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Hacking a $30 IoT camera to do more than it’s worth

hackernoon.com

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Re: Hacking a $30 IoT camera to do more than it’s worth

#11

Post by elheffe80 »

freehunter wrote: post #5
diggan wrote: post #4

Speaking about cheap cameras. I'm planning to setup some cameras at home. Anyone have any recommendations for devices that are cheap, can see moderately good in the dark, can be connected to a raspberry and doesn't force you to connect to some cloud service?

I have a Wyze cam that I installed OpenIPC on. Very simple process if you’ve ever flashed a firmware before. OpenIPC lets you turn off the cloud stuff and I have mine pushing video over my local network to MotionEye on a Raspberry Pi. The Wyze has IR night vision but the IR can’t see through windows at night so be aware of that. It was like $25 on Amazon, pretty good deal I think.

Thank you! I had no idea OpenIPC was out there! Going to be upgrading all my Wyze cameras tonight! This is amazing and EXACTLY what I wanted from Wyze!!!!

Re: Hacking a $30 IoT camera to do more than it’s worth

#12

Post by StavrosK »

freehunter wrote: post #5
diggan wrote: post #4

Speaking about cheap cameras. I'm planning to setup some cameras at home. Anyone have any recommendations for devices that are cheap, can see moderately good in the dark, can be connected to a raspberry and doesn't force you to connect to some cloud service?

I have a Wyze cam that I installed OpenIPC on. Very simple process if you’ve ever flashed a firmware before. OpenIPC lets you turn off the cloud stuff and I have mine pushing video over my local network to MotionEye on a Raspberry Pi. The Wyze has IR night vision but the IR can’t see through windows at night so be aware of that. It was like $25 on Amazon, pretty good deal I think.

Can OpenIPC run on this Xiaomi camera? I just ordered it. Also, I'm assuming it's better than the software in this post, correct?

Re: Hacking a $30 IoT camera to do more than it’s worth

#13

Post by rashomon »

nickspacek wrote: post #6
diggan wrote: post #4

Speaking about cheap cameras. I'm planning to setup some cameras at home. Anyone have any recommendations for devices that are cheap, can see moderately good in the dark, can be connected to a raspberry and doesn't force you to connect to some cloud service?

The linked article is a guide to "hacking" a $30 Xiaomi Dafang IP camera. This camera is an "indoor motorized WiFi camera capable of 1080P resolution and decent night-vision, its price is cheap". If you bought one, all the "hacking" required is inserting a MicroSD card with a custom firmware on it and pressing and holding the camera's reset button to flash the custom firmware. From then on, the camera has the ability…

I'm not a conspiracy nut but there is something to say about how attractive Xiaomi's offerings are. For everything from phones, TVs, and other electronics; you would be crazy not to purchase it.

In there lies a hidden threat. Possible from a tiger nation state.

Re: Hacking a $30 IoT camera to do more than it’s worth

#14

Post by epicide »

diggan wrote: post #10
nickspacek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linked article is a guide to "hacking" a $30 Xiaomi Dafang IP camera. This camera is an "indoor motorized WiFi camera capable of 1080P resolution and decent night-vision, its price is cheap". If you bought one, all the "hacking" required is inserting a MicroSD card with a custom firmware on it and pressing and holding the camera's reset button to flash the custom firmware. From then on, the camera has the ability…

Thanks, I saw said article as I'm commenting in it's thread :) But I wanted to avoid the hacking and just buy something that I don't have to force into doing what I want but rather come in a clean slate.

Not trying to sound (too) snarky, but the fact that there is an article on hacking a camera to do that kinda tells you that a boxed solution to do mostly the same things doesn't exist :)

Re: Hacking a $30 IoT camera to do more than it’s worth

#15

Post by StavrosK »

lozaning wrote: post #9
freehunter wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Wyze cam that I installed OpenIPC on. Very simple process if you’ve ever flashed a firmware before. OpenIPC lets you turn off the cloud stuff and I have mine pushing video over my local network to MotionEye on a Raspberry Pi. The Wyze has IR night vision but the IR can’t see through windows at night so be aware of that. It was like $25 on Amazon, pretty good deal I think.

