EufyCam and its dependency on an internet connection

#1

I haven’t been able to manage my Eufycams since we had an internet outage starting Friday. As one of Eufycam’s key strengths is that it does not rely on a cloud service and everything is saved locally on the Homebase, when will this dependency on the internet be entirely de-coupled so that I can still manage the security of my premise if would-be burglars decide to sever the internet links to my home?

Right now, if I wanted to burgle a Eufycam protected home, all I have to do is cut the cord. Home alarms has a battery to ensure the alarm still go off but CCTV capabilities needs both battery AND ability to see what’s going on even in the event of both a power outage and internet outage.

Or should I instead consider moving my investment away from Eufy next year?

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#2

There are many things in clouds and there are so many clouds around.
All data leeches as Google, MS, Fakebook etc.
So you have to trust in them and their clouds or not.

What will someone do if a “cloud” evaporates.
Or better to say : What happens if the “cloud” doesn’t allow you to to enter anymore. :thinking:

You see, EUFY needs an internet connection, but why?
A simple WIFI connection with data local stored local will do it as well.
May be other users can answer that interesting question

#3

There have been people that claim they can still access the eufy system over WiFi without internet
I personally have never had that work & from experience the system becomes unstable and often doesn’t even record to local storage when the internet drops but you still have WiFi/LAN

#4

This is my experience as well. I assume it has to do with the app needing to authenticate your account to access the Homebase, but I don’t understand why that cannot be accomplished locally.

#5

If there was a way to do this, I’m sure Eufy/Anker would have published a knowledgebase article about it and refer to this whenever someone asks. Right now, there isn’t a way I have been able to figure out either. I’ve installed Reolink 4K cameras now and I can confirm I can access them when I turn off my internet router so I can still view events via iOS, Android or Windows PC. Not to mention the HDMI display I have plugged straight into it. With my backup battery powering my switch, Reolink, I can advise 24x7 security of what I am seeing even though they may not be able to link directly to my cameras via the internet.

Eufy needs to up its game or its bye bye from me.

#6

I don’t mind if they need to sync credentials securely across the internet so I can see whats going on when I am not at home but you’re absolutely correct. We should be able to authenticate to the homebase and see what’s going on as well with LAN connected devices.

#7

It is usually a poor architecture decision when something builds dependencies it doesn’t need. We are talking about home/office security. Why build it when it offers no improvement in security? I’ve got 10 Eufycams/Eufycam 2’s. These are now just acting as “secondary” CCTV capabilities now as I stand up more Reolink NVR/cameras around the home.

#8

I installed the (battery) doorbell and homebase over the weekend and it has the same issue as you have with the EufyCam: when the Internet connection is down the doorbell will still ring inside (on the homebase) but the app says the doorbell is offline and no video connection is available even though I am home, using wifi, as is the homebase.
There is no excuse for this system not working without internet connection. I was already afraid this would happen when during the installation I had to create an account (even though I do not use the cloud storage), and now it seems that the system is not going to work without on-line access to that account. This is totally unacceptable! If Anker/Eufy goes bust (or just offline) my supposedly totally local doorbell system no longer functions. Surely there MUST be a possible solution that Anker/Eufy kan come up with?

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#9

It’s no wonder that you don’t understand why that cannot be accomplished locally, because it CAN be accomplished locally. Anker just needs to be WILLING to support this. It is not hard to do (I am a computer scientist, so I have a pretty good idea what it involves). In fact, it is a lot easier to implement local authentication than to set up a server architecture to do it. That architecture only needs to exist for the cloud service. For everyone who just wants to use local storage there is absolutely no need for the remote authentication service!

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#10

Agree. I am a programmer and I can attest that this would be easy to accomplish given that all the users already have a local Homebase that contains all of their alerts and video recordings.

In fact, you could even make the phone app detect whether you’re on your home WiFi and switch to “local mode” if you’re at home. That would make things much snappier for end users, remove dependency on cloud, and also take load off Eufy servers. This would be absolutely ideal.

