Opinion about Ash21

[sillycam]

Hi all, I just bought three ASH 21 cameras of Amazon. I have to say, this camera has been a ROYAL PITA to set up compare to other Amcrest cameras I have bought in past. I was wondering what people's experiences have been with this camera. Looking to set it up to monitor kids in the house.

thanks.

 

[sillycam]

I am trying to connect directly to an ASH21 camera through a browser as you do with typical IP cameras but for some reason I am unable. Anyone have this experience? It says "Failed to open page".

 

[TonyR]

Most of the "Smart Home" type cams from Amcrest and others do not have an embedded webGUI and must be first initialized and configured using their app, creating an account with username/password, etc.

Depending on how you plan to view/monitor the cam's video when it's in place, you might be able to stream RTSP to VLC or Blue Iris as in the link at the end. If not, your best option may be to return the cams if possible.

ASH-21W username and password for Blue Iris

 

[sillycam]

They were really a pain to set up. IF I do return them, do you recommend another similar camera? I like the Amcrest ones. They were easy to set up and they work well and are relatively cheap. I have a few outside cams and an indoor PTZ IP2M-841. The IP2m is nice and allows for two way communication which is helpful to keep track of kids through the Amcrest App on my phone.

The Amcrest Apps are a bit weird. I had to download a third app "Amcrest Smart Home" to set these cameras up. I could not set them up using the other two apps I had (Amcrest View Pro and Amcrest Cloud). The cloud app is nice because I can view the cameras when I am away from home (I have not yet figured out how to set up BI for that).

 

[TonyR]

Yes, when you scan a QR code or enter a UID with an app you're setting up a cloud account, known as P2P (peer to peer) which employs a server that is usually off shore. Such cloud accounts may compromise your networks security and when it's down you cannot view your cams.

With BI or any other LAN devices at your home you best network security and reliability for access away from home would be to set up a VPN, such as OpenVPN on your router...port forwarding to access those device is NOT recommended.

Things that are "easy" are generally not recommended for the aforementioned reasons but the average consumer wants that.

EDIT: I've had good luck with Amcrest cams (rebranded Dahua) over the years and have installed and recommended them often depending on the application. I do NOT recommend any "Smart Home" cams from any vendor because of the P2P operation. To my knowledge, most non-smarthome cams from Amcrest are easily streamed to BI and VLC using RTSP.

 

[sillycam]

So is the PTZ IP2M-841 an issue with P2P? I was concerned at how easy it was to set up and view online...

I have not yet figured out the VPN on my PFSense router. I started and never finished. I need to do that. I had thought about putting all the security stuff on a separate network, but we also have Alexa and some other devices running...

 

[wittaj]

Any camera set up via P2P is a concern and opens up your system.

You can set the IP2M-841 without that. I set mine up on a computer without internet access and then placed it on my non-internet NIC to put into BI.

 

[TonyR]

So is the PTZ IP2M-841 an issue with P2P? I was concerned at how easy it was to set up and view online...

Yes, IMO, any cam or IOT device that uses an app to scan a QR code is a risk....

 

[mat200]

FYI - camera ASH21 Amcrest

 

[sillycam]

So the reason we liked the IP2M-841 camera is that using the Amcrest software, we can listen and communicate with the people in the room. Is that possible with BI?

Also, I have still not been able to find the PTZ when I pull up BI on a different computer but it does work from the server computer.

 

[wittaj]

So the reason we liked the IP2M-841 camera is that using the Amcrest software, we can listen and communicate with the people in the room. Is that possible with BI?

Also, I have still not been able to find the PTZ when I pull up BI on a different computer but it does work from the server computer.

Yes, you can do so from the Blue Iris app.

Two-way talk only works at the main computer. It does not work from another computer remoting in from another computer or the UI3 application in a browser.

As mentioned, if you are using the Amcrest software, then your unit is on the internet and has the possibility to be hacked.

 

[mrvelous01]

Last weekend I tried to install a new ASH47 and it too was a PITA. I hit it with firefox and actually got a login prompt but fumbled the password soI decided to use their Smart Home App (I have their AD110 doorbell). I was able to set a password but apparently it does not play nice with http so I moved on to BI. I was able to get an image with BI but it is lagging a lot, which is weird since it is RJ45 connected. I also found out that BI can not natively control the camera but I was wondering about BI's PTZ/Control and the option for "external script". Has anyone tried to control an ASH47 camera from BI using the "external script" and Amcrest's Command Line API?