A mate recently asked me to set up a cheap IP camera for his new man cave. This is not his first IP camera, with him using a combination of a D-link Omna WiFi camera and two Xiaomi Dafang cameras with hacked firmware. All of these existing cameras connect to either Apple Homekit, Home Assistant, a Synology Surveillance station or a combination of both. The brief was he wanted something cheap that is simple to use with all his stuff. This was a good opportunity for us to buy and test out the new kid on the block, the Sonoff GK-200MP2-B. I will share my thoughts on it below drawing some comparisons to the other similar devices we have used before.
Overview
Value wise the Sonoff and the Xiaomi were fairly similar in cost and blow the D-link out of the water, this is fairly understandable as they are two different classes of camera with the latter being a “big name manufacturer” type device found in a regular big box retailer with the other two being a Chinese online retailer type device. The main benefit of purchasing the “big name manufacturer” device is the ability to return the device to the place of purchase easily if you are not happy with it but you are paying a fair bit more in some cases for that privilege.
What sets the Sonoff apart from the Xiaomi Camera is the fact it is targeting an English-speaking customer, with the app, box and camera feedback all in English. In contrast, the 12 month older Xiaomi was totally made and locked down for the Chinese market, and we accepted that to get it at that cheap price point at the time. One benefit the Sonoff had over the Xiaomi was that the Xiaomi required hacking the firmware via the Dafang Hacks project to use in our region and get the RTSP features, where the Sonoff worked directly out of the box. I believe Xiaomi may be deliberately locking out non-Chinese regions as they do produce these cameras for other manufactures like Wyze Cam with that that manufactures firmware on it. My guess is there may be a non compete licence clause restricting the Xiaomi versions sale outside China.
Looks wise, the Xiaomi is the nicer looking camera of the two Chinese units here and like many of their other products I suspect they have taken a lot of inspiration of the minimalist design language that many companies like Apple etc use today. It and the D-link are both the type of camera that you would be happy to sit on the shelf like many other webcams. While the Sonoff is much larger than the Xiaomi, the Sonoff also comes with a mounting bracket so you could use it as a roof mounted camera also. Another benefit the Sonoff has over the Xiaomi is a RJ45 Lan connection as well as a WiFi connection, this is something that is rare in this category of camera.
Usage
Setup of the Sonoff camera was via their ewelink app which went very well. Discovery of the camera on Lan was almost instant, while discovery on WiFi took a few goes. Overall the app is clean and the process was just as nice as any other app from larger commercial outfits. Xiaomi have been generally the benchmark for the Chinese products of this class and Sonoff’s app felt very similar but with no odd Chinese language creeping in. Sonoff really look like that are targeting a world market here.
Integrating with your other stuff
I believe the best cameras give you a direct link to the feed coming off your own product, in most cases this is a RTSP link. You can’t get any easier than the Sonoff camera to get the feed into other devices, inside the app you go the RTSP section and get a direct link to the feed from your camera on your network, nice.
The Wyze Cam version of our Xiaomi camera does have a firmware version with a RTSP link, but our Chinese version didn’t, so a hacked version of the firmware was required. I am not sure if the current versions of Xiaomi cameras work with this hacked firmware or are more world user-friendly by default, we just decided to go with the Sonoff as we knew this feature was available.
With the D-link Camera this was not an option, access to your feed is either via their app or Homekit. I reached out to them asking about this but got no response. Many other commercial cameras take this stance too, Nest, Ring, Arlo and others come to mind here. Recently Wemo even decided to turn off their camera service and turn all the devices in their customers’ homes into bricks, sure you can get a refund if still under warranty and you have the receipt, but if they just gave you direct access to the feed you would still have access to it and would not be sending a working camera to landfill. Unfortunately many big companies see these type of products as a way to not only sell you the device, but also a subscription service which is a nice little earner long after you ponied up for the device.
Example of the RTSP stream link
rtsp://rtsp:password@192.168.1.XX:554/av_stream/ch0
The 192.168.1.xx is unique to your network, I would suggest reserving the IP address in your router so it won’t change once your router reboots. Also make sure you change the password in the app from the default 12345678.
Home Assistant configuration.yaml Example
camera: - platform: ffmpeg input: -rtsp_transport tcp rtsp://rtsp:password@192.168.1.XX:554/av_stream/ch0 name: Sonoff Cam 1
Synology Surveillance Station IP Camera Config Example
If you are using a CCTV recorder other than Synology surveillance station look for a generic, user define or RTSP setting when adding your camera.
Wrap Up
I was pretty impressed with the Sonoff Camera thanks to its features and out of box usability. Price wise it’s a third of many big manufacturer products and more accessible. It even outshines the once leader of these cheap cameras, Xiaomi in my opinion. Sure, it’s not the prettiest of cameras out there, but I am thinking its usability as a roof mounted device out weights its on shelf appeal. Video quality wise all 3 cameras were fairly comparable and all were rated as 1080p. With this class of device it’s not like you are making a movie on them, just making sure the nanny, cat or local crack addict is not making off with your stuff. For the price, the Sonoff GK-200MP2-B meets these targets quite well indeed.
Official apps
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.coolkit.ewelinkcamera&hl=en_AU
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ewelink-smart-home/id1035163158
Purchase Link
https://www.banggood.com/custlink/vGvdCHkOEG
Official Site
https://sonoff.tech/product/wifi-smart-home-security/gk-200mp2-b