timeout_cmd=(10.00, 3600)):
    	...

        elif code == "RtspSessionState" and is_ad110 and payload["data"]["State"] == "PLAY":
		time.sleep(5) # Wait 5 seconds to ensure the door bell does what it wants
		val = camera.command('configManager.cgi?action=getConfig&name=Lighting[0][0].Mode')
		fixneeded = "manual" in val.content.decode().lower()
		if not fixneeded:
			log(f"Lighting Mode Fix Applied")
			camera.command('configManager.cgi?action=setConfig&Lighting[0][0].Mode=Manual')

After this fix, I have had ZERO reboots for a week now.

*Edited post to fix python indention in code*
zeroohm
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2021 7:42 pm

Re: AD110 Doorbell Persistent Night Vision Off

Post by zeroohm »

So I started getting disconnects again. I changed my Hubitat rule (see my post on July 26, 2021) to Light=50 about five days ago and I have been checking the Blue-Iris logs - no more disconnects. So I guess 90% brightness is too much. I can tell a difference between 50% and 90%, especially if I am monitoring the camera when the illumination is reduced. The video is more grainy, which is to be expected because there is less light for the camera sensor to use. But it is still good enough for me. Here are the two images - it is hard to tell a difference if you don't look very closely.

Of course the disconnects happened with the new higher current transformer, so that is NOT the cause of the disconnects. At least for me anyway.
Screenshot 2021-09-13 204709.jpg
Screenshot 2021-09-13 204709.jpg (166.59 KiB) Viewed 9178 times
User avatar
Revo2Maxx
Site Admin
Posts: 5805
Joined: Sat Jun 15, 2019 3:05 pm

Re: AD110 Doorbell Persistent Night Vision Off

Post by Revo2Maxx »

Well if you tried a new Transformer and had the same issue I would check your Wiring. There is only a few reasons that Electronics fail. #1 Heat and with IR on it would cause some extra heat however if your nights are not normally hot already then the heat one could see would be the normal daily heat and with that should have issues day or night.

#2Power issues Caused by Transformer and or Wiring

Now I don't remember the Thread but I would also not rule out Blue Iris.. I wonder what would happen if you ran your camera at night 90% and only writing to the cameras Micro SD and not having it connected to BI if there would still be an issue.. as I said I don't remember the thread but I think someone tried that and there was no issues once removed from BI.. just a thought..

Personally Between your 2 pictures I don't really see an increase with 90 or 50 anyway.. It all looks the same to me..
Here to help the best I can.
Be Safe
User avatar
Revo2Maxx
Site Admin
Posts: 5805
Joined: Sat Jun 15, 2019 3:05 pm

Re: AD110 Doorbell Persistent Night Vision Off

Post by Revo2Maxx »

Ok Blowing the picture up full size I can see some in the back ground in 90% that I can't see in the 50 but then again I don't know if that was caused by on coming car or just increase.. in truth your Scene has to much Reflection and with that causes some Reduction in Picture Quality with the Camera Iris and what not trying to change the scene for a good picture flow
Here to help the best I can.
Be Safe
RockWell2020
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2021 10:00 pm

Re: AD110 Doorbell Persistent Night Vision Off

Post by RockWell2020 »

Hi there!

I joined the forum just to post here.

I use Blue Iris, and noticed the same behavior at night time that everyone else that uses a rtsp server / recorder has experienced.

I found two ways to make this work with Blue Iris:

Number One: I used a rtsp server proxy and set the Lighting Mode to Manual on the doorbell camera via the API that everyone listed, and that solved my issue.

It really bothered me that I would have to run a middleware software between the camera and Blue Iris, so I began searching through Blue Iris and came across the following settings that ultimately resolved my issue:

Number Two:

In Blue Iris, in the Camera Settings for the doorbell:
Go to the Video Tab
Click on "Configure"
In the Advanced Section uncheck the following:
"Send RTSP Keep-Alives"
"Use RTSP/Stream Timecode"

Hope this helps someone!
andersonas25
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2022 11:10 am

Re: AD110 Doorbell Persistent Night Vision Off

Post by andersonas25 »

Hi

Thanks to all that provided the SmartLight vs Manual mode workaround.

I use the AD110 with Zoneminder/Ubuntu linux. I installed the AD110 in December 2020, and it worked well for the most part. I would reset occasionally at night and the few times I was at the door I heard the Network reestablished message so I was troubleshooting a wireless issue. I use RTSP streaming only and I have ONVIF disabled. Then I upgraded to Zoneminder V1.37.10 and the camera started to go nuts at night, constant reset making it pretty much useless as a security camera. Then I ran across this thread about putting it in Manual mode and knocked together the following script and it appears to take care of the issue.

Once started it loops checking the Lighting mode and if its Manual waits 5 minutes and checks again. If its not Manual mode it set it then waits 30 seconds and loops back.

There is no exit you have to kill it.

I use cron/heliocron to start it at Sunset and kill it at Sunrise. I'll probably tweak the five minutes to see how long I can stretch it. But so far it works as is.


Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
# script to reset Amcrest AD110 to Manual Lighting mode
echo $$ > /run/cam5-status.pid

while [ true ]
do
        /usr/bin/curl  -s --digest -u admin:<passwprd> 'http://<ip address>/cgi-bin/configManager.cgi?action=getConfig&name=Lighting' > /root/tmp/cam5-status.txt
        if grep -q Mode=Manual /root/tmp/cam5-status.txt; then
                sleep 300
        else
                /usr/bin/curl -s --digest -u admin:<password> 'http://<ip address>/cgi-bin/configManager.cgi?action=setConfig&Lighting[0][0].Mode=Manual'
                sleep 30
        fi
done
DebrodeD
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2022 11:35 am

Re: AD110 Doorbell Persistent Night Vision Off

Post by DebrodeD »

Anyone know what the "Lighting_V2[0][0][0]" parameter is? I tried setting it to "Manual" and it worked, but not sure it did anything. I used this:

http://192.168.1.19/cgi-bin/configManag ... ode=Manual
GaryOkie
Posts: 418
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2020 7:23 pm

Re: AD110 Doorbell Persistent Night Vision Off

Post by GaryOkie »

So you are trying to change settings through the API that you don't even know what they are for? Is this just devil may care experimentation or is there something specific you want to do?

On the AD110, I don't believe that lighting_V2 is used for anything. There are many config entries like this that are placeholders for other models.

On the AD410, Lighting_V2[0][0][1] controls the white "deterrent" light.

On certain ASH cameras, Lighting_V2[0][0][1] is used to control the flood light.
Post Reply