[Leopold]

I created an add-on for Foscam HD cameras. It's designed as a baby monitor system for my baby daughter but it should also be useful for other purposes like security. It's a work in progress but it has the features I need and perhaps other Foscam owners will find it useful as it is.



Install
Install from my repository. It's under "Program add-ons".
XBMC 13 (Gotham) is required.
I’ll probably submit it to the official repository once it’s had more testing.

Source
https://github.com/LS80/script.foscam.git

Summary
If motion or sound is detected a small image preview will slide onto the screen. Pressing select will stop any playing media and open the main video feed with basic controls for pan/tilt and mirror/flip. Exit with the back button or click the close control, and the previously playing file will resume.

watch gallery

I tested with a FI9821W V2 that I use as a baby monitor but it should work with any of the HD range, so anything with a model number starting with FI98.

I tested on OpenELEC (Linux), Windows 8, and Android, but it should work on all platforms.


Try it out using Foscam’s demo cameras, e.g.

Host: 50.197.211.181
Port: 9821 (motion detection enabled) or 9822 (motion not enabled)
Username: user
Password: foscam

(It is not possible to mirror or flip either demo camera)

It seems that the latest firmware requires administrator privileges to get the device status so the demo cameras will no longer work with this add-on.

You must use an administrator account for this add-on to work.


Map a remote button to easily run the main video feed on demand e.g. <blue>XBMC.RunAddon(script.foscam)</blue>

Credit for the initial idea goes to this thread.

Questions/comments/suggestions are welcome.

[George]

Nicely done, will test tonight.

[kitus_san]

Hi there,

Thanks for that, you are awesome!! I was on xvmc 12.3 and upgraded to the latest Gotham beta, and installed your add-on in a snap. It's a no-brainer!!

I have a few questions though. How do I run this add-on so that it shows the stream overlaid on top of the media I'm playing? I've configured the add-on and when I run it as a standalone, it displays the images captured by the Foscam in full screen mode just fine. Is it possible to configure the add-on so that it stays active petmanently? We are used to having our ipad running a camera app and we like to be able to glance at it from time to time regardless of whether our kid Moves or not...

Could you share your camera configuration? I assume one needs to configure "motion detection" on the camera, right? is that correct? What action must I configure out of the 4 available?

Thanks in advance. What a great job!!!

[Leopold]

Is it possible to configure the add-on so that it stays active petmanently? We are used to having our ipad running a camera app and we like to be able to glance at it from time to time regardless of whether our kid Moves or not...

It's not currently possible but I could add an option to show it permanently. In that case I could show a notification when motion is detected, or something like that. I'm currently trying to find out whether the camera supports sound detection as well as motion detection.

Personally I don't find the image overlay very useful as there is no sound and the pictures refresh at less than one frame per second. If the preview pops up while I'm watching something, and I want sound and a proper frame rate, I press select to bring up the main video feed. The previously playing file resumes when I exit.

For permanent monitoring I also use an old LCD monitor and a spare Raspberry Pi running Arch Linux. I have the main video feed running in omxplayer, as a service that starts up automatically.

Could you share your camera configuration? I assume one needs to configure "motion detection" on the camera, right? is that correct? What action must I configure out of the 4 available?

The only thing I had to configure on the camera itself was the motion detection schedule, which seems to be blanked out by default. Click on "All" to turn all the squares red.
Other than that you don't have to do anything on the camera (when you enable motion detection in the add-on settings it will enable it on the camera as well).

I'll probably add a setting to set the schedule, but just a simple one that sets it all red.

Thanks in advance. What a great job!!!

Positive feedback is always nice to hear

[Sephiroth]

Absolutely amazing!! been messing about with scripts and playlists to get a live feed from our nursery.

I have the FI8910w and will be upgrading to HD ones soon but the add-on doesn't want to connect. will this only work with the FI98 models. if so whats the difference win the connection between the 2?

Thanks and again great work!!

[brononius]

Would it be difficult to add an extra feature to this add-on?
One that shows you the feed of several camera's?

I've got fe 4 IP-camera's. And it would be nice to have a kind of surveillance screen of the 4 camera's on my wall.
So not really linked with a motion, but as a general view.

[Leopold]

I have the FI8910w and will be upgrading to HD ones soon but the add-on doesn't want to connect. will this only work with the FI98 models. if so whats the difference win the connection between the 2?

Yes at the moment it only works with the HD models because the API is different. I could probably get it working with the FI89 models, it's just a case of finding the equivalent commands in the docs.

[Leopold]

Would it be difficult to add an extra feature to this add-on?
One that shows you the feed of several camera's?

I've got fe 4 IP-camera's. And it would be nice to have a kind of surveillance screen of the 4 camera's on my wall.
So not really linked with a motion, but as a general view.

It would be impossible to play 4 separate video feeds at once in XBMC. It should be possible to fill the screen with snapshot images from each camera, but I'm not sure if I'll have the motivation to make something like that as I would never use it myself (I currently have only one Foscam camera).

There is this add-on for ZoneMinder which might suit your needs (if you have a machine to run ZoneMinder on)?

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=90034.
http://www.zoneminder.com/

[bgoldie]

Hi Leopold,

Great add-on. Any chance of making this available for Frodo?

[Leopold]

Great add-on. Any chance of making this available for Frodo?

There's a few Gotham only features used so it's not compatible with Frodo. Gotham is already very stable and will likely be released within a few weeks so there's not much point in making a separate Frodo version.

[Perlbo]

It dont work with FI18918. is it possible for you to make it work ?

Tested with gotham Beta 3

[fantasticn]

Hi Leopold,

I very much like the idea of your addon. However, I cannot seem to get to run.

I have a WansView IP-Cam NCB543W (which is a very common model, often sold under various brands and names). In CasaRemote I was even able to implement it as Foscam (working just fine there), but not under your addon. The Port is 80, the URL is http://username:password@ip-address/videostream.cgi

Here is some more information about it: http://www.ispyconnect.com/man.aspx?n=wansview

Any chance you can tell me how to amend your addon to have it working with my cam?

Thank you very much in advance!

FantasticN

[Leopold]

It dont work with FI18918. is it possible for you to make it work ?

Tested with gotham Beta 3

Yes I will look into this at some point.

[Leopold]

I have released an update that adds an option to show the preview window when sound is detected. This seems to be working pretty well on my FI9821W v2.

[Leopold]

Hi Leopold,

I very much like the idea of your addon. However, I cannot seem to get to run.

I have a WansView IP-Cam NCB543W (which is a very common model, often sold under various brands and names). In CasaRemote I was even able to implement it as Foscam (working just fine there), but not under your addon. The Port is 80, the URL is http://username:password@ip-address/videostream.cgi

Here is some more information about it: http://www.ispyconnect.com/man.aspx?n=wansview

Any chance you can tell me how to amend your addon to have it working with my cam?

Thank you very much in advance!

FantasticN

Your camera probably has the same CGI interface as the Foscam MJPEG cameras. The CGI commands are supposed to be documented here http://foscam.us/forum/download/file.php?id=401 in the file called "FC IP Camera CGI User Manual.pdf".

It should be a case of replacing the CGI commands (in service.py, default.py, resources/lib/foscam.py) with ones from this document, but at first glance I can't see how you would get the status of the motion detection alarm, so some more searching on the Foscam forums might be required.

As a test, can you get a snapshot image in a browser with http://username:password@ip-address/snapshot.cgi?