Discount code "CIATOOL"

No WPA2 support? That's a deal breaker, I don't want to switch my wifi network to an easily-cracked encryption scheme.

Yes they do. You can set sensitivity of motion detection too. Sometimes it can be too sensitive. When I set it in the hallway, it could alert me when the light of a car reflected on the main door.

It is a great cam. Something I have not seen people mention is that the base is magnetic. So it is easy to 'stick' it on to metal surfaces. I bought some metal discs with 3M adhesive and stuck them at places where I need to set this up (I move it around). It has legs that can stretch out and the camera head can be swivelled manually. Build quality is good. The camera settings also allow you to flip the image, if you hang it upside down.

I would recommend. The only problem I faced was that everything was in Chinese (I managed to find tutorial online, and got a friend to translate one menu). But that should change with this model.

Interesting as I bought 2 Sricam and think they are quite poor especially the wifi range, no ir cut filter and no way to turn off the ir leds. The Xiaomi Smartcam though is quite good once you've hacked it (hate cloud apps which need all permissions) to run locally and provide an rtsp stream.
See these links for more information.
https://github.com/fritz-smh/yi-hack/issues/118
https://github.com/samtap/fang-hacks
Note the Xiaomi is not perfect yet but there is some active work going on to make it better.

Does anyone have this setup in the TinyCam app from the Play Store?

Bought it but there is little or no support this side of the globe. Couldnt find an app that would get it to work. In a drawer somewhere at the min. Gave it to my son who worked for an IT firm and he couldnt get it to work either. Two other IP cameras I bought including a Sricam were a breeze to set up by comparison.

it works through miHome app, and I must say quite well, however everything is in chinese :disappointed:

These do work but u will need the mi home app from play store and u will need to reg a mi account.
Download app login
Start app login to mi acc
Add device
Add video device
Select the right cam they have thumbnails next to description
Select wireless network and input pass it will connect to
(Note the wireless network has to be on 2.4 ghz band and also encryption wpa or less. Wpa2 wont work)
Press the setup hole on camera and let it see the qr code on phone.
Once status goes all blue it is set.
Go back to mi home start page and ur device will be there. Select it to view.

Oops sorry forgot to say when you put settings on app always choose china as location.

Just bought 2, see how they are.

​Foscam are easy to setup I hear. Not cheap though

Get a Cleverdog for twenty odd quid, mines brill.

Ive got one and ordered another
You have to use the Mihome app

its in english/chinese but works well

and you have to select China as your region

Any cheap cameras that don't phone home to china? :smile: I'm assuming this one does for it's smart phone stuff.

I bought a load of these the last time around and once you install MiHome from the QR code on the packet and choose Mainland China as the region, it all works well including storage on your cloud account. Also once you have the camera working, you can name it in English.

what else do u need to get it to work fully? SD card??or something else??

Discount code "CIATOOL"

Surprised to hear it doesn't support WPA2. Find that hard to believe to be honest... Never saw that mentioned in previous deal posts about this camera. I don't own one myself (yet), I was waiting for the price to come back down to this level.

Glad so many people have commented, I've now cancelled my order.

Hi Barneyonion,

Maisi ip camera available on Amazon is a fantastic IP camera. Pricey at the min tho. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00XBTRZVE/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Sricam which I bought from Gearbest is around £19 and is excellent value for money . http://www.gearbest.com/ip-cameras/pp_330678.html?currency=GBP&vip=760246&gclid=CLvo3_ugx9ICFUWeGwodTRYKbQ

Could not reccommend this Xiaomi Smart tho which I also bought from Gearbest.

You'd be better off buying Samsungs smart things water detector.

Surprised to see so many negative reviews on these. I've had 3 in the past and each set up and worked flawlessly. Value for money can't be beat but I've yet to try the recently released 'Digoo' ones.

I'd love them to bring out an IP65 version so I can put it outdoors.

no mention of security (e.g. any active firmware development against threats like Mirai? can the internet watch my baby sleep too??) no mention of smoke detection mechanism (does it conform to British standards? is it less sensitive for the smog ridden Chinese market??) and a 3.1 star app make it a no from me. but at this price, if not being used as a baby monitor or smoke detector, it would make a great webcam or dashcam. HOT for 1080p < £20

Just setup a new account with Mihome. Put in China as region as suggested by others. Took me through half the setup process but stalled with the Smart Cam shouting out instructions to me in Chinese. The Wifes Chinese but no help there either. The lack of english/european support is appaling. What a waste of time.

