How to set up a IP wifi camera to Ethernet?

[Larry Ray]

I am a senior-senior, but can still pull cables, and have read a number of posts here mentioning wiring cameras to hard-wire. Well I would like to try to install a camera by POE. But I know nothing about how to do it and searched the internet and haven't found too much about the instructions. I only know that I might need a POE network switch and/or a POE injector, and maybe a poe splitter which I am most willing to purchase.

The camera I have that I want to try to POE is a IP wifi cameara. Will anyone take the time to tell me how I connect such a non POE camera to ethernet? I only want to stream the video, not record, motion detect, or have audio.

If I happen to connect the ip wifi cam to the ethernet at my router, how do I view the streaming video? Do I need a software program? Will anyone take a little time and tell me how to connect such a camera or attach a few urls of "how to's" or videos of how it is done?

I thank you

 

[Dodutils]

First things first, what is the model of the camera ? it is important to know if it is a real PoE camera or only a standard 12V powered with a Ethernet/Power splitter connector.

 

[Larry Ray]

First things first, what is the model of the camera ? it is important to know if it is a real PoE camera or only a standard 12V powered with a Ethernet/Power splitter connector.

Hi Dodutils, Thanks for replying. It appears that everyone knows how to do the above but me. According to reading the majority of forum members it is a low class Foscam F18905W.
Like I have three of them. I should update you on some of the things I have tired getting them to run. It is long...so maybe when I know how to send a conversation?

 

[Fastb]

Larry Ray,
Welcome to the forum. (A little late after 13 posts, but you joined this month!)

connect the ip wifi cam to the ethernet at my router

but can still pull cables, and have read a number of posts here mentioning wiring cameras to hard-wire.

So are the cams WiFi or connected to your LAN?
(note: "wireless" cams need wire for power, but not for data, ie: video)

The "hard wire" comments relate to WiFi versus Ethernet cables. You're better off pulling a Cat6 cable to you cam, it will provide power (via POE) and data (for video)
It's better then pulling wire to only provide power, with data going WiFi.

Yes, as @Dodutils said, plz provide cam model number.

Test the cam inside (easy) before mounting the cam outside (when cam access isn't so easy). WiFi cams allow connection by wire for setup. You enter the SSID and password before putting the cam on your wifi network.

Once the cam is on your network (wired or WiFi), viewing live video will be easy. If you want to record video (with an NVR or PC), plz say so....

Live video is nice, but fleeting. "Yes, Officer, I saw the person stealing the amazon box from my front porch!! But no, I don't have any images to show you"

Let us know what you want to achieve - it will help tailor the answers to your questions....

Fastb

 

[Larry Ray]

Larry Ray,
Welcome to the forum. (A little late after 13 posts, but you joined this month!)





So are the cams WiFi or connected to your LAN?
(note: "wireless" cams need wire for power, but not for data, ie: video)

The "hard wire" comments relate to WiFi versus Ethernet cables. You're better off pulling a Cat6 cable to you cam, it will provide power (via POE) and data (for video)
It's better then pulling wire to only provide power, with data going WiFi.

Yes, as @Dodutils said, plz provide cam model number.

Test the cam inside (easy) before mounting the cam outside (when cam access isn't so easy). WiFi cams allow connection by wire for setup. You enter the SSID and password before putting the cam on your wifi network.

Once the cam is on your network (wired or WiFi), viewing live video will be easy. If you want to record video (with an NVR or PC), plz say so....

Live video is nice, but fleeting. "Yes, Officer, I saw the person stealing the amazon box from my front porch!! But no, I don't have any images to show you"

Let us know what you want to achieve - it will help tailor the answers to your questions....

Fastb

Thank you Fastb for your kind reply.

As above in my earlier posts, I had 4 Foscams (model nos. F18905W and F18906W) all performing well (to my eyes) on my wifi (Foscam IP Config tool) and showing IP addresses (Having superb color, clarity, and all of the video bells and whistles are not a requirement to me).

I began to read about the conflict between
Foscam and Amcrest and decided to change wi-fi cameras as I had had the Foscams running for 3-5 years and felt they were getting to the end of the life span.
So I bought an Amcrest 723 and installed it on their Amcrest ip config tool as a wifi cam. It looked plenty good to my eyes for streaming video. But I noticed when I added the Amcrest that I lost a Foscam IP wifi camerar from
my IP config tool. It lost wifi and just disappeared. I tried reinstalling it and it would not even show a video display after connecting power and the ethernet to my router. I have had no trouble in the past with restarting them and getting them on wi-fi.

I bought a second Amcrest 723 camera...and I lost a 2nd Foscam...it also disappeared from my Foscam IP tool IP address and would not reinstall.

