Amcrest SmartHome Video Doorbell Camera AD110

bcc243

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I think those doorbells look good but I am not giving up the 180 Vertical after having it. Being able to see the package on the ground is worth more than the wide-angle when I have other cameras. Plus the loss of resolution and frame rate.
I agree about the vertical view. Wish there was a way to rotate the lens either physically or by software.
 

reflection

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I'm interested in a doorbell cam to replace my Ring. Question for AD110 owners: if you had to do it again, would you still buy the AD110?
 

mcorzine

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I'm interested in a doorbell cam to replace my Ring. Question for AD110 owners: if you had to do it again, would you still buy the AD110?
I haven't checked to see what else is out there recently but yes, I use mine constantly. I love that I can locally record the stream, the quality is good, and the device is affordable. I wish I could safely make more tweaks to the image settings than Amcrest allows but overall what they do provide access to is not terrible. I'm not even using the Amcrest app for notifications and I would buy it again.
 

DebrodeD

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Just want to post something that I just came across in regards to using the Amcrest Doorbell with Blue Iris. If you enable "Setup RTSP back-channel for talk support (PCM-U format)" in Blue Iris in the doorbell's network config settings, then your chime won't work! I tried everything, including an RMA and multiple chime kits (sorry Amcrest). I finally realized that whenever I hooked up the camera to Blue Iris, that's when my chime would stop working. Then I started flipping settings until I found it.

In short, make sure "Setup RTSP back-channel for talk support (PCM-U format)" is disabled in Blue Iris for the Amcrest Doorbell cam or your physical chime that it's hooked up to will not chime (nor will the unit itself).
 

mrvelous01

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I had to do some tinkering to get my Amcrest Doorbell camera online but it's worth it to not be using Ring. One of the features that I like, though it is a little flaky from time to time, is the motion sensing alert. I get a ding, I launch Blueiris or IP CAM Viewer, and look around. The flaky part is when I get alerts from cars passing by on my street that are clearly out of the defined range. This appears to have something to do with headlights reflecting off the side of my car (parked in the driveway) and is more frequent after dark. Rarely happens during daylight. But overall still a cool feature.
 

maxxfusion

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I am looking at this camera. Has anyone get this working with the Google Nest Hub? If someone rings the doorbell i want to see if popup on the Google Nest screen.

I asked this question on the amcrest sites live chat and the response was "Yes". That was the only response they gave me. I also asked about recording video to a nvr but no response.
 

GaryOkie

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As far as I know, Amcrest has not provided support for Google Assistant. They apparently do support Alexa. I double-checked both the Google Home app and Nest app and found nothing listed for any Amcrest device.

Most home automation hubs support Google Assistant for devices connected to them. I use Home Assistant and cast AD110 video to a Google Nest Max or TV's via voice command, the Google UI, or by automation.

My Dahua NVR is also connected to the AD110 for 24x7 recording which works flawlessly. There is a youtube video from Amcrest showing how... here.

EDIT: Making configuration changes to the AD110 via the NVR is problematic. Some settings can be adjusted, but others like changing video settings or motion detection settings have been known to cause problems and potentially require a factory reset to recover.
 
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DebrodeD

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@gtbkr25 - From the Amcrest (or Dahua) HTTP API guide, this command will return the current AD110 Night Vision MODE setting (Off, Auto, or ForceOn) along with a light intensity setting...

http://<ip_address>/cgi-bin/configManager.cgi?action=getConfig&name=Lighting

table.Lighting[0][0].MiddleLight[0].Light=20
table.Lighting[0][0].Mode=Auto


I tested it by changing the night vision setting in the SmartHome app, and the AD110 properly returns the values expected.

The command to turn off NightVision (or the IR) on cameras which support the API is:

http://<ip_address>/cgi-bin/configManager.cgi?action=setConfig&Lighting[0][0].Mode=Off

I have NOT tested this, and do not know if this will actually work on the AD110 as it doesn't fully implement the full API spec, as @mcorzine can confirm. Also be aware that changing some configurations on the AD110 via the API can be risky.

Please do let us know if it worked!
Thanks! That worked great for me @GaryOkie, but is there anyway to put username & password into the URL to eliminate the need to login? I'm trying to build an automation in webcore to turn WDR off & ForceOn the IR light every day at sunset and then reverse it at sunrise (because I have a similar issue to you, it doesn't come on at night on auto). I can automatically fire the http request, but I don't have a way to automate the login.
 