Love it when people bitch about products that are designed to be sold and used in their home market not over here and they only buy them because they are cheaper than ones produced for a western market.

Would this work on a PC?

Must have got a duff one. I give up. I will stick with the bigger ugly ones ive got as they were such a doddle to set up and work quite well. Mi Smart picture looks superior tho. bummer

okie dokie, thanks

Smart=CIA

Interesting as I bought 2 Sricam and think they are quite poor especially the wifi range, no ir cut filter and no way to turn off the ir leds. The Xiaomi Smartcam though is quite good once you've hacked it (hate cloud apps which need all permissions) to run locally and provide an rtsp stream.
See these links for more information.
https://github.com/fritz-smh/yi-hack/issues/118
https://github.com/samtap/fang-hacks
Note the Xiaomi is not perfect yet but there is some active work going on to make it better.

Can you use two phones with this?

i.e. my phone and my wifes phone whilst we are at work

Hi.. I've got installed and the quality is great especially for this price. Features are quite minimal but works OK.

My problem is I can't seems to be able to access it remotely :disappointed: it works intermittently on mobile network but definitely can't access via WiFi outside my house.

Anyone has any pointer? Thanks...

the 180 degree picture is excellent
bought another 2 for different view
can't under stand it was very easy to set up and picture quality is great,
and as said speaking to some one freaks them out as your watching them.
heat from me.

TinyCam doesn't seem to find these I've noticed.

Whats the code for??

Yes you can just create and share your Mi acount... or it even lets you share cameras with family and friends using their Mi account too

C.I.A tool. Get it yet?

Cloud storage? how please? Which company? How much?

The CIA are going to be so disappointed when they see me cooking spuds.

This forum makes me laugh - pretty much all WIFI cameras produced on mass, belkin/samsung/ etc have SHOCKING security!

Im going to buy this - i'm buying it so that i can check that the house hasn't been blown down. If you are going to get your bum out, then i would stick to getting a proper IP camera set up running through your own VPN'd server.

Would it be OK to get your d**k out instead? I'm not fussed about showing my bum, just the sausage. The CIA might actually like my sausage and mash then (I knew I could make spuds less boring).

unless your a n.korean dissident or plan on protesting in ti" Square I don't think the chinese govt care, what you do here in the UK unless your in mi6 which case you should not be using anything near this cheap 007..

can you elaborate? when I installed english version I couldn't link the camera

So once setup the only issue seems to be Timestamp will be wrong is this correct?

Anyone found a way to correct issue?

Definitely doesn't work with wpa2?

Do these send an alert to your app for motion detection?

Im after something that can be pointing out in the garden and alert me if it detects motion...

Any pointers if this is not suitable?

My experience is that you have to select Hong Kong region then set up. After you have paired the camera the UI is all in English, for whatever reason :smiley:

Can anybody recommend a good camera under £65 to use with tinyCam? I travel abroad a few times a year and I'd like to get motion alerts, recordings in the cloud, night vision and 180°. I don't want any camera that could crash after a few days on.

Thanks guys

Well the Mihome beeps me if the doorbell rings, so if this is using the same app then I would think so.

That's only within wifi range though

Please note.. this is easily spotted in the bathroom, as I found out.

Have a look at a Foscam C1 - it seems to tick most of your boxes. I've been using a couple of them since November and not had a single lock up and they can be had for around £45.

Is that a definite? I'm surprised so many ppl commenting on this cams performance but no mention of the lack of WPA2.
Has everyone who uses 1 of these changed their WiFi encryption to make it work, or do this many ppl really have their routers set to use WPA only?

Yes they do. You can set sensitivity of motion detection too. Sometimes it can be too sensitive. When I set it in the hallway, it could alert me when the light of a car reflected on the main door.

It is a great cam. Something I have not seen people mention is that the base is magnetic. So it is easy to 'stick' it on to metal surfaces. I bought some metal discs with 3M adhesive and stuck them at places where I need to set this up (I move it around). It has legs that can stretch out and the camera head can be swivelled manually. Build quality is good. The camera settings also allow you to flip the image, if you hang it upside down.

I would recommend. The only problem I faced was that everything was in Chinese (I managed to find tutorial online, and got a friend to translate one menu). But that should change with this model.

My network is set to WPA2-Personal with AES encryption and the camera connects ok.

Yea sweet, sounds like a great idea, heard that the CIA had teamed up with the the Guinness book of records - "Biggest Wifi Bell**d of the year" - click the GET DEAL button to secure your entry.