Same thing for a 3rd Amcrest IP2M-842 camera. I lost Foscam F18905W camera no. 3. It would not reinstall...all of them gave a black screen when trying to reinstall them...no live video
feed, so no wifi set up.

My purpose for the cameras is simply to stream them to my desktop (Amcrests alqo have live view on my iPhone) for casual observation of watching my doggies, sometimes cat, and people out walking for exercise. The police chief lives next door to me and a deputy sheriff lives 2 houses down the street from me. I have no desire at this time for recording, motion detection, audio, only just watching what is going on on my street while I am sitting at my pc. It is fun getting a live view on my iPhone when I am at the gym however.

I have one Foscam F18905W still streaming just fine. It seems to me that nayr is right. I have my LAN loaded with wifi devices and that the new Amcrests are using a lot of wifi bandwidth, and I need to start ethernet connecting any additional cameras that I want to add. I am retired and need things to do, and I thought it would be fun to try and hard wire a couple of cameras. But I don't have a clue where to start. I have searched Google and YouTube and found a few things but they all leave me with a lot of questions of how to ethernet cameras.
I am sitting here with 3 Foscam wifi F18905W cams that still have activity lights blinking, and I was curious as if I could hard wire them to my network instead of wi-fi them.
I am pretty sure they are not PoE cameras. I have read that you can hardwire non PoE cameras, but the articles had little details of how to do it.

If Foscam has disabled the F18905-6W wi-fi cams in some manner, I plan to buy a POE camera with the POE switch/injector/splitter/software or whatever I need and try to install one of them.I think it would be fun to try and be a good project for me. But I just need detailed instructions, some url references, or videos on how to do it. I haven't found a lot so I appealed here hoping someone would tell me some things or refer me to some websites or videos on how to hardwire a POE and maybe a non PoE camera.

Again, Fastb, thank you for replying to my appeal and I will be grateful for any info. To continue to try to learn things and keep my mind active is supposed to be good for people my age.

Larry Ray

 

[randytsuch]

I don't think your foscam's are POE, but you can still connect through ethernet, in fact its easier because you don't have to worry about POE. You would leave power connected, and then have to run a CAT6 ethernet wire from your router to the RJ45 jack on the camera.
I would try it first by running a temporary cable from your router to camera, and make sure it works like that. Once you connect, you can disable wifi, and it should still work.

Sounds like you have an IP conflict between your new amcrest and older foscams, where they are trying to use the same ip address. That would explain why you are losing the foscams. You would need to change the foscam ip address, and then they should work again.

 

[looney2ns]

@Larry Ray. Each camera needs to have it's own unique IP address.
for example:
Camera 1: 192.168.1.100
Camera 2: 192.168.1.101
Camera 3: 192.168.1.102, etc.

If anything, IP cameras or other items on your network, have the same IP address, that will cause conflict.

I would disconnect power from all the cameras, except one of the Foscams you lost.
Wait a 5 minutes and see if the Foscam comes back online (you see a picture), if not, disconnect power from that one camera, wait one minute, then reconnect power to that camera. Do you now have a picture on that Foscam?

 

[Fastb]

Larry Ray,

Thanks for all the details. I agree w/ loowiney2ns and randytsuch, it likely an ip conflict.
Let's pursue that before tackling wired vs WiFi.
Or before investigating if your WiFi traffic so so high that cameras disappear completely.

I assume you didn't assign static ip addresses for your camera. (speak up if you did)
So ip addressees are being assigned, most likely by your wireless router.
You need to get the ip-addresses re-assigned.
Hopefully that will remove the ip conflct.

Looney2ns lays out a fine method, ie:
1) disconnecting the Amcrest to remove the ip conflict may allow the MIA foscam to communicate.
2) power cycling the MIA foscam will cause an ip address to be assigned, then the foscam can communicate.

Fastb

 

[randytsuch]

So my guess is the Foscam and Amcrest software is setting up static addresses for the cams. If the router was setting ip addresses, there should be no conflict. Wonder if Amcrest did this on purpose?

Larry, do you know how to look at device ip addresses in your router? Then you could find the ip addresses for the working cams. Write them down, and then as suggested, power down all of the cams, and power up one of the non working cams. See if it works now, and see what the ip address for that cam is, and see if its the same as one of the others.

If its the same, there is your conflict, and you need to change that camera's ip address, and we can help you do that.

 

[Larry Ray]

I don't think your foscam's are POE, but you can still connect through ethernet, in fact its easier because you don't have to worry about POE. You would leave power connected, and then have to run a CAT6 ethernet wire from your router to the RJ45 jack on the camera.
I would try it first by running a temporary cable from your router to camera, and make sure it works like that. Once you connect, you can disable wifi, and it should still work.

Sounds like you have an IP conflict between your new amcrest and older foscams, where they are trying to use the same ip address. That would explain why you are losing the foscams. You would need to change the foscam ip address, and then they should work again.

