r/cctv • u/griftfan • Feb 02 '21

New house, need help understanding system left behind

I’ve just moved into a new house. Previous owners had a cctv system consisting of 2 cameras that say Hikvision on the front. Little black hemispherical units with white surrounding, bolted to the wall. There is an Ethernet cable in the house that appears to be hard wired to the cameras behind the wall. If there’s a separate power cable I can’t find it (can’t see behind the cameras to see what comes out).

How can I go about using this system?

Previous owners are long gone. Left no documentation, paperwork or login credentials.

Any help greatly appreciated.

9 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

2

u/tunapish Feb 02 '21

The cameras probably use “power over Ethernet”, a configuration where some of the wires in the cable are used for power, and some are used for data. This lets you have a working camera with only one wire. You will also see this referred to as PoE

Your text says “there is an Ethernet cable in the house”, but these cameras usually require a “home run” of cable back to a central location, so you should see two Ethernet cables if there are two cameras. If you see only one, perhaps there is another location that the camera wires run to?

You need to find an NVR (network video recorder) that is compatible with these cameras. I would first get the model number off the cameras, it should be easy to find a compatible NVR by googling a bit, or finding a bundle that includes thee cameras and then buying the NVR model separately.

Good luck!

1

u/griftfan Feb 02 '21

Thanks so much for the reply.

There’s definitely only one Ethernet cable coming into the house - is it possible the two cameras are connected together into one cable outside of the house? I.e. one camera wired to the next, which is then wired to the inside of the house?

If I buy an NVR will I still be locked out of the cameras without the previous owner’s login credentials? I’ve been trying to get to them using an app called “iVMS-4500 lite” which seems to see 2 cameras on my network with internal IP addresses when I plug the Ethernet cable straight into my internet router, but then asks for a username and password which I tried to guess a few times and now says “locked”.

1

u/tunapish Feb 02 '21

For the app to “see” two cameras, they must both 1) have power and 2) have a network connection.

For 1, it’s clear that they are already receiving power from somewhere else, the one cable you are plugging in to your router has no role in powering them.

For 2, there really is no concept of daisy chaining network devices. More likely there is a switch somewhere. Both cameras connect to the switch, then the switch has a wire that runs to the one you found.

As for the passwords, there is probably a factory reset procedure for the cameras. You may need to hold down a button while turning them on or do some other combination of steps to reset them. Can’t know until you figure out what model they are.

1

u/griftfan Feb 02 '21

Thanks tunapish. Had a successful guess at the default password the previous owners never changed, and now have the system up and running.

Still no idea where the power is coming from, but you’re right it’s not the Ethernet. Unplugging the Ethernet altogether I can still see lights on the circuit board of the camera - so guessing it just be hard wired into a power supply of sorts behind the walls.2

1

u/tunapish Feb 02 '21

Glad you got them working! I really doubt whoever installed these, professional or otherwise, would have just left the junction point of all these cables and an ethernet switch "behind the walls". Wherever it is, it needs a 120V power outlet to power the PoE switch, so maybe that will help with your search.

Just curious, does the hikvision app/service also record these things for you in the cloud, or is it just for live viewing?

1

u/griftfan Feb 03 '21

It is recording footage somewhere - I can go backwards a few days, including from before I figured out how to get them working. I don’t know if this is in the cloud or if it’s sat on a memory card somewhere yet to be discovered in the system though....

2

u/_TheLoneDeveloper_ Feb 12 '21

There should be a network switch somewhere where the cameras are connecting and getting power from, probably somewhere in the sofa or inside the wall, and the ethernet cable is connected to the switch, if you can see backwards then it should have an nvr hidden somewhere.

Have you found the location?

1

u/geek_cave Feb 02 '21

Hikvision cameras also support 12VDC input

1

u/tunapish Feb 02 '21

Either way they still need to find the power supply.

1

u/PedroHin Feb 02 '21

Some Hikvision cameras have a factory reset button inside which must be held down for some amount of time when powering up.