Thanks ... I've ordered a couple to try them out. I'm hoping it works outside of wifi too...

That only means the link between your router and the camera is fixed at WPA, the rest of your network can use what it likes.

yes you could theoretically crack the firmware on the camera and upload your own, but the NSA can do that to your router anyway.

These sent images to China of your home

Not sure what you're getting at here, if I set my wifi AP to WPA only then all my other devices (phones, laptops, etc) will also be using WPA so anyone within range can get my credit card details. Even the wired stuff wouldn't be automatically safe, devices on wifi can usually connect to wired devices.

Moot point though as a user chimed in claiming WPA2 support.

I have 5 of the older 720p model on Yi Home and working great, anybody know if I can add these in to my existing setup or are they incompatible?

These won't work with Yi Home, only Mi Home. If they release an international version of these, those would likely work with Yi Home.

My router is set to WPA-PSK[TKIP] + WPA2-PSK[AES]
My iPhone and iPad uses the same settings

yet I'm using a MiHome running WPA(2?)

You don't have to change your router settings

There are screenshots of the Mi Home App setup - near the bottom on the Description tab on the camera's page

​yes, you can .i have 2 yi cam and one of this .all in one mi home app . so you dont need yi home app anymore.

That's no better from a security standpoint. Mixed mode means people can still use the old broken WPA mode to connect to your network. It's like locking one of your car doors, it's secure but only if they don't try the other doors.

Hi, I set it up to send images to my google drive. It works with Onedrive too, so you dont really need to pay for it and it doesn't take up much space if you leave it on motion detect. You configure it in the MiHome tool.

This is exactly the same as the camera i bought on Kickstarter for my iSmartAlarm (called Spot), it's a shame i can't plug in my iSmartAlarm Spot, extract the firmware or something, and flash it to one of these, i'd buy 3 or 4. Hopefully some computer geek can work it out! ha

Does these Xiaomi cams dial back to ip addresses in China. If so id be worried about privacy.

unboxing & review found here, looks good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIZrq4lrusQ

Yes, they do and it saves off a few second alert clip for the motion too.

How did you go about doing that? can't see anything in the app to use alternate storage.

Not to detract from the useful ability to monitor the house remotely.....

Your bathroom would have been wrecked.

So you're going to put a live internet connected camera in your bathroom so you can remotely connect to it..... for safety??

Seconded.

Though even a cheap camera can be protected if you do a dedicated router for it and vpn that... but it's a case of money vs convenience.

I'd suggest you're better off with something for that purposes such as SmartThings hub and a moisture sensor. It will notifiy you when it's wet, rather than you constantly having to check the camera.
You'd need:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01LWYF4LD/ref=twister_B01M70PXEL?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
and
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01LY99EEL/ref=twister_B01M70PXEL?_encoding=UTF8&th=1

These are great for the price. the setup is all in Chinese but the bottom of that page has a detailed explanation and i was up and running in 5 minutes.

So it's good for CIA wannabees and pervs? I'm in :sunglasses:

handy for letting governments know what you're doing

They already do that through your mobile phone, read this weeks news re 'vault 7' :wink:

Maybe they was expecting it to work on most apps...as this camera is a chinese brand/product and therefor works for a chinese app...in this case it's their own app.

Got this and works flawless

At checkout it says price is £21.64. When I add the code CIATOOL, the price goes up to £24.41. Odd.

Also found this with a couple of Chinese cameras mainly seems to be those that don't work are the ones that don't have a web interface and instead require you to use their own app to setup and view. Best sticking with cameras that have Onvif support. Was considering this at first but the lack of any way of viewing camera outside of app is no good as I use NVR recording software to record cameras. Another problem with these new app controlled cameras is what happens when they stop supporting the camera or updating the app? Eventually will become defunct as app might not run in future android/iOS versions if they stop app support.

Bob u need to get a job mate :laughing: Right I'm off to my spying class.....

How are these through a window? I want to set one up in my porch to monitor who comes to the house when i'm out.

o.f.f.s. - major fail. Away and read the front page deal description again .....

Doh, I'm a dumbass.

Fine. Get the lens as close as possible to avoid reflection and turn off I.R (so won't work at night unless you have good outside lights) If you build a little box around it even better.

OMG! I dint know now. It does appear on my google drive so I must have done something. I'll get back to you as soon as I work out what I did.

True, but unless you're planning an attack, who cares? I seriously doubt they wanna watch your late night 'me time'.

Looks like the code XMWiFiIP has expired now so the price is £21.64, unless someone knows of another code to bring it down more.

