A9 V720 Naxclow Camera

This app has been tested only with camera version 202212011602 and only which use Chinese V720 APP and only in AP mode. See pictures of camera PCB below

Topic on 'home-assistant' forum: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/popular-a9-mini-wi-fi-camera-the-ha-challenge/230108

How to use script and short brief

Then, turn on the camera and attach to their Wifi-AP. AP name should(could) starts from prefix Nax (as i suppose it means name of manufacturer: Naxclow) For example, i have: Nax_210000211234

Camera should give IP in range 192.168.169.100 / 255.255.255.0. After, you can try to connect with this script.

By default, camera has IP 192.168.169.1 and didn't have any Web-page to configure it. Camera can be configured only via mobile-application.

Also, camera networking could be configured from UART via ifconfig and wifi commands.

I would not recommend connecting camera to the internet, due to it downloads from Chinese server update package

• List of all recorded videos inside camera:

  python3 src/a9_naxclow.py -f
  

  Arg -f could be replaced --filelist

  Camera filenames have datetime format with full date/hour/minute information.

  For example: 202301312016.avi.

  But on SD card will be saved in different folders by date, [date]/[hour]/[minute].avi. (/20230131/20/16.avi)

• Downloading selected video file:

  python3 src/a9_naxclow.py -d 20230131-20-16 -o out.avi
  

  or

  python3 src/a9_naxclow.py -d 202301312016 -o out.avi
  

  Where syntax are: src/a9_naxclow.py -d [date-hour-minute] -o [output-file]

  Arg -d could be replaced --download and -o to --output

  Date/Hour/Minute could be taken from first command (ie -f ) if -o arg is not provided, the script will save the file as out.avi

  While downloading file from camera, recording is not going.

• Live video stream:

  python3 src/a9_naxclow.py -l -o live.avi -r -i
  

  To write captured stream into file use also arg -o as it was in previous example.

  To enable IR view use arg -i or --irled and to flip camera use arg -r or --flip

  There are no audio inside live record, but it could be succesfull captured and saved, check show_live() function in a9_live.py file

  Audio stream has g711-alaw wav format

• Connect to the existed WIFI AP:

  python3 src/a9_naxclow.py --set-wifi SSID PWD
  

  Where:

    - SSID - yours WIFI AP ssid (ie name)
    - PWD - password
  

  for example, connect to mifi access point with password mifimifi

  python3 src/a9_naxclow.py --set-wifi mifi mifimifi
  

  PWD (password) should be at least 8 chars length, but not more 36

• Starting a fake-server

  python3 src/a9_naxclow.py -s

  To properly work 'fake server', user must make DNS redirect on own (home) router - domains '*.naxclow.com' ('v720.naxclow.com', 'v720.p2p.naxclow.com', 'p2p.v720.naxclow.com') to own server IP

  Also, on the server must be installed any MQTT broker or 'p2p.v720.naxclow.com' should be redirected to any public mqtt broker

  details how it's works could be found in fake_server.md

  After this part, fake server bring up the web server and listening for camera incoming messages.

  The list of available cameras will be available at http://[FAKE_SRV_IP]/dev/list (now as json array)

  After connection camera, MJPEG video stream available at http://[FAKE_SRV_IP]/dev/[CAM_ID]/live, snapshot - http://[FAKE_SRV_IP]/dev/[CAM_ID]/snapshot

  There could be issues with opening tcp 80 port without root restriction, there are two ways to avoid it:

  • Run server from root (ie sudo)
  • Allow use this port by non-priviledged user sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_unprivileged_port_start=80
  • Be sure that you are not running any other HTTP server in the system

  if you are starting fake-server thru nginx proxy, use argument --proxy-port to change internal http port of fake server

  To connect camera to the Wi-Fi might be used --set-wifi argument. See above

If you faced any issue, try to add -v (--verbose) argument to the tool, it may help, if not, don't hesitate, open a new issue, here, in github with a full logs

Original source

Disassmbled original app (V720) sources could be found in orig-app folder. Very very early version of a9 script could be found in a9_old.py

UART logs

Found some manufacturer passwords inside UART logs

com.naxclow.Camera

[WLAN_easyfReadId - 136]-Debue:  SET wifi = (NAXCLOW)  (34974033A) 
_wifi_easyjoin: ssid:NAXCLOW bssid:00:00:00:00:00:00 key:34974033A

_wifi_easyjoin: ssid:[ap0] bssid:00:00:00:00:00:00 key:1213aCBVDiop@  <--- Here ssid from most powerful AP in range

Full logs could be found in docs dir. <docs/uart.log>

Camera photos

IP-camera has been built around BL7252 MCU. MCU SDK could be found at github as bdk_rtt (https://github.com/YangAlex66/bdk_rtt) (original link https://github.com/bekencorp/bdk_rtt seems to be dead now)

All photos in img folder

Where to buy this camera

On aliexpress, could be found by name A9 V720 camera and on 2023-01-31 costs 5.2 euro