New RCA HSDB2A 3MP Doorbell IP Camera

[alexdelprete]

I ordered mine off Amazon and got it few days ago.

This one

Amazon.com : Vankyo MatrixPad S20 10 inch Tablet, Octa-Core Processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB ROM, 8MP Rear Camera, Android 9.0 Pie, IPS HD Display, Bluetooth 5.0, 5G WiFi, GPS, Metal Body, Gray : Computers & Accessories

Amazon.com : Vankyo MatrixPad S20 10 inch Tablet, Octa-Core Processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB ROM, 8MP Rear Camera, Android 9.0 Pie, IPS HD Display, Bluetooth 5.0, 5G WiFi, GPS, Metal Body, Gray : Computers & Accessories

www.amazon.com

I am going to mount it similar to how he did his in the video

Found it on italian amazon store. Looks like a nice tablet for that price (€140 here). Thanks for the advice.

What mount will you get from that MOTIF store for that tablet? BTW, It's on Etsy, like the store I linked you before.

Unfortunately in Italy we don't have those type of walls, they are concrete walls, but luckily my old traditional videodoorbell had a monitor installed inside when I built the house 10y ago, so I have a place in the wall with a cable for 220v and I just need a mount to fix the tablet and a power supply that fits into the hole. And your tablet is gray like my wall, perfect choice.

 

[TechBill]

One more thing to keep in mind

The tablet I have does not wake up when touching screen. I have to press the power button so I am not sure if any other Android tablet wake up when screen is touched or not

Older tablet had a home button on front that wake display on when pressed so if anyone plan to wall mount it then make sure either button are accessible if using wall frame to enclose the tablet

I plan to get a mount like this. I don’t care cable plug will be exposed on side a little but it will allow me to remove it easily if I need to do some software adjustments on it

https://www.amazon.com/TFY-Kitchen-Smartphones-Bathroom-Readingroom/dp/B07RHDK9CZ/ref=pd_sbs_147_3/144-9149479-1122867?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07RHDK9CZ&pd_rd_r=a0bfed07-9777-465e-b223-53d416dc302a&pd_rd_w=fpnD4&pd_rd_wg=gRhyk&pf_rd_p=12b8d3e2-e203-4b23-a8bc-68a7d2806477&pf_rd_r=JY9DVSZMTAKVH9C1RTZM&psc=1&refRID=JY9DVSZMTAKVH9C1RTZM

Or it can be left on all time and any app like doorbell app will automatically wake it up if you get to it before it sleeps again then you don’t need to worry about pressing button to wake it up

 

[TechBill]

Found it on italian amazon store. Looks like a nice tablet for that price (€140 here). Thanks for the advice.

What mount will you get from that MOTIF store for that tablet? BTW, It's on Etsy, like the store I linked you before.

Unfortunately in Italy we don't have those type of walls, they are concrete walls, but luckily my old traditional videodoorbell had a monitor installed inside when I built the house 10y ago, so I have a place in the wall with a cable for 220v and I just need a mount to fix the tablet and a power supply that fits into the hole. And your tablet is gray like my wall, perfect choice.

View attachment 62388

Keep in mind that I just got that tablet like two days ago so I haven’t fully use it to see if it a good tablet or not

I had the hik-connect missed a call because the WiFi on tablet turned itself off when it went into battery saving mode but I had it disabled. I am not sure if I hit a button or something that re-enable it again

 

[pcm2a]

I thought you were using Laview firmware with laview app. Did you try other apps or you always tried RCA app?

I've tried everything. LaView firmware & app, RCA firmware & app, LaView firmware & RCA app. By the way, the apps RCA, LaView, EZVIZ, etc are really the same exact app that I assume Hikvision is giving them to use. If you have your doorbell added into the RCA app you can't add it into LaView without first removing it from RCA.

I FIGURED IT OUT! When you go into the app info (long press the app and pick info), then go into permissions it shows all the permissions the app could use. When you launch the app it asks for Camera and Storage permission. However, in this list is also Location and Microphone. It never asked for those, so they were denied. I granted both and now I get the doorbell calls! I tried enabling the location permission -> works, then I disable it -> stops working.

As a final test I dug out an old LG G6, with Android 8.0. The doorbell calls work and that location permission is denied. Strange!

 

[alexdelprete]

I've tried everything. LaView firmware & app, RCA firmware & app, LaView firmware & RCA app. By the way, the apps RCA, LaView, EZVIZ, etc are really the same exact app that I assume Hikvision is giving them to use. If you have your doorbell added into the RCA app you can't add it into LaView without first removing it from RCA.

I FIGURED IT OUT! When you go into the app info (long press the app and pick info), then go into permissions it shows all the permissions the app could use. When you launch the app it asks for Camera and Storage permission. However, in this list is also Location and Microphone. It never asked for those, so they were denied. I granted both and now I get the doorbell calls! I tried enabling the location permission -> works, then I disable it -> stops working.

As a final test I dug out an old LG G6, with Android 8.0. The doorbell calls work and that location permission is denied. Strange!

