Best Camera for Apex Fushion

Following as I have been looking for a decent camera to connection to Fusion myself. I too need panning and zoom.
 
I did some research and ended up going with nest cameras for my tanks. They don't integrate with my apex but I can use the app on my phone or the website from my laptop. I've been very impressed thus far with them. I played around with 2 different models of Foscams and a ubiquity camera and wasn't impressed.
 
One thing to keep in mind is bandwidth. *IF* that matters to you (i.e. you DONT have an unlimited data plan) don't spend money on an HD cam. The video stream will chew thru data at an obscene rate. Even at my Foscam's paltry 640x480 resolution, mjpeg streaming over just a handful of minutes chews up 4-500mb data :mad: I keep the resolution at 320x240 for the Neptune Apex interface, and the same handful of minutes only use ~50mb of data, but it's not very detailed. My wife and I share 10GB data/month, and if I sit and watch my aquarium at higher resolutions on my iPad over cellular I burn thru data QUICK.

There are other mitigating factors like data rate and codecs used by a particular camera model, but if your data plan is capped using any higher resolution good enough to really see details of your tank will be a strain on your cellular use.

FWIW good luck!
 
mbemount said:
I did some research and ended up going with nest cameras for my tanks. They don't integrate with my apex but I can use the app on my phone or the website from my laptop. I've been very impressed thus far with them. I played around with 2 different models of Foscams and a ubiquity camera and wasn't impressed.
Click to expand...

Nest is great if you can get away with no movement in the camera. I cant. I need to be able to pan between tanks and zoom in on them.
 
Webcam support would be nice. I couldn't find any mention of whether they are working on that or not for Fusion.
 
I have determined that the better option (due to the limitations of Fusion) is to set up a good HD IP camera and use the camera software rather than Fusion.
 
I love having a stream in my fusion dashboard. I also have a controllable webcam in my Sump area with really pretty good night vision and can see everything. I view it in it's own App.


But for the fusion integration I just put an old laptop under the stand with a couple cheap USB web cams. Have 3 now. The using YAWCam to stream that I added to fusion. Setup the port forwarding to the laptop and streams port numbers

http://www.yawcam.com/

In fusion

Type is basic Image/Motion Jpeg

URL http://xxxx.duckdns.org: port #/video.mjpg?q=30&fps=67

Can you can adjust the quality (q) and frames per second (fps) The default is 30% quality and 30 fps (for some reason 67 = 30?).

I can open that up in it's own browser too. I have three streams going through yawcam plus the controllable sump cam stream not in apex.

I have two up in the hood but my favorite and best pictures come from the webcam I have mounted just on the outside of the tank. I have a smaller black webcam now that's not very noticeable that's replaced this silver one but mounted the same way.

Couple zip ties wedged under the canopy
deb44f5a16ede89eb8222725e7e24e3f.jpg



Screen shot from my cell phone of one of them up in the canopy

d91a4dd998599df91ce7bece2f1a58b4.jpg


And from the outside side
c1f2b86d97d5c635f235774a57964853.jpg
 
So then I could get a web cam and use it by streaming the feed via yawcam and then set it up like you set up an IP cam in Fusion? Is this correct?
 
Frontier said:
So then I could get a web cam and use it by streaming the feed via yawcam and then set it up like you set up an IP cam in Fusion? Is this correct?
Click to expand...
Yes that is what yawcam will do.

Just grabbed this screenshot of the stream from fusion on my phone.

a0a5f3ce14c869bb48c04ace0178d8e7.jpg
 
If you have an old smartphone laying around you don't use any longer, you can also use the camera in that. Both Apple and Google stores have apps that will turn your phone into an IP Camera. They work great. I had a couple of Android 3 phones I did it with. Handy and essentially free.
 
Frontier said:
Great! Thanks so much for the info.
Click to expand...

I have it working with a Logitech C920 thanks to you! I have a couple of questions if you don't mind:

1) I don't see the play controls underneath the stream in Fusion (Play, Pause, etc). Where do I enable this?

2) I can't figure out what the querystring would be to open a password protected stream. Do you pw protect yours? If so, how do you pass in the username and pw?

Thanks -

EDIT - Forget question #1 just figured out that it's probably for switching between slideshow of different sources. I only have the one camera.
 
Last edited:
I don't have mine password protected. If someone really wants to tap into my stream more power to them and hope they enjoy the view.

I believe it can be and I'm sure it's either on Neptune's forum or comprehensive guide where I saw it.
 
Yeah, I think im going to try out an old tablet/phone of mine, to see what happens, as I dont need it to move. Tried out the amcrest and it wasnt doing what I needed it to do, so I sent it back.
 
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