New RCA HSDB2A 3MP Doorbell IP Camera

puntoboy

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Had my DB1 for over a year and it's been great. I swapped from a Nest Hello to this purely so I can use local storage (MicroSD and my Hikvision NVR). Really happy with my choice but there is one small feature that I wish it had that the Hello did, and that's canned responses. With the Hello when the doorbell rang the app on your phone would pop up and you could choose an automated response from several canned replies. It was ideal if you weren't in a position to actually talk to the person at the door.

I notice the firmware updates for these cameras are very few and far between, so no hope of them adding that feature any time soon.
 

David L

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Had my DB1 for over a year and it's been great. I swapped from a Nest Hello to this purely so I can use local storage (MicroSD and my Hikvision NVR). Really happy with my choice but there is one small feature that I wish it had that the Hello did, and that's canned responses. With the Hello when the doorbell rang the app on your phone would pop up and you could choose an automated response from several canned replies. It was ideal if you weren't in a position to actually talk to the person at the door.

I notice the firmware updates for these cameras are very few and far between, so no hope of them adding that feature any time soon.
Since the DB1C release, pretty sure you are right...
 

David L

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Don't tell me the DB1C has that feature I am hoping for?
I don't think so but not sure, only saying firmware or App improvements would probably be aimed at this new generation DB.

Here are a few DB1C Threads, you could ask them...


 

Duckies

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Okay, I'm still super unclear on how to flash my EZVIZ DB1, and what firmware I should put on it specifically. I added it to the EZVIZ app, flashed the updated 200904 build that the app said it needed... and now what? I want to add it to my 24/7 recording surveillance station, but I can't get the synology to see the camera. Batch Tool does, but that software appears to have a learning curve and no documentation... what do I do now?
 

David L

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Okay, I'm still super unclear on how to flash my EZVIZ DB1, and what firmware I should put on it specifically. I added it to the EZVIZ app, flashed the updated 200904 build that the app said it needed... and now what? I want to add it to my 24/7 recording surveillance station, but I can't get the synology to see the camera. Batch Tool does, but that software appears to have a learning curve and no documentation... what do I do now?
First, I do not have a Synology but several here do, plus we have some help in our 101 for that. I am assuming the reason your Synology is not finding your DB1 is the firmware 200904 does not support ONVIF. Most here use the Hikvision firmware which does support ONVIF. This is normally not a requirement for a RTSP stream but it makes it easier since when you do a search ONVIF will fill in all the info needed for your RTSP stream to work. I would try the below without ONVIF and if all works leave it at that, if not then you will need to change your DB1 firmware to Hikvision which can only be done through Batch Config. Tool.

Here are out tips from our 101:

SYNOLOGY TIPS:
⦁ Configuring Synology without ONVIF Support - KlaverBoer
⦁ Motion Detection with ONVIF (Hikvision Firmware) - alexdelprete, alexdelprete
⦁ Configuring Synology - alexdelprete

HTH
 

Duckies

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I know it's a stupid question, but I've got the Batch Config Tool... how do I actually flash the firmware to the doorbell camera from it?
 

David L

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I know it's a stupid question, but I've got the Batch Config Tool... how do I actually flash the firmware to the doorbell camera from it?
No question is stupid. So first things first, how is your WiFi connection from your DB1 to your Access Point/Router? It needs to be a good connection, no drop outs during the firmware upgrade. If you feel good about it then you need to download the .DAV file, you will find the 200321 firmware in the 101, here is the link:


I would follow Alex procedure, most here have.

 

animous

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I know this has been mentioned before but I couldn't find a solution via search.

"Zooming" problem with BlueIris
Whenever my EZVIZ DB1 has a trigger event in itself, BlueIris zooms in the image to like the top quarter of the image. Resetting the camera will resolve it, but it will just happen again when the PIR sets off a trigger.

Is there a workable solution?
Sorry for the necro-reply, but I have the exact same issue. Did you (or anyone!) figure out a solution? I tried setting a fixed resolution, but that didn't help. Thanks!
 

David L

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Sorry for the necro-reply, but I have the exact same issue. Did you (or anyone!) figure out a solution? I tried setting a fixed resolution, but that didn't help. Thanks!
So I am not having those issues and have been running this Doorbell Cam through Blue Iris for two years now. Which firmware are you guys using? I have ONVIF support turned ON:
But I rely on BI for triggering, not PIR...

