Sasa!
Have you ever been in a thrift market? Those fascinating places filled with dusty trinkets, old books and all sorts of vintage oddities, where with patience and luck you get excellent deals or just a bag filled with garbage. Leaving the garbage part alone, I’ve always had an attraction for such places, and every time I visit them I feel like the comic’s character Dylan Dog, visiting this disquieting bric-à-brac called “Safarà”. And Safarà is an Arabic word that stands for discovery through exploration, which is maybe my main drive for such an experience.
Anyway, enough romance! Lets go to the juicy part: my latest loot included a Wacom Intuos Graphic tablet and a rebranded EZVIZ IP camera, both of them sold at a throw away price, especially because they were still sealed. About the graphic tablet, I will soon make an article telling you how I have integrated in my workflow as a developer and maker.
But for today, let’s talk about the struggles I had with the camera and how I’ve solved them.
The model I bought, called CVS206 came with all kind of features I needed: a clear enough image, WiFi, integration with my home assistant of choice and the support of an SD card to record when armed. In my fantasies, the integration woud have been quick and easy: as soon as I would have got home I would have just opened a package, download an app, scan a QR code… et voilà!
Of course, nothing like that. I tried pairing with no success, the app was still failing the pairing toward the end. The manual and the online tech support provided was pretty useless. And of course I could not give up that easily!
After few readings, I came to understand that this device could not do a first pairing over a 5 GHz WiFI connection, so I should have switch to the more obsolete 2.4 GHz protocol. And here is where the circus started: I currently on a mesh network, using the Tenda AC1200 repeaters. Indeed a good product, with a quick and easy setup, plus the support of dual band. Well, forget to switch the band manually, there is nothing like that.
Now, I solved this problem twice, in 2 different ways. Let me save you a couple of headaches with EZVIZ products.
Apparently, in a lot of instances, the EZVIZ cameras (no matter the model, seems a diffused issue) have some flaws in the network pairing, to an extent that all the official configuration methods are not working. I even emailed the official support, but I haven’t had any luck. From my past experiences and experiments with IoT devices, I knew that there must have been a way to do a ‘more direct’ configuration maybe through the SD card.
With this hint in my pockets, and Google as my friend, I found this post where the user ErikSchorr share a suggestion he received from the EZVIZ guys. In short, they suggest to:
- reset the camera;
- power off the camera and remove the micro SD;
- download the file
ezviz.txtand fill it with your details, having care not to include trailing whitespaces; - after formatting the SD card, copy
ezviz.txtin it; - put the SD card back in the camera;
- power the camera on and give it 5 minutes to do its things;
- when you will get a flashing blue light, go ahead with the configuration on the app ans you are sorted.
Embarassingly easy. And guess what? It worked. I coud see my face in the app, looking in the camera.
Ok, almost everything was fine. Almost, because I had not digested that I could not elaborate the fact that I could not switch band in my repeater system nor in my Android. Do not even try external apps, they don’t work.
As I was trying, I had an intuition: the system offers an automatic swap of the bands to ensure the best possible connection. So what the discriminant factor could be? All was clear. The discriminant is of course the intensity of the signal!
Basically the 2.4 GHz covers a broader area and comes with a good capacity of penetrating objects, at a price of having a lower speed. On the other hand, the 5GHz works better if the device is closer to the emitter, without any solid obstacle between them, offering a higher speed.
This post explains you better, giving you more details.
So, all this work and it was just a matter of walking to the next room? Nah… but I had to give chance. Next to the repeater I could see this:
Under “Technology” it said WiFi 5. Walking to the next room, with some distance and a thick wall I could now read:
WiFi 4. BOOM💣!
A couple of taps later and the configuration worked on the first shot.
Now I know why I found that item at a throw away price. Surely, the original owner bought it attracted to the easy setup, and after not being able to configure it or return it he gave it to the thrift market to sell. Was it worth the time I spent on this gadget? For the object itself, maybe not. But this Safarà was worth every penny I spent. ⚒