Plus, it would attract a huge market segment, namely people who are categorically opposed to cloud integration (Home Assistant and Hubitat users, etc).

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#11

It happens. Sometimes this problem can be solved with the help of customer support, and sometimes you have to change the provider. Have you tried searching in the settings? I had a situation when I couldn’t connect the Internet in my trailer because I entered the settings incorrectly. But I contacted customer support and they immediately fixed everything. I generally like how this provider works. And it’s very cheap. I have usave, and you have what? I wish you to solve your problem faster!

#12

Taking further steps to improve overall security, I have installed a UPS and a firewall appliance. As per best practice, I’ve denied all outgoing traffic except for those I understand is required. Reached out to Anker/Eufy support about firewall port requirements and was told to open HTTP (TCP 80), HTTPS (TCP 443) and ALL UDP ports. i.e. 0 to 65535. Did this for the EufyCam base station but that didn’t work. What did work was to open up UDP for the entire home network on UDP ports 0-65535!!!

Not only are we going out to the internet, we are allowing my network, vulnerable devices and everyone else who owns a Eufycam installation to be potential candidates for UDP Distributed Denial of Service storms.

Eufy needs to hire some security architects. Or maybe better ones if they already have them while also trying to find some great architects to decouple dependencies a home security camera system do not need. To boot, I’m going to send a note to some Youtube reviewers and see what they have to say.

#13

You can use eufy cams offline locally to some extent. I have the Indoor Cam 2k Pan & Tilt. Through the app you can go to storage and set it to NAS (RTSP). If you set it to continuous recording it will basically broadcast the feed through an rtsp stream. Unfortunately it doesn’t let you set a username or password for added security within your network. Though if you trust there’s no bad actors snooping around inside your network then it can be secure as long as you don’t open your firewall to the rtsp stream. Make sure you make the cams ip static on your router.

Once that’s set you can set a surveillance app of your choice up to monitor the stream. I use iSpy (free and open source) for windows (not their dvr agent, though that may work too) . If you go that route you can add a camera, choose FFMPEG(h264), enter the URL with the port added (i.e. rtsp://CAMSLOCALIP:554/live0), rtsp mode to auto and it should work. I went into the source options and adjusted “Resize to” to 1920x1080 for better resolution.

Mind you I mostly set it up to be going in a monitor nearby to see if my old dog needs help while I’m working. As such it doesn’t bother me much that a lot of the smart features don’t work in this setup. They still work, just not through the stream, and they still require internet. Not even sure I can rotate the cam without the app and the internet, though maybe there’s someway to do that in iSpy.

One issue I noticed is if your router, not your internet, restarts you may need to cycle NAS (rstp) on and off using the app to get the stream back up, which needs internet. Though in the scenario of your internet going down and using backup power for cams, router and PC it shouldn’t be an issue.

#14

Does the wired eufy doorbell work differently than other cams since it doesn’t need a base station? I would think notification on the same network need to work even when internet goes down. This is the doorbell for crying out loud

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#15

notifications on the ringer box works but not on your phone if the internet is down. and there is no option for NAS. It does continue to record and you can see all video once the internet comes back up.

#16

If you are concerned with a burglar “cutting the cord”, there is an easy solution.
First provide a UPS. Connect to this UPS a Wi-Fi router separate from your current network with different SISD and a cheap cell phone or hotspot. Connect your Eufy device to that network.

#17

Other than advertising it fitting the bill for not needing the “Cloud” to store and review, this becomes a major design flaw for the system and the original statement is NOT true. You still must have access to the internet, “Cloud”, to access your “NON-Cloud” recordings and devices…

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#18

Wouldn’t that equal a suit for false advertising?
If the product does not actually do what it states it does?
Is there a reason eufy isn’t in hot water for this dishonest practice?