Thingino is an alternative and open source firmware for some models of cameras. It is young and not feature complete as of this writing but shows great promise. I have begun an API plugin for it as the cameras it can run on are inexpensive and in some cases do not require anything other than putting their software on a CF card and insert in the camera in order to load the custom firmware. This can turn a cloud only mostly useless to HA enthusiasts camera into something that can be actually useful.

This plugin and the firmware are currently feature incomplete and only a subset of standard camera features are currently supported. As the firmware develops I will add to this plugin. At this time I would recommend only to purchase these cameras if you are interested in the project and not if you expect a finished product with a full set of features.

Though the thingino site shows support for several camera models not all are as easy to install the firmware onto as others. I have attempted only with the WUUK 4MP Indoor Pan Tilt wifi cam Some models require opening the camera case and doing various kinds of firmware resets or even connecting a serial console to the camera to get it to load the new firmware. This one requires only the proper setup of a CF card which I will outline below. These instructions may or may not work in the future, or for different cameras. The Thingino site has many and somewhat confusing instructions. These were taking from This Youtube Video from WLTechBlog This camera requires wired power and wifi. It has no ethernet connection.

The following instructions are from the above video thanks to the WL Tech Blog:

• It is not necessary to have the camera up and running with it’s own built in firmware first. This will work the first time you power it on.
• Visit the Thingino Firmware Release Page and grab the appropriate firmware file for your camera. In the case of the WUUK that I’m writing about it is labeled as “thingino-wuuk_y0510.bin“
• Insert at least a 32 gig sd card into your Mac. Use Disk First Aid to reformat it. Click the Erase button and select “MS-DOS (FAT)” from the Format popup and “Master Boot Record” from the Scheme popup.
• When that is done the system will mount is as “UNTITLED” which is fine to leave it that way.
• Copy the downloaded bin file to the root level of the UNTITLED volume. It must remain named “autoupdate-full.bin”
• Visit this link from witechblog on github to download the load script that you must then put onto the card. Once there click the “raw” button to the right of the file name “factory_install.sh” which will load just the script in the window.
• In your browser do a “save as…”
• Select the UNTITLED VOLUME
• Click the “New Folder” button and create a folder in the UNTITLE Volume named “FACTORY“
• Open the new FACTORY folder and save the “factory_install.sh” script into that folder.
• Unmount the card and take it to the camera. To find the SD card on the camera gently use your fingers to rotate the tilt portion of the camera upwards until the cf card slow becomes visible, insert the card and power on the camera.
• The upgrade will take a few minutes and the camera will reboot probably a coouple of times. Then you’ll see it create it’s own wifi network called “THINGINO-something something something”. Select that on your phone or computer and in a browser visit: http://thingino.local
• This is a simple initial setup page and lets you only enter the wifi credentials of the network you want it to join. Reboot the camera.
• Once it has joined the network it will get an IP from your router. You may be able to find it in your routers list of devices or you may be able to reach it again via the thingio.local address. Once you get to it in the browser you’ll be able to set a static IP and do whatever configuration you wish.

Create a new instance of the “Video RTSP” plugin.

If you have not changed the streaming password then it defaults with user and password being “thingino” for the RTSP URL enter something like this, but with your own user and password in it. Note that this is NOT the same as the root password you set when logging into the camera.

rtsp://thingino:thingino@192.168.0.whatever:554/ch0

Inserting your own static IP and password and if you changed the port rtsp is running on or not.

Below that check the “Send Authentication” checkmark and select “Basic” from the authentication type popup. Enter your root or whatever user you created that you would like to use to control the camera.

Select “Thingino Camera Control” from the Camera API.

I recommend setting the recording FPS to 0 and controlling the frame rate from the camera to reduce CPU load and network overhead. You can enter a frame rate here that is lower than the camera supports but it’s better to set it in the camera. Note that XTension is not a highly optimized DVR software and sending 30fps through it will use significant CPU power. It is usually sufficient to run at 5 or even 10 FPS for including in a web or other interface. More than that is for recording in the camera or by a separate DVR application.

Once you select a recording directory and setup the rest of the settings you can save and start the interface. View the video from the Video menu to verify that it is working. In order for Web Interfaces to see the new video stream you may have to disable and re-enable the web interfaces.

As of this writing only a few PTZ commands are implemented. More will be added as the firmware develops and I have time to work with it. Note that getting motion events from the camera is not yet supported. The only support is for Pan and Tilt and location preset setting.

All API commands are issued in AppleScript via a tell block naming the xInterface object and then the command. Multiple commands may be stacked in a multi-line block though these examples use single line syntax.

Moves the camera a relative amount. 2 parameters are required as the x amount and the 7 amount. Either may be positive, negative or 0.

tell xInterface “my thingino cam name” to ptzMoveBy( 300, 40)

will move the camera over by 300 and down by 40.