Annke WZ500 info

tedly

tedly

n3wb
Jun 28, 2023
16
3
Colorado, USA
Aka 151CK or IPC-E2A5Z18-W-TY

I started out getting the Annke NC800 a few months ago and was really impressed. And when I spotted the WZ500 with 20x optical zoom for under $100, how could I resist not giving them another try?

3 weeks in, and I've had countless issues with this cam. But have solved enough to make it worth not returning to vendor. Support will never directly answer the questions I've had. It's always an answer on something unrelated to what I'm asking. Sometimes taking 4-5 days to reply. Which is/was running down my return-window clock. Not sure if that was on purpose.

My three largest issues are: 1: That I can't find how to set it up to record 24/7 (or any amount at all) on the sdcard. Nor how to access the recordings. Anyone figured this out? For now I'm relying on Blue Iris to record it externally from the sdcard.

And 2, that the PTZ presets would constantly return to Preset #1 every 20-30 seconds. Making it completely useless as a PTZ camera if you can't pan/tilt it around for any usable duration.

For #2 issue:

My solution was to remove the Preset #1 through the webUI. Settings ==> PTZ Functions => Preset => Select #1 preset => Delete

And then set up presets on every other #. ie: 2,3,4,5,6,7,etc. But leave 1 unused. This gets rid of the auto-home (to preset 1) feature.

But it was an issue because I did actually want it to return home, especially late at night so it could watch the most critical spots while i slept. So after tinkering around with the HTML/javascript, I found out you can call the presets like this:

curl -s --user "user:password" ""

With the "presetNum" as zero-based numbering. (first preset = 0, second preset = 1, etc)

So now I use a cronjob to call a similar URL to above to send the camera to preset #1 (position #2 in the menu) on a schedule each night. But leave it alone during the day.

I also painstakingly found out that if you alter the URL to be:

curl -s --user "user:password" ""

(note the flag=3)

It will SET your presets based on where the camera is aimed. Which really messed up a bunch of my work while learning. I'm sure other flags will trigger deletion or other things.

But I wanted to pass all this on here so google/searches could pick this up and help someone else where I had been stuck for several days. I asked support for an API document but haven't heard back; and this seems to be getting the job done for now.

As for camera image review, its not bad. Esp in that price range. I don't LOVE it but I'm also not dropping $600 on it like I have on other less-rough PTZ cams. I might even buy another one now that I can use Presets effectively.
 
Thanks for your sharing ! It's great to read that an owner of the same camera than mine is a tech that can catch that kind of information. I thought trying to do the same as my main goal is to catch the call that the app is doing to activate the "AI" Motion detection...

I'm repeating your code with the right tags to ensure that people who need it will easily copy/paste it (correct it if I'm wrong, never really used curl command) :
Call Preset :
Code: 
curl -s --user "user:password" "http://192.168.1.5/form/presetSet?existFlag=1&flag=4&language=en&presetNum=1"
Define a preset (based on the current location of the camera):
Code: 
curl -s --user "user:password" "http://192.168.1.5/form/presetSet?existFlag=1&flag=3&language=en&presetNum=1"

tedly said:
My three largest issues are: 1: That I can't find how to set it up to record 24/7 (or any amount at all) on the sdcard. Nor how to access the recordings. Anyone figured this out? For now I'm relying on Blue Iris to record it externally from the sdcard.
Click to expand...
I did it, but I'm afraid that you have to use the app (Annke Smart). Then, once viewing the camera stream, on top right, you have an icon (3 dots), scroll down the menu, record settings, recording mode. there you can choose if you want to record permanently, or only during event. I've tried both. Still unclear what I'll use. I just enhanced the image quality on the web interface, I will see if it affects the streaming of the recordings. Seems that the highest quality have put the camera into troubles, when it comes to stream the recording. Apparently, all the usual video settings (frame rate, I/P rate, ...) are not accessible through the app... On the app, I only found an HD/SD switch...
I'm wondering if this camera wouldn't have shown some limitations during stress tests made by the manufacturer (when I change a lot of settings on the web interface, the stream can be unresponsive for one minute, and it even happend that it rebooted completely. I'm wondering if it's not what you faced, giving you the impression that it comes back to the positition 1. It did that on my side when it rebooted. But I did not seem to face anymore this issue...). So I'm wondering if it's not the reason why it led to a kind of "discount product", with some limitation to mitigate the risk of issue (web interface is not suggested in the manual, not even mentionned. The app strictly controls and limits what the settings that you can affect..., . A 5MP PTZ camera with *20 optical zoom with a decent 1/2.8 "Sony CMOS is quite surprizing.. So that's my hypothesis.

