So, reading the reviews, it appears the hardware is highly rated, just the software that is not. I had a promotional credit at Amazon, so was able to get a $12 discount, and I wanted a camera for the next time I go on vacation, so I went ahead and ordered one. Amazon prime, so it will be here today, and I will set some time aside on Sunday to figure out if it can successfully be used in ARC. From what I have been reading, the API commands may have changed since the earlier versions of the camera, and unfortunately, foscam.us removed all of the forum posts about it when they stopped providing US support for foscam, and many of the links to examples I found were all linked to that forum....

We'll get it figured out though. Either by figuring out the commands, or making a plugin.

Alan

I'm with Alan not a good support.

It seems stupid simple the API, but between broken links, user mistakes, guesses etc is difficult to reach the objective.

I'm happy with my RPI + IR Camera + PAN & TIL servo and Zoneminder software. the cost is below $100 and the RPI can be used for other stuff.

Unfortunately is not a friendly solution if you don't have Linux skills and some free time to setup the solution.

Hello ptp and the techguru

I was wondering if you could shed some light on what authentication is. I looked on the internet last night and it seems that browsers like internet explorer don't support the username and password in the url? Any clarification on what authentication is would be much appreciated.

That is awesome Alan that you have purchased my same foscam camera and that you will be looking into getting it going with ARC ! That is too cool ! I did a search on foscam F19831p cgi commands and actually did find a couple of different versions of the foscam document. Might be even better to search on foscam F19831p api commands. Looking forward to see what you come up with. Again very cool ! Rick

Rick,

Authentication: It was my mistake, i assumed the user & password failed and the web software asked for a user & password, but it was your first attempt and intentional (without the parameters).

one more test:

1. after reading the user guide, it seems you don't have configured the encoder for the substream.

you need to do open a browser with the following url:

http://your_ip_address:88/cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?cmd=setSubStreamFormat&format=1&usr=your_username&pwd=your_username_password 

if it works well it will return "0" in the browser, 0 means no errors.

after that you can use snapPicture2 cmd url

Thanks ptp,

I will go ahead and try this when I am at my laptop. I assume I will need to enter my port number as well? Thanks for all your help and very quick responses ! This is very awesome ! Rick

The manual mentions 3 default ports: 88 - http port 443 - https port 888 - onvif port

if you changed the http port replaced with your value.

if you are using https port, use the http port instead.

Thanks again ptp !

My camera just arrived, but I won't be able to do anything with it until Sunday.

Alan