DebrodeD

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Hi @DebrodeD,

Sure - this is how:

http://<userid>:<password>@<ip_address>/cgi-bin/...
You are fantastic, thank you! This fixed literally every complaint I had with the doorbell! Something else I recommend that has worked very well for me:

My doorbell got tons of false alarms due to it being able to see the street, so I turned off motion detection for the doorbell cam in blue iris (I don't use motion detection on the doorbell itself), and I use my porch camera (a Dahua Starlight) to trigger the doorbell camera whenever someone approaches my door. That way I get the benefit of seeing the person's face in the motion alert (as the doorbell is what has the notification alert setup), but the motion detection comes from an overhead camera.
 

GaryOkie

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Just curious - are you referring to false alarms specifically from the SmartHome app push notifications or just Blue Iris MD alerts? (or both!)

EDIT: reread your post - Oh, not from SmartHome. got it.
 

DebrodeD

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Just curious - are you referring to false alarms specifically from the SmartHome app push notifications or just Blue Iris MD alerts? (or both!)
Blue Iris alerts/push notifications. I don't use the Amcrest app at all (in fact I've blocked all my cameras, including my doorbell from being able to access the internet).
 

GaryOkie

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Lately I've been sifting through AD110 event logs trying to get a better handle on how motion detection is configured in the AD110 and SmartHome. Like you, and practically everyone else, false alarms are a significant issue.

Software such as BI, Home Assistant, and an NVR subscribe to the "MotionDetection" event via the Amcrest API. I found it curious that turning off MD in the SmartHome app does not turn off this Motion detection event (it turns off AlarmLocal instead). I also found it curious that taping over the PIR sensor on the AD110 MotionDetection events continue to trigger with movement within the enabled MD block grids set up by the SH app. With the PIR covered, SH never sees any MD/Alarm event.

So what this means is the SmartHome relies solely on PIR detection using a different event trigger than other Amcrest cameras and probably ignores the MD block grid as a filter.

This also means that BI is seeing Motion events without the benefit of PIR from movement only in the enabled grid area. I also found that the sensitivity is set to "6" the highest setting. Getting alert from cars in the street would not be from PIR heat signatures, but perhaps from headlights creating false movement across you detection grids. Reducing the sensitivity setting via the API could help with that.

But heck, you've solved it with a separate overhead camera!

EDIT: I just learned Amcrest is coming out with a new AD410 doorbell! 2K res (2560x1920) H265 encode support 5Ghz wifi support. And apparently NO PIR! LOL. It seems they couldn't figure out how to properly merge the two MD techniques and gave up on PIR?
 
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nrc

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EDIT: I just learned Amcrest is coming out with a new AD410 doorbell! 2K res (2560x1920) H265 encode support 5Ghz wifi support. And apparently NO PIR! LOL. It seems they couldn't figure out how to properly merge the two MD techniques and gave up on PIR?
Good find. Do you know if they've confirmed that it will work via RTSP?
 

GaryOkie

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It never crossed my mind that they might remove the RTSP capability - but I've seen nothing confirmed other than what's listed in the specs. It's very peculiar that there is no news release announcement of any kind found online.
 

nrc

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I ask because some of their "Smarthome" branded items originally didn't include RTSP. It was like they wanted to focus on their apps for those. It appears that has been remedied for everything but their wirefree camera.
 

DebrodeD

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GaryOkie

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Hi @DebrodeD

No, sorry - I don't have a good idea of what's causing auth to fail all of a sudden. I assume you are able to login OK when entering admin and password separately when prompted. I'm not familiar with WebCoRE but does it return any error code or log that might provide clues why the command isn't being accepted?
 

DebrodeD

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No, sorry - I don't have a good idea of what's causing auth to fail all of a sudden. I assume you are able to login OK when entering admin and password separately when prompted. I'm not familiar with WebCoRE but does it return any error code or log that might provide clues why the command isn't being accepted?
Unfortunately not, I don't see any type of responses in the logging that it does. However, even in my browser it prompts me to enter the username and password separately when going in with it in the URL. Man, this stinks, it was working so well!
 

GaryOkie

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