Ok, weird behaviour. It has to do with Android 10 I guess. But at least we know that we can check the app permissions with long press and enable everything in case something doesn't work. Thanks for reporting the solution.

We know it's more or less the same app, but it's not the same, the EZVIZ app has support for disabling the outdoor bell sound when you press the button. The others don't. But you need both ezviz fw and ezviz app.

Hikvision is the producer, the other companies are authorized to make mods to fw and app. The cloud platform is the same for all of them, that's why you need to deregister the camera when switching app. Even though I never deregister it. I simply uninstall an app, install the other, login and it finds the doorbell through the cloud data.

 

[alexdelprete]

Keep in mind that I just got that tablet like two days ago so I haven’t fully use it to see if it a good tablet or not

I had the hik-connect missed a call because the WiFi on tablet turned itself off when it went into battery saving mode but I had it disabled. I am not sure if I hit a button or something that re-enable it again

I'll wait for your final judgement on the tablet. Anyway, if it'll be always cable powered, so always on, I'll configure it to never sleep or go in standby. It's Android 9, should be possible to do it.

 

[pcm2a]

Ok, weird behaviour. It has to do with Android 10 I guess. But at least we know that we can check the app permissions with long press and enable everything in case something doesn't work. Thanks for reporting the solution.

I guess I jinxed myself. Now it only seems to work occasionally. The notification that there was motion detected works 100% all of the time. I'll keep fiddling with it.

 

[Emiks5]

I am more in a Apple environment and bought a refurbished ipad mini 3. Mounting on the wall by a simple cheap backcover (some holes and screws through the backcover). To prolong the battery life I just put the powersupply in a very simple mechanical timeswitch which switches power on and off every 15 minutes, leaving the battery between 40% and 70%. So never over 80% or below 20%. Screen is always on btw.

 

[pete_c]

Just a quickie post relating to my Joggler touchscreens. I am a moderator on the Joggler Wiki Forum over here ==> O2 Joggler Forum

You can purchase these cheap these days as they are just bricks with embedded Linux on them for around $35. Hardware modifications / BIOS mods are not for those unexperienced in doing this sort of thing. These devices were way ahead of their time. John Skully got involved with Openpeak after leaving Apple and was hell bent on making an Apple killer tablet.

I have 15 of these tabletop computers. Note that they have been modified for use with Windows. They were sold as VOIP / DECT devices and Energy monitoring / Thermostat control devices by Cisco at one time. The do have a Zigbee chip and a DECT chip.

They run Android, iOS, Ubuntu or Windows (XPe, 7E, W81 and W10).



This one is the Openpeak 2 which I also have but much more difficult to hardware modify mostly because it is a lock and key to open the case. These can be mounted on the wall. Sound is great on them. I could get the DECT pieces working with the original embedded Linux but never did get it working with generic Ubuntu.



Here is a picture of the HP ElitePad which runs Windows 10 and Ubuntu Linux today and is Intel based.

I do not really like leaving a tablet on the wall constantly charging and Windows is much easier to control remotely than Android. I also have two Android based tabletop tablets here which I have not used now for a few years. You can purchase a medical office style wall hanger for this device.



This thing with this tablet is that it is discontinued and HP made all sorts of accessories for it and you can purchased these way cheap these days.



BTW the Windows Homeseer touchscreen designer software works fine with iOS, Android or Windows clients. There are issues with Linux clients (Mono).

 

[pete_c]

Here are a couple of the applications I use for Touchscreen design.

These run on Windows 2016 server and I RDP to the server to do many Windows automation things.

1 - Leviton HAI Automation Studio - This is propietary for the the Leviton HAI OmniPro 2 combo security / automation panel. (now discontinued)



2 - Homeseer HS Designer which works on iOS, Android or Windows Clients. This application has a Visio feel to it.



I am not an artist here and build touch screens that are functional but not that pretty. I tend to over engineer the touchscreen designs putting too many buttons and views in a very little space. This is very low on the WAF.

 

[rafale]

So I have not come back here in quite some time... at least 50 pages on this thread and have not spent the time to catch up on reading. Sorry if this is redundant with something anyone else has posted as I just wanted to share a couple of more months of experience with this doorbell.
I have previously reported that I would reset itself, including all its wifi settings about once a month. This has not occurred for a couple of months now so I don't believe it is temperature related with the weather warming up and overall, it has been quite stable. The downside is that I am not able to reproduce this factory reset behavior and so can't figure out what caused it.
The doorbell seems to be strained by multiple rtsp streams and has the tendency to drop or kill connections altogether. Reducing the number of concurrent streams go a long way towards stability.
I have a 24/7 stream going into my NAS for recording and had a couple of additional streams to home assistant, one for monitoring and the others for facial recognition. I just noticed that stability gets significantly improved by proxying the stream through the NAS, therefore burdening the doorbell with supporting only one rtsp stream.

 

[pete_c]

Didn't think of that as this is my first attempt at using a wireless IP camera.

Been using Zoneminder now for many many years and proxy all CCTV through Zoneminder.