1628120947904.png

1628122533979.png
1628122628719.png
 

flynreelow

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David L

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how well does your triggering work in BI with your settings? Petty spot on, or a lot of false negatives?
Spot-On. Not sure how I got it that way, did not really have to play with it much but it has never missed an event/trigger. But as you see my range is when someone is in my porch area. Not walking up. What happens is I get the few seconds pre-record prior to trigger that is included in the recorded footage. Guess it is the 5 second buffer. The EZVIZ App does the same, pre-recording.

1628123738837.png

So I have two streams, one triggered by motion and another 24/7 recording. This way I can't miss anything.

1628123819709.png
 

flynreelow

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Spot-On. Not sure how I got it that way, did not really have to play with it much but it has never missed an event/trigger. But as you see my range is when someone is in my porch area. Not walking up. What happens is I get the few seconds pre-record prior to trigger that is included in the recorded footage. Guess it is the 5 second buffer. The EZVIZ App does the same, pre-recording.

View attachment 97436

So I have two streams, one triggered by motion and another 24/7 recording. This way I can't miss anything.

View attachment 97437

so if that shrub is blowing it doesnt get triggered because you set the size to 1100? or somthing else?
 

animous

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So I am not having those issues and have been running this Doorbell Cam through Blue Iris for two years now. Which firmware are you guys using? I have ONVIF support turned ON:
But I rely on BI for triggering, not PIR...
This was with the EZVIZ 200904 firmware, and relying on BI for triggering (not PIR). I'd been contemplating changing to the Hikvision firmware instead for ONVIF, so that is now done. Looks good so far, I'll post again if the "zooming" creeps up with that one. Appreciate the screenshots, very helpful! :)
 

David L

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so if that shrub is blowing it doesnt get triggered because you set the size to 1100? or somthing else?
Good question, but that scrub is a Holly, it would take 60+ mile an hour winds to blow that thing. I have never seen it trigger BI yet. But as you can see I did not include the whole entrance since I seem to remember, it's been a few years now, that BI would pick up drive by traffic, especially big trucks. My Jeep is parked most of the time so maybe it blocks the road enough to not get false triggers. The other car behind it is normally not parked there.

I think the 1100 is less sensitive.
 

animous

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TLDR; button press detection through software is possible! You will ned: a "fancy" firewall (I'm using a Mikrotik) + socat + bash script.

Initially when I wanted button press detection, I installed the current sensor Szc23-No-Al-Ch as described by @tommyd75 and @pete_c, and attached a zigbee button to it. It worked, but the major issue was that it didn't fit in my chime and I had nowhere to hide it, so it didn't pass the WAF test.

Of course the ideal solution would be to modify the firmware, but I am not versed in those skills.

@scruzloose33 wrote earlier in this thread that upon a button press, there was a DNS query to alarm.use.s3.amazonaws.com. I came to the same conclusion watching pihole logs, but on subsequent button presses there was no DNS query. Maybe the doorbell is caching the result.

I could've set up an A record in my lan DNS to point alarm.use.s3.amazonaws.com to the IP of a local machine listening on 443 for connections, but that would also have broken the normal "Answer Doorbell Call" function in the app, which I needed to keep working.

I quickly discovered that dig alarm.use.s3.amazonaws.com yielded different addresses on pretty much every call, but they were always in the same two /16 subnets. I setup these subnets in an address list in my firewall. They are specific to my region, and if they were to change I would need to update my firewall rules.

Here is where the magic happens: the mikrotik firewall has an action=sniff-tzsp in the mangle chain. It's usually meant to send packets to a tzsp client such as Wireshark. But I chose to just use it as a sort of "knock". It sends one packet to a host where I have socat running. When socat detects the packet, it runs a script. And that's it!

Implementation
In your linux/macos terminal, run dig alarm.use.s3.amazonaws.com a few times.
Alternatively if you don't have dig, you can use your browser, go to Dig (DNS lookup) and lookup alarm.use.s3.amazonaws.com a few times.

On the Mikoritk:
# add the list of addresses for alarm.use.s3.amazonaws.com (replace x.x with your results from above)
/ip firewall address-list
add address=x.x.0.0/16 list=alarms3
add address=x.x.0.0/16 list=alarms3
/ip firewall mangle
add action=sniff-tzsp chain=forward comment=doorbell connection-state=new dst-address-list=alarms3 sniff-target=IP-OF-SOCAT sniff-target-port=37008 src-address=IP-OF-DOORBELL


On a Pi or any other 24/7 server you have:
socat -u udp-l:37008,fork system:/home/youruser/dingdong-front.sh

Later you can install as a service. I used GitHub - asaif/socat-init: Debain LSB init for socat.