To read the recordings, I'm also using the native app. And indeed, I don't find the related option to activate permanent record on the web interface.

tedly said:
And 2, that the PTZ presets would constantly return to Preset #1 every 20-30 seconds. Making it completely useless as a PTZ camera if you can't pan/tilt it around for any usable duration.
For #2 issue:
My solution was to remove the Preset #1 through the webUI. Settings ==> PTZ Functions => Preset => Select #1 preset => Delete
And then set up presets on every other #. ie: 2,3,4,5,6,7,etc. But leave 1 unused. This gets rid of the auto-home (to preset 1) feature.
But it was an issue because I did actually want it to return home, especially late at night so it could watch the most critical spots while i slept. So after tinkering around with the HTML/javascript, I found out you can call the presets like this:
With the "presetNum" as zero-based numbering. (first preset = 0, second preset = 1, etc)
So now I use a cronjob to call a similar URL to above to send the camera to preset #1 (position #2 in the menu) on a schedule each night. But leave it alone during the day.
(...)
But I wanted to pass all this on here so google/searches could pick this up and help someone else where I had been stuck for several days. I asked support for an API document but haven't heard back; and this seems to be getting the job done for now.
As for camera image review, its not bad. Esp in that price range. I don't LOVE it but I'm also not dropping $600 on it like I have on other less-rough PTZ cams. I might even buy another one now that I can use Presets effectively.
Click to expand...
I didn't face this issue, but I also used the native app (first, and then also used IPCamViewer app - the app has found similarities with Reolink RLC-423 model and once selected to define the camera, it's working fine, even picking the preset !).

I'm also very surprised about the image quality in this price range and mostly on the excellent AI recognition?! During the day, it even detects leg or top of a head in a corner of the image ?!
On the other hand, the "auto tracking system" is not very efficient. Sometimes it detects the human (green rectangle around him), but does not move and follow. And sometimes, when it follows, it's too jerky or too slow, being late and missing the face. But at least the detection works fine, and we can still see where th
When you've given up using the detection on your previous camera (more expensive, a Reolink fix camera that has an independant IR detector that it doesn't use for video recording detection, but only for the light!?), because of so many false positive, it's a pleasure that the latest challenge is the detection planning management (or even better auto activation using url on a home automation server).
Also, the active X and plugins don't work anymore and no stream (live setting) is working on the web interface, did you manage to make it work ? Tested with multiple browser unsuccessfuly.

That's where I would ask for your help, would it be possible for you to catch how the web interface save this settings ? I guess it should be easing with the app, there is a button on the mainscreen of the app, allowing a "one click arming / disarming". I was wondering if a network packet sniffer could do the job, but I never manage to read the result in the past...

Thanks in advance for your feedback

A.
 

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Thank you @tedly !!! You inspired me !

I've made some searches, found a topic in Deutch of someone trying to monitor on its computer, on ispyconnect website I found Fiddler, suggested to sniff commands, and using it whilst navigating on the web interface, I've found the source code of the form, variable names and the values. Then I managed the activation thanks to the curl command that you shared, setting the action url and variable name of the web interface leading to the following url and values :

/form/SetMdScopeCfg?MDEnable=1&MDSensitivity=50
inactivate : /form/SetMdScopeCfg?MDEnable=0&MDSensitivity=100

It's working perfectly, and thanks to this, I should be able to link and automate the activation of the camera detection, to my alarm system. Thanks a lot !!

(This camera has apparently also been sold by Movols : )
 
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Hi @Arn0

I've been meaning to come back and say I found out how to do the constant-record. Like you said, it's in the app. I had found it a couple days back here:



And wow, you literally replied to part two as I was replying. :)

I was just piecing the URLs together by looking at the HTML / javascript (view source) links. Nothing as fancy as your using Fiddler. I'll have to check into that.

I was told by Annke support to email PR@annke.com to ask for API information. But after 3 days, I have no reply. I'm pretty disappointed in everything related to annke support.

Also, you are correct about the codeblocks and the curl command format. Thank you for adding that corrected format.
 
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Hi guys,

I am running a WZ500 as well and I am very impressed of the optical capabilies of the camera, but indeed very disappointed about the software quality.
The WebUI seems to be outdated and there is no chance to get the stream running on a browser.

But my main issue is the regular PTZ reinit at night at 1 a.m. (localtime in Gemany). The PTZ points to a door with 20x zoom. After the nightly PTZ reinit it shows next to it and the zoom is back to 1x.
So my current solution is, to call a saved PTZ preset via a CURL command and CRON one minute after the nightly PTZ reinit. Unfortunately combined with 20x zoom, this solution is not very accurate.