£18.69 here:
https://www.fasttech.com/products/6376100

I'd check your exchange rate. They bill in dollars $28.76 which last time I checked without the code at gearbest is $26.99.

couldnt find any working code so ordered 2 from fasttech for $57.79
not bad, some pretty good reviews for these and im sure ill get these up and running no problem

interested on more info about saving to cloud

you can go into their 3 year anniversary page and find some voucher codes in there gets it down by another 50p or so but no where close to the £19 deal

code not working anymore :disappointed: how did op get the code in the first place? through emails of from the gearbest website itself?

I've seen it posted out on Facebook and other social media by gearbest today even though its expired.

ordered thanks.

It definitely does not connect wpa2 only like others who think it does i think you are using mixed mode on router which is wpa + wpa2 so it will work . I had to switch mine to mixed from wpa2 only. The password was the same but the camera would not connect on wpa2 mode

FASTTECH is more expensive than the undiscounted price at gearbest by at least £1. don't be fooled by the cheaper £sterling price listed on FASTTECH they bill in USD.

ordered out of curiosity and hoping to replace some ageing D-links. Any support with amazon cloud drive?

I have one, works on my wpa2 network

Be wary, one reviewer, aerocan bought 2 turned out to be fakes.

Thanks for the heads up, will do some investigating when I get home as if this is the case then my router config isn't telling me the full story.

Got one of these a couple of months back (alongside lots of other Xiaomi Mi Home 'security'/home automation type stuff - bulbs/sensors/etc. It definitely works on WiFi "g" with WPA2 [be sure you're not trying to connect to a "n/ac" network - have one & it connected first time using the Mi Home App and a procedure (as I recollect) like this video shows - ie ended up with cam viewing the QCode on your phone to setup its connection:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOUqFfGAs0Q

The GearBest 3rd Anniversary coupons offered a 13% off Consumer Electronics - which this is part of - BUT that puts the price up initially so it's down ("with the 13% off") to £21.24 - ie only 42p cheaper, but owts better than nowt!

OK so I've logged into my hacked camera (fang hacks) which is currently still using the cloud app wifi config as far I can see. I run the following command to scan and report on all the wifi networks the camera can see;

iwlist wlan0 scanning

and it returns for my network;

Cell 01 - Address: E0:3F:49:09:5B:88
ESSID:"angelica2"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11bgn
Mode:Master
Frequency:2.427 GHz (Channel 4)
Encryption key:on
Bit Rates:144 Mb/s
Extra:rsn_ie={edited out}
IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
Group Cipher : CCMP
Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
IE: Unknown: {edited out}
Quality=99/100 Signal level=75/100
Extra:fm=0003

And for another network it can see;

Cell 12 - Address: 32:1E:78:2D:DF:D8
ESSID:"BTWifi-X"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11bgn
Mode:Master
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Encryption key:on
Bit Rates:144 Mb/s
Extra:wpa_ie={edited out}
IE: WPA Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (2) : CCMP TKIP
Authentication Suites (1) : 802.1x
Extra:
IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (2) : CCMP TKIP
Authentication Suites (1) : 802.1x
Preauthentication Supported
Quality=40/100 Signal level=26/100
Extra:fm=0003

So by my reckoning my network/camera is using only WPA2 when compared to the other neighbours network which has both WPA1 and 2. Trying to work out if the router can confirm that now.

So got my two cameras. Easy enough to set up with the hybrid english/Chinese and thanks to the pointers on here.

Quality is good, night vision is good, zoom is good, sound is ok, motion detector is good too. I have one of them pointing out the kitchen window in to the back garden and even on the lowest motion detection setting it alerts you when it's particularly windy and the branches on the trees are swaying!

I don't have any sd cards set up yet so can't comment on the recording but it does record 14 seconds or so from each motion detection - I have no idea where this is being saved as I logged into google and it's not there?!?

Anyone know how to configure this to record to the cloud?

It also seems quite configurable in terms of the automation settings but I have no idea how this works?

Anyone know how to set rules up?

Been 2 weeks and I still haven't received mine

received mine yesterday -Great little cam. App is mostly English but i still get Chinese notifications

Got it today. Great cam, just need to work out how peeps are saving to cloud. Any pointers???

Same here. Have looked at all options and see no option for cloud upload. Agree with previous poster about the short clips from motion detection being recorded to 'somewhere' - but its not the cloud. i disconnected the camera after it recorded a motion detect to see if the video was accessible - it isn't.