Larry Ray,

Thanks for all the details. I agree w/ loowiney2ns and randytsuch, it likely an ip conflict.
Let's pursue that before tackling wired vs WiFi.
Or before investigating if your WiFi traffic so so high that cameras disappear completely.

I assume you didn't assign static ip addresses for your camera. (speak up if you did)
So ip addressees are being assigned, most likely by your wireless router.
You need to get the ip-addresses re-assigned.
Hopefully that will remove the ip conflct.

Looney2ns lays out a fine method, ie:
1) disconnecting the Amcrest to remove the ip conflict may allow the MIA foscam to communicate.
2) power cycling the MIA foscam will cause an ip address to be assigned, then the foscam can communicate.

Fastb

I don't think your foscam's are POE, but you can still connect through ethernet, in fact its easier because you don't have to worry about POE. You would leave power connected, and then have to run a CAT6 ethernet wire from your router to the RJ45 jack on the camera.
I would try it first by running a temporary cable from your router to camera, and make sure it works like that. Once you connect, you can disable wifi, and it should still work.

Sounds like you have an IP conflict between your new amcrest and older foscams, where they are trying to use the same ip address. That would explain why you are losing the foscams. You would need to change the foscam ip address, and then they should work again.

Thank you guys so much for sharing your knowledge and advice. I assume you all can see my response and actions/results to your suggestions below.

So I disconnected the power from all of the amcrest cameras. Waited about ten minutes.
Next I plugged in the power of one of the Foscam cams, attached 5e ethernet to cam and router (don't have 6cat), the green, orange activation lights came on, orange activation light blinking, and the red IR lights visible.

I go to my desktop click the Foscam IP Config tool. I see a new cam IP address...but then it disappears...then comes back. It will not stabilize...I tired turning the power off and waiting 5 mins, then powering it up again. The Foscam IP address appears and then disappears. That is the same thing that has been happening from the git-go even when the amcrest cameras were on-line. Finally it stays on maybe a minute and I try to open it (double click the IP address) taking me to the Foscam software page with options to set it up for wifi. But first you should see live feed...I saw nothing but a black screen...I go back no IP address visible...it has disappeared, and maybe every two minutes will come back and stay for 30 seconds or at most a minute. The IP address that was assigned to the Foscam camera's last three numbers was 120. I did a wireless network scan and of all my devices nothing was using .../..././120.

That is the way you set a Foscam up...get it to stream video first on your screen, before setting it up for wi-fi.

So was that not a ethernet connection for the camera? Camera power on (a new power supply too), cat5 cable from cam to router, activation lights on, IR lights on, but I do not see any video feed. Where else should I look for video feed on a ethernet only camera?

I have one amcrest camera that was set to static (the 842 cam) by a tech rep who did it for me by RA. All the rest are dynamic. I only know that a static address does not change and a dynamic address does change. But I do not know how to change an IP address or set one to static.

I was holding my breath that all of the amcrest cams would boot back to wifi. The old Foscam takes a lot of work to reset back to wi-fi. But they did all come back on line.

Now...I did not unplug the only Foscam camera that is working...I left it on as it is a pain to reset and I was concerned that I might lose it too..and not be able to reset it to wifi.

I am sure I made an error somewhere, and I hope you will point it out to me and let me try again.

LarryRay

 

[Larry Ray]

Randytsuch,

Both the Foscam and Amcrest IP Config Tools list the IP addresses. No I do not see any of them trying to use the same IP number.
I know how to get into my router but don't know where to look for the devices...what tab description would they be listed under.
And I told you that I ran Nirsofts network scanner and I didn't see another device using ...120.

 

[Fastb]

randytsuch,
The ip config tool may have assigned static ip addresses. Good hunch!

Yes, Larry Ray could check the "connected devices" screen in his router. (or similar screen)

I don't use an ipconfig tool, so I'll be tentative.

So was that not a ethernet connection for the camera?

Yes, that was an ethernet connection. You reached the cam using ethernet.
Problem is the cam doesn't stay connected.

You couldn't find another device using that ip address, implying no address conflict.
But the behavour you're reporting sounds like an ip conflict. Other more knowledgeable people may have other hunches.

Possible test:
disconnect the foscam that uses "120" in its address.
open a command prompt window.
in the window, type ping x.x.x.120 (replace x with the complete address)
See if you get a ping response from the mysterious device at x.x.x.120

Possible test:
disconnect your pc from the network
connect your pc directly to the foscam camera.
do the above ping test.
Or using a browser, enter x.x.x.120 in the address bar. The browser should surf to the foscam.
You should get an image. You may need to use a "Live View" tab from the foscam page that is displayed.