Does anyone else have this issue or even a good solution?
 
AIexHbg said:
Hi guys,

I am running a WZ500 as well and I am very impressed of the optical capabilies of the camera, but indeed very disappointed about the software quality.
The WebUI seems to be outdated and there is no chance to get the stream running on a browser.

But my main issue is the regular PTZ reinit at night at 1 a.m. (localtime in Gemany). The PTZ points to a door with 20x zoom. After the nightly PTZ reinit it shows next to it and the zoom is back to 1x.
So my current solution is, to call a saved PTZ preset via a CURL command and CRON one minute after the nightly PTZ reinit. Unfortunately combined with 20x zoom, this solution is not very accurate.

Does anyone else have this issue or even a good solution?
Click to expand...
I noticed indeed the same behavior very recently (I usually leave the camera with the largest view during the night.). I've not tried to find a solution for that. Is this something that you raised to the support ? I known that there is no chance that they can do anything, but who knows.. a miracle... I'm wondering if we will receive a firmware update someday. they could ask for a fix to the OEM...

Are you guys also sometimes facing this issue : streaming using the app is unresponsive, but accessing the onvif stream using a third party app is working. Could be linked to the fact that I've slightly changed the video settings on the old web interface. (enhanced quality, to the 4th on 5 levels)

Do not hesitate to share your video settings if you manage to find good one.
 
There is already a thread on the Annke help center about this PTZ reinit issue.
But it is 3 months old. Only some users who have the same problem, but no response from support.

The app works fine for me and compared to other camera apps it is responsive.
I am running the factory video settings.
 
AIexHbg said:
Hi guys,

I am running a WZ500 as well and I am very impressed of the optical capabilies of the camera, but indeed very disappointed about the software quality.
The WebUI seems to be outdated and there is no chance to get the stream running on a browser.

But my main issue is the regular PTZ reinit at night at 1 a.m. (localtime in Gemany). The PTZ points to a door with 20x zoom. After the nightly PTZ reinit it shows next to it and the zoom is back to 1x.
So my current solution is, to call a saved PTZ preset via a CURL command and CRON one minute after the nightly PTZ reinit. Unfortunately combined with 20x zoom, this solution is not very accurate.

Does anyone else have this issue or even a good solution?
Click to expand...

I have the same issue where the camera seems to re-orient it's PTZ at 1am. But for me, it returns back to the original location. Which is probably a 5x zoom location for me.

If I had the same problem, the curl would be the fix I'd use too. I already set the camera to go to that over-night position using cron :

Code: 
10 23-7 * * * curl http://etc


Related but not exactly, I've seen the PTZ orientation slip any time I don't let the camera come to a complete stop before changing direction. Such as if I hit Preset 3 and then hit Preset 5. It will get misaligned. It seems to fix itself with the 1am re-orientation event. If I'm in a hurry before then, I will issue a reboot.
 
Arn0 said:
I noticed indeed the same behavior very recently (I usually leave the camera with the largest view during the night.). I've not tried to find a solution for that. Is this something that you raised to the support ? I known that there is no chance that they can do anything, but who knows.. a miracle... I'm wondering if we will receive a firmware update someday. they could ask for a fix to the OEM...
Click to expand...

In the month that I've been asking their support questions, I have yet to receive an answer that truly answered any parts of my long list of wz500 questions. They told me they'd talk to their engineers about releasing a firmware where you could disable the original restart message that played loudly for a while. But I haven't seen that happen. Plus I suspect that Annke is not the creator of the unbranded firmware.

They've answered some of my NC800 questions. But I also found my own answers there and supplied them to support in hopes they would update their docs, but no such luck.

Are you guys also sometimes facing this issue : streaming using the app is unresponsive, but accessing the onvif stream using a third party app is working. Could be linked to the fact that I've slightly changed the video settings on the old web interface. (enhanced quality, to the 4th on 5 levels)
Click to expand...

I use mine exclusively through Blue Iris so I can't speak to this issue. The app is only used for configuring the recording, for me. Maybe the app talks over something other than onvif?
 
AIexHbg said:
The basic information shows "FirmwareVersion: V3.2.1-Tuya_230426"

It may be a generic firmware for many camera models based on a similar platform.
Click to expand...

That's great! Tuya is something smart-home that I've at least heard of. Tuya Smart - Global IoT Developer Service Provider


Where did you find that string? Looking through the web UI I couldn't find anything more useful than "IPC-E2A5Z18-W-TY" for an app version, iirc. Was that in the mobile app?
 
