Are Amcrest cameras trustworthy? Do they have dahua/hikvision chips? Do they store info on Chinese servers?

[ramond45]

I'm looking to change my google nest devices out and start managing my own camera recordings on -premises with a Synology. This brings me to Amcrest cameras, the door bell, and their flood light cameras. I like that I can manage them with the NAS but the only thing that worries me about them is where my login info is stored, who else has access to the cameras, and what chips are in the cameras.

[GaryOkie]

I asked Bard what chipset does the ad410 use, and it replied

The Amcrest AD410 uses the Ambarella A7 chipset. This chipset is designed specifically for high-performance IP security cameras. It features a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor and a powerful image signal processor (ISP) that can handle 4K video at 30 frames per second. The A7 chipset also supports H.265 and H.264 video compression, as well as a wide range of advanced security features, such as motion detection, facial recognition, and object tracking.

The hardware is OEM'd from Dahua. The firmware and API is mostly Dahua's as well, with some Amcrest tweaks to work with Amcrest SmartHome app and AWS-hosted servers instead of Dahua's equivalents. It is believed that Amcrest's software developers are based in China, not Houston (based on they were all unavailable during the Chinese new year).

Ideally you should block ANY IP camera from the Internet. This is doable for the AD410 if you are willing to forgo SmartHome/P2P 2-way talk along with making some config changes via the API. Otherwise, you will need to trust Amcrest for P2P support to your AD410.

I've monitored outgoing packets from the AD410 and all have gone to AWS servers in the US, and nothing to China IP's. I would consider Amcrest to be generally trustworthy but given the origin of their hardware and especially the firmware, there is always the possibility of a backdoor or other API vector of intrusion.

[Pogo]

He's evidently a slow learning fisherman.

And they say memory is the second thing to go...

https://www.reddit.com/r/homedefense/co ... they_have/

[GaryOkie]

OMG/LOL/WTF! My memory of his word for word same question 2 years ago on Reddit certainly had faded as well.

[Pogo]

I was referring to your memory..., I think? LOL

[GaryOkie]

This OP from ramond45 is a bit unsettling and very curious as to its purpose. This exact same question posted on Reddit/r/homedefense by two_word_reptile 2 years ago got his account suspended after posting 115 unrelated questions!

A search of ramond45 shows this username creating accounts on numerous multiple sites on the same day,...

Amcrest, Mcafee, Canon, Ubiquiti, allKpop, starwars, Qlik, Jamf, Cisco, ArcGIS - and more! All newly registered on April 30 and posted 1 question. Perhaps the questions posted were pulled from archives from someone else?

So WTF kind of person would be going to this much trouble for what purpose?

[Pogo]

I'd say a BOT that we're both probably responding to right now by continuing the thread.

"Hi, Ramond!"

[Pogo]

Gotta wonder about everyone's new friend, "webmaster", too.

This place is gettin' spooky.

[Revo2Maxx]

So the Mods of the Forum know what to look out for. While We may not know where the post are coming from it is hard to Ban someone before they pass the mark. At this time the User has been Flagged and was Flagged as a Spammer. This is one reason I didn't respond. In the off chance that someone is real user and just used someone else post to post for them I left the user be and just keep an eye for when they break the rules. As soon as that happens it is dealt with and then we wait until next time. There are other things in place that I check every now and again to see if there is a reason that I can ban before and it has not pushed past that point yet either.

About the Admin that posted as the WebMaster, He was asked to look over the Forum code to see if they could find out if there is an issue with the Forum. However that wouldn't yield any issues that was reported. So there is nothing to see when the Admin user post to the Forum. The Account is at times also used by Amcrest Management as well. However this last post was of the Website Webmaster.

To your Question you have to the Admin. If there is an issue that you feel needs to be brought up to the Webmaster about the Forum you can pass that onto longedge or I and we will pass it down the right paths. iF there is anything that is someone you feel beyond out ability to pass on then you can make a post to the Amcest Support staff on Amcrest and they can move it down the right path.

In the End, If you feel someone is a Bot or just some one that means to do nothing useful to the forum please just Ignore them.

[Pogo]

There are definitely some problems with this forum's software and it seems to be getting worse by the day, if not by the post..., and no one responsible for keeping things on track and tightened up. Bad form and not how professional forums are operated.

There needs to be a site administrator who does more than post a few tests and proclaims everything is fine when it clearly is not.