 

[rafale]

It actually makes a lot of sense for wireless cameras as the amount of wireless data decreases too. Proxy is the way to go!

Oddly enough, I also just discovered that the QNAP QVR program is able to get the motion detection signal from the doorbell. I should be able to tap off of it to trigger some other things.

 

[andycots]

Not sure what this is but after having numerous problems with dropouts visible through BI and going through all 101 troubleshooting, I have I think found I can get stability if I leave the image settings on default, medium quality, 1024 bitrate and 15fps, this is showing as around 130kb/s in BI, which I know is not very good at all and would prefer to have the best image I can, but as soon as I increase things the dropouts come back. Anyone any ideas, the cam is about2m from range extender and there’s not much else using the WiFi, so not sure if setting in router or what?

Cheers

 

[rafale]

@andycots

Your wifi is likely the problem. When it comes to wireless, the general rule is less and simpler is better. Having a range extender, though it may improve signal strength, may also increase interferences. You are also adding a relay which needs to take on packets process them and retransmit them to the wifi AP. This relay alone is prone to errors and interrupts. I seem to be able to sustain 1.5Mb/s bandwidth on a single stream and I am maintaining 2 constantly. The first thing I did was to move to 5GHz which has a lot more bandwidth and is more forgiving for interferences but has much shorter range. So you will have to move a wired AP within range.

 

[andycots]

@andycots

Your wifi is likely the problem. When it comes to wireless, the general rule is less and simpler is better. Having a range extender, though it may improve signal strength, may also increase interferences. You are also adding a relay which needs to take on packets process them and retransmit them to the wifi AP. This relay alone is prone to errors and interrupts. I seem to be able to sustain 1.5Mb/s bandwidth on a single stream and I am maintaining 2 constantly. The first thing I did was to move to 5GHz which has a lot more bandwidth and is more forgiving for interferences but has much shorter range. So you will have to move a wired AP within range.

And if I get a wired AP closer with the cam default to using 5GHz, instead of the 2.4 this is currently using on my extender. And how to I know or tell the cam to use 5GHz.

Cheers

 

[rafale]

I have a dedicated SSID for 5GHz so as not to share bandwidth.

 

[andycots]

I have a dedicated SSID for 5GHz so as not to share bandwidth.

Thanks for your help with this, i seem to have sorted it now, and i am sure this was the root of all my dropout problems, i had the doorbell setup on my 2.4GHz which only gave me 124kB/s, which if my calculations are not far of is less than 1Mbps and the camera demands around 2Mbps, hence the constant dropouts, When i put it onto the 5GHz which will carry around 450kB/s around 3.6Mbps then no problems at all, absolutely solid, this then allowed me to max all the settings out for the best picture, and instant BI/all notifications.

I did go into my Sky router settings to de-sync the 2.4/5.0GHz frequencies, then set a different ssid for the 5.0GHz, logged camera onto that and voila.

This should maybe go to 101, as it was the reason for the constant dropouts.

Does anyone know where i can get a new power-kit, i seem to have misplaced myn, or the Mrs threw it away. UK based.

Cheers

 

[alexdelprete]

Thanks for your help with this, i seem to have sorted it now, and i am sure this was the root of all my dropout problems, i had the doorbell setup on my 2.4GHz which only gave me 124kB/s, which if my calculations are not far of is less than 1Mbps and the camera demands around 2Mbps, hence the constant dropouts, When i put it onto the 5GHz which will carry around 450kB/s around 3.6Mbps then no problems at all, absolutely solid, this then allowed me to max all the settings out for the best picture, and instant BI/all notifications.

I did go into my Sky router settings to de-sync the 2.4/5.0GHz frequencies, then set a different ssid for the 5.0GHz, logged camera onto that and voila.

This should maybe go to 101, as it was the reason for the constant dropouts.

This problem is specific to your wifi network, and the solutions is a specific workaround. Repeaters/extenders are known to have these kind of problems. I always say that the 2 most common problems of these cameras are POWER and WIFI network. Once you have a good power source, you need to solve the Wifi issues. For this, I advice not to buy/use cheap stuff, in particular repeaters/extenders, they lead to more issues than benefits. Take in consideration a good mesh product with good reviews, that solves most of the wifi problems. We could put some general guidelines in 101 regarding wifi, specifying that these cameras need a stable connection without recommending specific solutions that depend on the specific installation.

Glad you solved your problems.

 

[alexdelprete]

I have a dedicated SSID for 5GHz so as not to share bandwidth.

the SSID is just a logical entity, at low level the chipset is doing the same stuff with channels and frequencies. If you use 1 ssid for both 2.4/5ghz you are not sharing anything, 2.4 devices will use 2.4ghz band/channels and 5ghz will use theirs, there's no sharing because of the same SSID. It's a misconception. I constantly read this in network forums but it's a big misunderstanding. SSIDs are used for a "logical" separation, not physical.

the only times when I advise to create a separate SSID_5ghz is when you have an old legacy device that doesn't behave correctly in a specific frequency or when you want to force it connecting in 2.4 or 5 and it doesn't allow you to configure it that way.