I've not been able to confirm it's firmware. I've seen reference to Tuya a few places but none of the versions numbers I've seen the camera loaded with match up to anything on Tuya's site. So I'm not confident enough to try to update the firmware with newer Tuya.
 
I've had a new oddity creep up this weekend.

Blue Iris can no longer use PTZ functions or presets on the cameras that I have. First one camera's PTZ abilities went out (didn't respond) and then the other camera did too while I was comparing settings and rebooting to check for inconsistencies. Now neither work. Even after factory resetting one.

I can still use the curl http calls to move it to ptz presets. Or log into the original (direct) web UI to do the movements. But not the Blue Iris UI. And it is super inconvenient to open up two webpages to look at the camera (in blue iris) and move it (in stock webUI).

The only change I made before this started was that I blocked my cameras from talking to any network other than my LAN. (A good practice since there's been lots of backdoors built into smart devices over the years.) But once I had the problem, I removed the blocking firewall rule. And the problem continued.

I'm still troubleshooting all this but would love to know if anyone else saw something like this.

And asking support would get no where since they claim not to support anything with Blue Iris.
 
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Hi,

was anyone of you able the set up a working FTP configuration?
I set up each field in Network/Settings/FTP but there is no upload at all and absolutely no action on the FTP server log.
Other cameras are working fine with that FTP server.

Any idea?
 
tedly said:
I've had a new oddity creep up this weekend.

Blue Iris can no longer use PTZ functions or presets on the cameras that I have. First one camera's PTZ abilities went out (didn't respond) and then the other camera did too while I was comparing settings and rebooting to check for inconsistencies. Now neither work. Even after factory resetting one.

<etc etc etc>
Click to expand...


After my PTZ mysteriously stopped, I started trying every prebuilt setting for PTZ in Blue Iris to see if I could get it to work. After that failed I did it the hard way and mapped out all the "setPTZ" urls to PT directions/functions. Here they are.

Code: 
PTZ URL commands:

Stop            /form/setPTZCfg?command=0
Up                 /form/setPTZCfg?command=1
Down            /form/setPTZCfg?command=2
Left            /form/setPTZCfg?command=4
Right            /form/setPTZCfg?command=5
Down + Left        /form/setPTZCfg?command=6
Up + Left        /form/setPTZCfg?command=7
Up + Right        /form/setPTZCfg?command=8
Down + Right    /form/setPTZCfg?command=9
Iris Open        /form/setPTZCfg?command=10
Iris close         /form/setPTZCfg?command=11
Focus near        /form/setPTZCfg?command=12
Focus far        /form/setPTZCfg?command=13
Zoom in            /form/setPTZCfg?command=14
Zoom out        /form/setPTZCfg?command=15

I like to speed up the pan/tilt by adding: &ZFSpeed=0&PTSpeed=0&panSpeed=3&tiltSpeed=3&focusSpeed=2&zoomSpeed=2 to the URL

I think it works better than the preset that I lost. Now the pan/tilt moves at a consistent speed and never just keeps going like it used to. I don't know what I had working before but now I'm glad I lost it.

Attached is a Blue Iris config file that works great for this camera and has all the above preconfigured. Import it, change your IP, change your user/password. I couldn't find a way to make the Set Preset function work in Blue Iris so you'll have to pan to the spot you want in Blue Iris and hit "Set" on the preset you want on the Annke WebUI. But after that, you can make calls to the presets via Blue Iris.
 

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AIexHbg said:
Hi,

was anyone of you able the set up a working FTP configuration?
I set up each field in Network/Settings/FTP but there is no upload at all and absolutely no action on the FTP server log.
Other cameras are working fine with that FTP server.

Any idea?
Click to expand...

I assume you are using the FTP settings directly on the WebUI ? I tried to set that up but didn't get it to even try to log into the ftp server. I was watching logs too. I saw some annke knowledge base pages that said you have to then enable it in the Motion Detection tab under Video&Audio but I couldn't find that option.

Maybe that is for a different camera firmware. I know the firmware for my NC800 cams is majorly different than the WZ500 cams. (Both are pretty terrible and buggy, to be blunt.)

But since you're using the built in WebUI on the wz500, you should be able to get help from support on annke.com.
 

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tedly said:
But since you're using the built in WebUI on the wz500, you should be able to get help from support on annke.com.
Click to expand...

Done. They told me, that the WZ500 does not support FTP.
More and more I come to the conclusion that the firmware somehow does not fit this camera at all. The idea behind it does not make sense to me at all.
 
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