/home/youruser/dingdong-front.sh contains whatever you want to happen when the doorbell is pressed. In my case, I wanted to trigger an entry point to a Nodered flow, so I have:
#!/bin/sh
curl -s https://IP-OF-NODERED:1880/dingdong-front > /dev/null


This triggers a flow httpin -> mqtt which publishes on a topic defined by the MQTT Link for a Virtual Switch in Hubitat. Hubitat picks it up and notifies the household.

I also have a second mangle going to port 37009, hitting another instance of socat listening on 37009 with a script hitting the dingdong-side httpin of the same Nodered flow.

Convoluted? Yes. Does it work and pass the WAF test? YASSS!! :D
 

The Automation Guy

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So I am not having those issues and have been running this Doorbell Cam through Blue Iris for two years now. Which firmware are you guys using? I have ONVIF support turned ON:
But I rely on BI for triggering, not PIR...
Just because you have ONVIF turned on in BI doesn't mean the camera supports it or that it is working properly. Because you are using BI to handle the motion detection/triggering functions, you aren't using ONVIF triggers even if the camera is sending them out. This is fine! In fact it is how I handle my doorbell cameras as well. To be honest, I found that I was able to dial in my motion detection a lot better in BI than I could using the PIR in the doorbell camera. The PIR is suppose to have a distance setting that you can change, but I never found it to be accurate and I'd get triggers well outside of the desired distance. Using BI I can really dial the detection settings to what I want them to be.

I do use ONVIF triggers for my Dahua 5442 series cameras and they work great too, but personally I don't really care if a camera has ONVIF support or not. I'll use it if it does (and it's good) or I'll use BI for motion/triggering if it doesn't (or it's bad).
 

zacchaeus

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Hi all,

Thanks for the excellent (if slightly overwhelming!) thread.

I hooked up my EZVIZ DB1 (EZVIZ FW: 5.2.4 build 200220) to a mechanical chime using an external transformer and have been having a few problems with it going offline. This doesn't seem to be a networking problem; after going offline, the bell doesn't work, nothing is getting saved to the SD, no status light. In a nutshell, the device dies until I cut and the power and switch back on. This was happening about once a day.

Intriguingly, I happened to turn the IR light off a few days ago and this has stopped.

My theory is that the bell isn't getting enough power from the transformer, which is only 8VA @ 24VAC. I'm assuming IR light is tipping the power consumption over the edge but it doesn't turn off straight away; rather the device's battery slowly depletes before it dies.

Before I order a 30VA transformer (and more importantly prepare myself for the conversation with my wife about how, although I am indeed rewiring something into the main and, yes, I'm replacing something that I'd added just a couple of weeks ago that turned out to be the wrong one, there isn't and never has been any significant chance of electrocution or fire...), do you guys agree that the above is a likely explanation of what's been happening and that the beefier transformer should solve the problem? Is there anything else I might be missing?

Many thanks in advance for your time and help,

Gareth
 

David L

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Hi all,

Thanks for the excellent (if slightly overwhelming!) thread.

I hooked up my EZVIZ DB1 (EZVIZ FW: 5.2.4 build 200220) to a mechanical chime using an external transformer and have been having a few problems with it going offline. This doesn't seem to be a networking problem; after going offline, the bell doesn't work, nothing is getting saved to the SD, no status light. In a nutshell, the device dies until I cut and the power and switch back on. This was happening about once a day.

Intriguingly, I happened to turn the IR light off a few days ago and this has stopped.

My theory is that the bell isn't getting enough power from the transformer, which is only 8VA @ 24VAC. I'm assuming IR light is tipping the power consumption over the edge but it doesn't turn off straight away; rather the device's battery slowly depletes before it dies.

Before I order a 30VA transformer (and more importantly prepare myself for the conversation with my wife about how, although I am indeed rewiring something into the main and, yes, I'm replacing something that I'd added just a couple of weeks ago that turned out to be the wrong one, there isn't and never has been any significant chance of electrocution or fire...), do you guys agree that the above is a likely explanation of what's been happening and that the beefier transformer should solve the problem? Is there anything else I might be missing?

Many thanks in advance for your time and help,

Gareth
Yes, this has been the case for others here too, I would test the voltage with a Meter. Also be aware when you up the voltage your Chime will most likely get louder so would stay at 24VAC and increase your VA to 30 as you are...

This is an American transformer but it explains Load, which the IR will increase Load (VA)...

I am running a 16V/30VA Trans.
 
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