The Android app is totally inadequate

[danwithacam]

Where to start?

I bought two Amcrest ProHD Turret PoE 2.8mm IP5M-T1179EW-28MM cameras just over a week ago and installed them late last week, drilled some serious holes in the cavity wall of my house so they aren't going anywhere any time soon and for them to work in any way other than expected is not acceptable.

The cameras themselves are decent, I don't have many complaints but would suggest that they are way too easy to remove (why is there no security screw to hold the position and stop them being dismounted by just anyone?), and it would be nice if they added some more modern options for remote video storage (FTP is getting harder to use with less services supporting it, new devices ought to start supporting protocols such as the Amazon S3 protocol so that you can use it with Backblaze B2 and the like). I'm going to have to setup a Pi as an FTP server to receive footage from the cameras and relay it to Backblaze as the only cost-effective way of getting the footage off the cameras and up to cost-efficient storage without an NVR.

Also, there is so much dead space in the base of the camera, it would have been nice to be able to coil up the connector (with weatherproofing case) inside it so that I could drill an 8mm hole through my wall instead of having to drill a gaping 22mm hole.

On to the app and more pressing issues:

I still need to get round to forwarding the necessary ports, so for now I can only use it on the local network or with VPN. Regardless:

My cameras both have microSD cards in them for local storage (with the later intention of having off-site storage to ensure safety of the footage), with motion detection enabled. In the web browser, I can go to playback and see a whole list of files, click them and play them just fine. However in the app, when I go to "playback" in the left navigation and add a camera, it says "no files". This is despite the cameras being able to live stream successfully and the files definitely existing. What's more, when I get a push notification for motion detection, it plays back that clip in the app just fine. I should be able to play back footage from the camera without an issue, regardless of whether or not I've changed the date format (which I read was supposedly an issue, and it's a very stupid issue which should not exist, and I did reset this to see if it would fix the issue but it didn't).

Now further to this, I thought "ah it must be the time frame"... for some reason you're limited to viewing only 24 hours of footage at a time (which makes no sense, why the arbitrary limit on what I can view when it's all just loading in real time from an SD card?), so I thought, it's defaulting to a ONE HOUR window on the same day (start at 9am say and finish at 10am) and therefore there must just be no recordings in that one hour window (which later turned out to be wrong because I tried it right after receiving a motion detection notification so therefore there was definitely a recording in that time period to access). So the fact the playback feature on a CCTV camera app doesn't work is already insane, it just gets worse, you're limited to a 24 hour window here (if it did work), but you can't even select the time! It's stuck on the last 1hr and while it lets you select a date, it doesn't let you change the 1hr window from being that of which is just before your current time. Unbelievably shoddy - did no QA go into this at all??

So I have my cameras wall mounted, which means I had to flip them (and for some reason, mirror image them in order to un-mirror the footage?). In the app I decided to toggle night vision, and what does it do? It RESETS the image rotation! Which it isn't supposed to do at all! It then doesn't even let you use the in-app image rotation options to correct it again, so you just end up with an upside down stream until such time you can get into the web config to correct it there. Not only does it flip the image without your intention, but it dislocates the privacy screens in doing so which could then lead to other complications.

Unbelievable.

In the configuration centre, I go to "alarm trigger", select a camera, and it just says "failed to retrieve configuration".

I have two cameras, why is there no tile view for two cameras, why can I only view one at a time or have to select a tile of 4? There's space to have two, one above the other.

Why, when there is a main stream and a sub stream do you only get to choose which ONE to save? You choose the stream and then the destinations you want that one stream to go to. I want to save the main stream to the SD card and the sub stream to FTP, why is that not an option? It's such an obvious requirement.

Motion detection is just a bit too basic. This is 2020, the camera should be able to tell the difference between a change in lighting thanks to a car driving past or the street lights turning off and an actual person. I don't want a camera that is going to continually cry wolf.
It rained all weekend, and the motion detection just would not stop going off and my 64GB card filled right up in no time. Thank goodness I hadn't hooked it up to Backblaze yet or the bill would be building up much too fast.

I thought these must just be some teething problems, after all I gather this is quite a recent model of camera as it's not yet being sold in Europe and I had to have it shipped direct from America. I would have expected a firmware update to fix these snagging issues by now though as the reviews date back 5 months already, but the "check version" button does absolutely nothing, and I registered in order to get firmware updates, only to find the camera isn't even listed. I wouldn't even be able to re-flash the same firmware to it if there were any issues.

