If the title didn’t give some indication, I’m not having the greatest experience with this camera. I guess you get what you pay for, because they were so cheap I grabbed two of them at Walmart. They were $34.95 per camera, each offering 720P video over Wifi with a decent looking housing. That’s really hard to beat, as I’ve been looking at security cameras and haven’t seen anything for much less than $100. Good luck getting them to work though!
Although I was hoping not to use the Geenie app at all I figured I’d start with it and see what the cameras can do with the default software. So I downloaded Geenie and started playing around with it. I also grabbed one of their smart bulbs as they were on sale for $10 and I had it paired in no time. The cameras though, well that’s a different story. Try as I might, I just cannot get it to find either of the cameras.
There’s two ways to pair, both start with putting it into pairing mode by holding the reset button for 5 seconds. With the light flashing to indicate that it’s in pairing mode you can either try having the phone find it automatically, or you can use the advanced option where it displays a QR code on your phone which you hold in front of the camera. At that point it should make a chime indicating it’s registered. Neither of these work. I get no chime in advanced mode, and basic mode will search and search but after hitting 100% it will fail.
I even tried using the Tuya app instead as several people have stated it works with Tuya. The pairing process is almost identical but resulted in the same conclusion. The camera blinks and blinks, and occasionally makes a noise, but never seems to pair.
Okay so funny story, after two days of frustration I finally got it to register on the app while trying to take screenshots of the errors I was receiving. Go figure! I’m still going to share this post though, for anyone else who might run into the same issue. Just keep at it, it may connect eventually!
The only thing I did different was plug the power into my laptop instead of the wall socket, though I doubt that made a difference. Other than that, it paired using the QR code and not with the basic option. Howevever that was after many, many failed attempts to do the same.
I’ll post an update in a few days after I’ve had a chance to play with it some more. Now that it’s working, that is 😉
A seasoned Senior Solutions Architect with 18 years of experience in technology design and implementation. Renowned for innovative solutions and strategic insights, he excels in driving complex projects to success. Outside work, he is a passionate fisherman and fish keeper, specializing in planted tanks.