Eufy 2K Pan & Tilt vs. Synology (NAS) with Surveillance Station

First off, the 2K Pan & Tilt indoor camera cannot use Homebase, of any flavor. My question is: Is the lack of Homebase access preventing me from completing the setup of RTSP? If not, is there a Eufy specific, step by step setup procedure that does not involve Homebase?

Why is this so important to me? My sight is diminished to the extent that a cell phone is nearly impossible to use. Surveillance Station, aside from the massive NAS storage options, provides a great PC oriented UI that will fill my monitor’s screen.

Homebase has nothing to do with RTSP. The stream comes from the cameras to your NAS. You just need to tell the deviece where to send the stream. The setup for the 2k Pan & Tilt is in the app menu under Storage. It should lead you through all the steps to get it working. Your in luck because you are using a powered camera and they are easier to setup than the battery cams.

Another alternative to using NAS is use a Mac or PC and an Android emulator program. Then you can use the Eufy Android app and run it in the emulator. I have a 65" TV hooked to a PC so I don’t have to strain my eyes and it works fine.

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Hey preset, thanks. However, I’ve been through the setup process so many times, paying attention to the details, but Dang!, nothing takes. Also, there are no real-world docs and/or user experiences to draw on.

My camera is in a remote shop on the other side of the house. I’ve got a router where the camera is to handle the wifi, but the NAS is where my home office, modem and primary switch are on the other side of the house. Putting the RTSP address together is not a slam-dunk as there is no consistency in what people suggest for port information that works. Everyone’s experience is different and causes an unending spiral of trial and error.

Good news is, I’ve got a static ip for the camera. Ha, Ha! :crazy_face:

Can you ping the camera’s static IP from your NAS. That would be the first step to check that the stream will get through.

The port is 554. Your url should look something like
rtsp://admin:admin@192.168.1.100:554 Use your userID:Password after the // if you want to set it up so that the stream is protected.

The first time I set one up I used VLC and verified the stream would work on it before setting up the NAS.

There used to be something called “Network Tools” in Synology DSM. That function would allow a ping from the NAS, but it has been deprecated by Synology. They say that the ping function duplicated what could be done by the host O/S. Windows 10 command line “ipconfig” is now recommended by Synology. ???

The camera’s ping of 192.168.0.58 (as stated in the Eufy Security app) is recognized with no problem.

Here is a touched up view of what the Eufy app says my rtsp stream link should be:
rtsp://admin:password@192.168.0.58/live0 Note that the port is not included. The port is referenced, but not included in Eufy’s recommendation of the RTSP stream link.

However, the app setup input field won’t permit /live0 (the Source path) to be entered. It may be used somewhere, but the app gives no clue where.

Thanks for the assist.

I checked and the port number isn’t necessary in the URL as long as the RTSP default port of 554 is used. That should be hardcoded in the camera.

The last part of the string /live0, should only be required if their are multiple cams on the same IP. If you were using a battery cam off of a Homebase, that would denote the first camera on the homebase. When I had a few battery cams running RTSP they were labelled live0, live1, etc with the IP of the homebase in the string and no port number. As long as your Pan & Tilt has a unique IP address the live0 part shouldn’t be necessary.

If you still have issues with setup, try changing the security to disabled and remove the username and password from the url.

Hi preset and thanks for your input.

Do you have a 2K camera? I ask because the Eufy rep that I spoke to today, confirmed my suspicion that the 2K cams are not compatible with Synology Surveillance Station. I wish I could find someone to tell me that is nonsense.

I’ve had no luck finding anyone with a 2k cam that has done anything more than the minimum to get the camera output to a cell phone. It seems that removing the dependency on Homebase also had some unintended effect on the RTSP functionality. Eufy’s documentation only covers cams that had/have a relationship with Homebase.

I tried your latest suggestions regarding testing without the port and/or source path (/live0) and disabling security. Still no luck.

I think I’ve hit a brick wall and it’s time to move on.

I have 4 2k cams. They all have RTSP functionality, but I haven’t actually run one of those to my NAS. I was using a Raspberry Pi 4 as a NAS and had 2 homebase cams working using MotionEye.

I have since used my Pi4 for another project so don’t have it available to try one of my 2K cams right now.

Did you try to get a stream running on something like VLC to test. I did test a 2k camera to VLC and it streamed without issue when I was testing.

Support is full of BS as usual. There are posts on this board from users talking about the quality of the stream from their 2k cams. They were upset that the full 2k couldn’t be used and that they only got 1080p. Several were using Synology NAS boxes. Just search this board for “RTSP on 2k”.

The indoor cams never have been compatible with homebase, so wouldn’t have anything to do with RTSP, which comes directly from port 554 on each camera. The Homebase just allows one central IP to disseminate the streams from several cameras.

I did a quick test from my spare 2k cam with VLC and it streamed just fine without the authentication and using only the rtsp://ipaddress/live0

Here is a link to a lowres snapshot of that stream.
https://imgur.com/ZWpIB1Y

The quality isn’t great and it’s pretty smoky here with the fires in BC, but it does work.

You hit the nail on the head! The problem is not with generic RTSP, it is the Synology (NAS) implementation in their Surveillance Station app. Also, Eufy is culpable because they state that RTSP is fully functional, without reservation. Worst of all, they haven’t worked with Synology to acknowledge a repair of the situation. The only documentation both company’s have is, at minimum, 3 years old.

I saw the smoke and man oh man, I can relate. I’m in Oregon. It’s hot and we get smoke from BC, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California, I installed a smoke monitor (PurpleAir) so we would instantly know what the air quality is BEFORE we decide to leave the house. Between Covid and the smoke, we tend to remain prisoners in our homes. It’s going to be several weeks before we see any precipitation and cooling. Probably the same for you. Good luck.

Follow up 08/30/2021:
I’ve totally decommissioned (and mothballed) both eufy Security Solo IndoorCam P24 cameras. I switched to the Reolink E1 Zoom. Connecting to Synology Surveillance Station couldn’t have been easier and I can now use my PC with its 30" monitor to full advantage.