Got mine yesterday - noted that my box had been opened and resealed with tape.

No real branding other than mi.com on the base of the box, presume this is just for a China mainland market.

Looks like a typical Xiaomi product though, really high quality plastics and really small.
The base magnet isn't quite strong enough to hold up the long power cable on a vertical surface.

The PSU is a Chinese 2 pin type, but any old 5v iApple charger will do, the end connection is a micro USB type (as on a kindle), not the more usual mini-USB

Setup wasn't seamless, it took me a long time to realise that I needed to press a really tiny tick box next to "wait until you hear the voice prompt"
Having someone squeakily chunter at you repeatedly in Chinese while you try and work out what to do, was a bit annoying. Smaller fingers would have helped here.

Uses the same app as my Mi Home sensors, so maybe there is some kind of intelligent integration possible, but until they translate everything into English then I'll live with just the default stuff.

It doesn't appear to use the Mi Home base station for wifi? it seems to be an independent device.
Like right now it's in the kitchen but it's out of range of my iPhone in the bedroom (one floor, ~6m), yet one metre closer and it was fine. YMMV.

Night vision is OK, easily picked up something 2m away,
there's a little relay sound as it switches on the twin IR leds

Movement detection is OK, it picked up a mouse in my kitchen which I hadn't suspected until now. Time to deploy my metric s**t ton of mouse traps. My cat is useless, it only cares about mice when they are outdoors.

It sends an alert to my iPhone when movement is detected, it gives two options in Chinese, but both just take you to the view window. You have to go to a 'record' section to see what video files it has made - whether it records anything seems a bit hit or miss, maybe it's too early to assume I understand it all yet.
You get a few seconds pre and post movement video.

Like others, I've no idea where it is storing these files, nothing in iCloud AFAIK
I do not yet have a SD card either.
Snapshots do get stored in the iPhones photo area, and I guess if you have this set to automatically upload, then they will be in iCloud too? I noted that the snaps were really low in quality

Time to buy an SD card I think,
I've read that Sandisk are to be avoided for DVRs, no idea why.

A bargain for £19 I reckon


edit: I noticed that with the Mi Home doorbell, that if I had an active internet connection while away from home, that it would send me an alert over the internet. I'm assuming that this camera will do the same if triggered.

okay. i can report that motion detection clips are stored remotely on Mi servers. i checked the SD card and there are no clips on them and even after changing cards, previously recorded clips are still viewable.

1 day (24 hours) worth of recording takes up about 4.3 GB of space.

I'm not getting any stored clips now?


So you are getting a full days worth being stored and you can view any recording?

You won't get a full days worth of footage stored on MI cloud only the motion detection clips.

Anyone know if this is stored on our own individual MI cloud account and how secure this? Or anyway to change it to a different cloud or locally on sd card?

Not entirely comfortable knowing these clips are stored somewhere but I don't really know where...

Stored clips are only available if you turn on motion detection. You will get a 15s clip every 5 minutes. So there is a dead time of 4m 45s where nothing will be recorded even if there is motion. These are stored remotely and you access them through the Video Record option.

Since I'm only recording the outside of my house I'm not fussed on privacy. Obviously wouldn't want to be recording my kids.

I pulled the external router cable before trying to look at the motion detection clips, and it can't display them.
Put the cable back in and it can.
So these videos are definitely being stored some place else, presumably China.


I also bought a couple of 16gb micro sdhc cards, £1.38 for one
They are branded as Sandisk (but that's meaningless in a world of fakes), but they have a reduced capacity of 7gb, hence the bargain price
look for "elizabeth001194" on eBay if you like - I'm not affiliated, they were just the cheapest.

They seem to record video OK
(you have to set it to continuous recording, just by pressing 'record')

Just to confirm, the motion alerts WILL notify you when you are away from home,
but your phone does need to be connected to the internet.

I'm on PAYG, but I happened to be at a friends house using their wifi and my cat triggered the camera.
One of these things could easily replace a burglar alarm.

and it's back up for £20.74
http://www.gearbest.com/ip-cameras/pp_607361.html

Thanks for the heads up on the price decrease, but I wonder what the difference is as this is listed as the European and American version for this price, they still have the non European one at the higher price.

If anyone is thinking of buying one of these, DON'T. The new version doesn't work anywhere outside mainland China. The old ones (with a pinhole setup button) worked if you set the app location to mainland China. The new ones have a mac address beginning 34 and have a proper setup button rather than a pinhole. These do not work anywhere outside of China.