I've got the same thing going at home, tough to beat ~7 of these cameras flashed with OpenIPC for the cost of a single drop cam. Got the rtsp stream connected up to smartthings and blue iris and have had zero trouble with them. They're only $20 if you order from wyze.com

Does anyone know of a good Android viewer for RTSP? I'm probably going to proxy it with an HTTP webserver over TLS (if I can do that with RTSP? EDIT: Apparently I can't, I'll have to find a way to add authentication) to add basic auth, so the viewer will need to support that.

Re: Hacking a $30 IoT camera to do more than it’s worth

#16

Post by freehunter »

StavrosK wrote: post #12
freehunter wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Wyze cam that I installed OpenIPC on. Very simple process if you’ve ever flashed a firmware before. OpenIPC lets you turn off the cloud stuff and I have mine pushing video over my local network to MotionEye on a Raspberry Pi. The Wyze has IR night vision but the IR can’t see through windows at night so be aware of that. It was like $25 on Amazon, pretty good deal I think.

Can OpenIPC run on this Xiaomi camera? I just ordered it. Also, I'm assuming it's better than the software in this post, correct?

I’m pretty certain the Xiaomi and Wyze are the same camera, just in different packaging. Wyze is pretty honest that they don’t manufacture their own cameras. That being said, I think the software in the article is the same or very similar to OpenIPC. The web interface is identical. You’d probably get the same results with either camera.

Re: Hacking a $30 IoT camera to do more than it’s worth

#17

Post by tomswartz07 »

rashomon wrote: post #13
nickspacek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linked article is a guide to "hacking" a $30 Xiaomi Dafang IP camera. This camera is an "indoor motorized WiFi camera capable of 1080P resolution and decent night-vision, its price is cheap". If you bought one, all the "hacking" required is inserting a MicroSD card with a custom firmware on it and pressing and holding the camera's reset button to flash the custom firmware. From then on, the camera has the ability…

I'm not a conspiracy nut but there is something to say about how attractive Xiaomi's offerings are. For everything from phones, TVs, and other electronics; you would be crazy not to purchase it. In there lies a hidden threat. Possible from a tiger nation state.

Or, it's more likely that they only pay workers a few dollars a day to crank this stuff out.

Re: Hacking a $30 IoT camera to do more than it’s worth

#18

Post by freehunter »

StavrosK wrote: post #15
lozaning wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got the same thing going at home, tough to beat ~7 of these cameras flashed with OpenIPC for the cost of a single drop cam. Got the rtsp stream connected up to smartthings and blue iris and have had zero trouble with them. They're only $20 if you order from wyze.com

Does anyone know of a good Android viewer for RTSP? I'm probably going to proxy it with an HTTP webserver over TLS (if I can do that with RTSP? EDIT: Apparently I can't, I'll have to find a way to add authentication) to add basic auth, so the viewer will need to support that.

I use TinyCam on an Amazon Fire tablet to view my RTSP stream but only locally. Over the Internet I view the stream from MotionEye on my RPi using their authentication. In that case I can view it in the browser, no app needed.

Re: Hacking a $30 IoT camera to do more than it’s worth

#19

Post by StavrosK »

freehunter wrote: post #16
StavrosK wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can OpenIPC run on this Xiaomi camera? I just ordered it. Also, I'm assuming it's better than the software in this post, correct?

I’m pretty certain the Xiaomi and Wyze are the same camera, just in different packaging. Wyze is pretty honest that they don’t manufacture their own cameras. That being said, I think the software in the article is the same or very similar to OpenIPC. The web interface is identical. You’d probably get the same results with either camera.

Ah, fantastic, thank you.

Re: Hacking a $30 IoT camera to do more than it’s worth

#20

Post by StavrosK »

freehunter wrote: post #18
StavrosK wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone know of a good Android viewer for RTSP? I'm probably going to proxy it with an HTTP webserver over TLS (if I can do that with RTSP? EDIT: Apparently I can't, I'll have to find a way to add authentication) to add basic auth, so the viewer will need to support that.

I use TinyCam on an Amazon Fire tablet to view my RTSP stream but only locally. Over the Internet I view the stream from MotionEye on my RPi using their authentication. In that case I can view it in the browser, no app needed.

Thank you, I didn't know of those apps, I'll try them now.
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