I've just spent a good chunk of money on these cameras as they're from an American company, which I did following the good word of others. These are problems I would expect from a cheap Chinese brand that I paid half the price for.

I hope that these problems are resolved in good time so that I too can recommend this brand, because currently I cannot do such a thing.

[Revo2Maxx]

Hello and Welcome to the Forum

Sadly not sure about the Camera I don't personally own one.. I have been toying with the idea but I have not done so at this time..

First not sure why or what but there are 2 things I thought I would touch on.. While I am not sure about UK but I do know that I have my cameras NVR's and DVR's from Amcrest setup for P2P and no need to forward or do anything in the camera outside of making sure that it is turned on.. Most come already setup to be on..

Then when setup of camera or Recording device is done I use P2P option rather then IP and this gives me much better and faster more stable connection from outside my Network.. So I am not sure how this would work in the UK and from what I remember longedge that is from the UK has his cameras turned off to outside access so not sure he knows how it works there I could be wrong about that...

So 2 cameras, easy and fast to setup on P2P even with them mounted... Just make sure that you have access to the Serial Numbers as you will need them to make the setup... THen go to your app and remove the camera from the app, then Click the + and add the Camera back. This time you can click the Tab Already setup on my Network option, then P2P first thing it will pop up the Camera to scan QR code just click the Enter SN manually. Then type in the SN, press next, make a name, then enter the user and password for the camera, then click Live View and it will be able to run outside your network without any Opening of PORTS or Forwarding of anything for your computer...

Second thing.. I have multi FTP servers online my network and I don't have any issues outside of running out of space lol.. The thing is if you only have High Power High Wattage PC's I would take a look at buying something that don't require much power to run because to be fair it don't take much for it to take in files and act as a FTP server... I have a Low power CPU computer with 8gig ram 4tb drive and only has a 220watt PSU that takes less power then my switches, routers, and NVR or DVR's so I always wonder why I have the others lol... Anyway then there is no odd Setup for Pi and the cost of Low cost CPU for FTP server isn't to costly.. Could even use an older computer from years ago.. My FTP server for most of the cameras is like I said 220 watt power supple and that computer was bought in 2014 has dual Core CPU On board Graphics and took out the 1tb and put in 4tb and it works great for FTP server.. My other one while it has low power i3 3240 the other CPU is lower even yet... J1800 how at little over 8 watts to over 44 watts for my other FTP I would have both setup on the j1800 CPU but my second machine I had cooked the CPU when the PSU went out last year so I changed it out to use my Guestroom computer seeing I needed a second FTP server running...

Just saying there are options out there..

[danwithacam]

I appreciate the input on file handling and network access, but those aren't my biggest concerns as I'm already aware of what I need to do to work those issues out.

My biggest issues are with the software side of things, the app being just terrible and the sensitivity of the cameras being ridiculous. I've put the sensitivity right down to 2, and it's STILL being set off by changes in lighting and people's shadows from walking past on the street. We've had rolling clouds here the last couple of days and my phone would just not stop going off because of it, it's ridiculous.

And the ability to save your sub stream separately from the main stream. I couldn't believe that wasn't possible, and now I either have to save no HD footage at all, or pay a right premium for saving the HD footage to the cloud as well as to the SD card (and over the network which will eat up a chunk of my small upstream).

Does the company actually read these forums and take action from people's feedback?

[danwithacam]

To the developers, I hope you read this, acknowledge this, and do something to resolve these problems with the app.

[gcobb]

I am also testing the software with the new 8MP bullet camera. I have the same problem with accessing the Alarm Trigger saying "Failed to retrieve configuration". It isn't just one device.

I am going to search the forums. I hope results show up because calling in was a waste of my time. Otherwise I do like the camera.

[jack7]

I am also testing the software with the new 8MP bullet camera. I have the same problem with accessing the Alarm Trigger saying "Failed to retrieve configuration". It isn't just one device.
...

That's because your camera probably has no external alarm input/output feature.

[gcobb]

I am also testing the software with the new 8MP bullet camera. I have the same problem with accessing the Alarm Trigger saying "Failed to retrieve configuration". It isn't just one device.
...

That's because your camera probably has no external alarm input/output feature.

I found this to be true. See my next post about viewing images and videos. Thank you