Fastb

 

[Fastb]

I know how to get into my router but don't know where to look for the devices...what tab description would they be listed under.

Look in network, or management. Those tabs may include a button to "Show connected devices"
It will list devices by ip addr, and will contain some other info, suc as the MAC address.
Check for duplicate MAC addresses. It's highly unlikely there will be a conflict, since the camera manufacturer assigns unique addresses. However, it is possible to change a MAC address. In practice, this is rarely done, however.

Fastb

 

[Fastb]

Here's the connected devices screen from two of my routers. Different router models name things differently.
In the screen below, the devices are listed with their long IPV6 address (beginnning with fe80)
And the shorter IPv4 address (beginning with 192)






Below is how Netgear lists the connected devices. Note it separates the wired and wireless devices.

 

[randytsuch]

Larry
What kind of router do you have?
We might me able to help you find the right page.

Is there a way to do a "factory reset", or similar to the foscam?

You described some strange behavior, and a hard reset may help it. You would lose your wifi settings, but since you are connecting through ethernet it won't matter.

 

[Fastb]

And a hard reset may lose the wired lan address, putting it back to factory default.
Hopefully the config tool would find the cam and set a new ip address

 

[Larry Ray]

My router is old...a Linksys E2000. On the Setup page Automatic Configuration - DHCP is selected, and under server
DHCP Server is enabled. I have looked upside down and sideways but my router doesn't list the devices.

But in the Foscam IP config DHCP is unchecked in network configuration. I have 5 Snippet screen shots that I want to upload for you to see. But I'm not sure how to do it.
Can I Ctrl + click on each one an then click "Upload File" and all 5 files will upload at once? They are .ping files.

I unplugged the Amcrest cameras again yesterday, and plugged in a Foscam. This time it changed the IP address to 192.168.0.105. I did a ping on it and it replied
"Host Not Found."

These cameras have dongle wire adjacent to the ethernet wire which has a reset button. It seems every time I press it for 30 seconds, it only changes the IP address.

I do not want to lose the last running Foscam camera .../..././126. It is on my sometime Kitty's food bowl and I can watch when she comes in for food, and make the other neighbor cats scram. So no I do not want to shut it down...and take a chance that it will not restart like the other three Foscam F18906W cameras.

I am still puzzled about ethernet wiring an IP camera. If I didn't have a Foscam IP config tool and an Amcrest IP config tool, how would I see the camera's video? So what if the camera did light up...where would I go on my pc to see the streaming video? Wouldn't I have to have some software to see it?

Now the Foscam cameras require a plug-in, Active X to run. When you install a new Foscam, and before you get video, you get a notice at the bottom of the screen. It states something like this, "This device requires Active X to run, Allow or decline?" You click allow and the video opens. I have read and tweaked Active X controls until I don't know if I have all of the Active X options set right or not. But I do have Active X plug-in installed on "Push" (Firefox and Google), and IE.

 

[randytsuch]

In the Wireless menu, there is supposed to be a wireless client list.

Wireless Client List This screen shows computers and other devices on the wireless network. The list can be sorted by Client Name, Interface, IP Address, MAC Address, and Status.

In Applications and Gaming menu, under DMZ, looks like there is a client list

DMZ

Any computer whose port is being forwarded must have its DHCP client function disabled and have a new static IP address assigned to it because its IP address may change when using the DHCP function.

Enabled/Disabled To disable DMZ hosting, select Disabled. To expose one PC, select Enabled. Then configure the following settings:

Source IP Address If you want any IP address to be the source, select Any IP Address. If you want to specify an IP address or range of IP addresses as the designated source, select and complete the IP address range fields.

Destination If you want to specify the DMZ host by IP address, select IP Address and enter the IP address in the field provided. If you want to specify the DMZ host by MAC address, select MAC Address and enter the MAC address in the field provided. To retrieve this information, click DHCP Client Table.

DHCP Client Table
The DHCP Client Table lists computers and other devices that have been assigned IP addresses by the Router. The list can be sorted by Client Name, Interface, IP Address, and MAC Address. To select a DHCP client, click Select. To update the on-screen information, click Refresh. To exit this screen and return to the DMZ screen, click Close.


So its very strange for linksys to put the client table under DMZ, but whatever. And their manual has the worst screenshots I've seen. Makes them look like a garage shop

But hopefully you can see what ports your router is assigning now.

An easy thing to try would be to enable DHCP in the camera, and then it should get a good ip address from your router.

And yes, you will need software to view your cams. I use blue iris, but that is to record the cams, and it does cost money. There is free software that should work for just watching.

 

[looney2ns]

@Larry Ray where are you located Larry?

 

[Larry Ray]

@Larry Ray where are you located Larry?

I am in rural west Alabama, looney2ns. It is home to about 1500 souls.