Compatibility
Which cameras work
Compatibility starts with how the camera can be reached on your network, not with the name on the box. A camera is added in one of two ways: by letting ViewTile find and talk to it, or by giving it the camera’s stream address. What a camera offers beyond video is the camera’s decision, and the app shows exactly what it found.
Three kinds of camera
ViewTile is built for the two ways cameras talk: the ONVIF standard and the RTSP stream address, which most brands ship — and for the channels of a recorder that passes each one on as a stream.
Follows the standard (ONVIF)
Found by itself, signed into, watched, and adjusted — the picture and every control the camera offers.
Gives a stream address (rtsp://)
Listed by the scan when its stream port answers, or added by pasting the address. Watched; nothing to adjust, because there is no camera to ask.
Cloud only
Cannot connect. A camera that only talks to its maker’s cloud has no local picture for ViewTile to show.
Checking your brand?
These makers sell IP cameras that follow the standard (ONVIF) or give a stream address (RTSP), and their recorders usually pass each channel on as a stream. A brand name alone does not settle it: check your exact model and firmware for “ONVIF” or “RTSP” in its manual or settings page.
- Hikvision, HiLook, Hiwatch
- Dahua, Amcrest, Lorex, Imou
- Reolink
- Axis
- Uniview
- Hanwha (Wisenet)
- Bosch
- Avigilon
- Vivotek
- i-PRO (Panasonic)
- Sony
- Mobotix
- Pelco
- Honeywell
- Milesight
- Tiandy
- GeoVision
- ACTi
- Provision-ISR
- Speco
- Sunell
- TP-Link Tapo and VIGI
- Annke
- Foscam
- Swann
- Zosi
- Anpviz
- Ubiquiti UniFi Protect
- EZVIZ
- eufy (models with RTSP)
- Recorders that follow the standard (ONVIF Profile S for their channels, Profile G for their recordings): Hikvision, Dahua, Uniview NVRs; Synology Surveillance Station; QNAP QVR — each channel is added as a camera of its own
Cloud only, so not with ViewTile
Cameras sold under these names talk only to their maker’s cloud and give no local picture:
- Ring
- Arlo
- Google Nest
- Blink
- Wyze, unless the RTSP firmware is installed
With a camera that follows the standard
What ViewTile can do with it
Everything below is read from the camera and offered only when the camera says it can. The camera’s own page lists what it did not offer, so nothing is left to guess.
The last minute, saved
While a camera is on screen the phone keeps its last sixty seconds; movement reported by the camera, or one tap, turns that minute into a clip. No cloud, only while watching.
A phone as a camera
An old phone becomes a camera that follows the standard: the wall, a recorder or another app finds it and plays it over your Wi-Fi. Sign-in is on from the start, with a random password made on each phone; you can change it or turn it off. Android as a service; iPhone and Mac while the app is open.
Find the whole site
The scan asks the network the ways cameras answer — the standard’s own call, UPnP, the usual web ports and the stream port — and lists cameras that only stream too. Tick several, give one login, and they are checked one at a time; a camera that changed address keeps its settings. “Search deeper” asks every address on each of those ports, in about a minute; a camera on another port is added by typing its address.
Move it
Turn, tilt and zoom with an on-screen pad or by dragging the picture; three speeds; go to a saved position with one tap, save the one you are looking at, or set it as home. Cameras that move.
Snapshot and clip
A still or a clip of up to five minutes, straight into your photo library, with a record of which camera and when.
Pick and tune the picture
Choose which stream the wall uses and which full screen uses; set resolution, frame rate and bitrate from the values the camera itself accepts.
Picture and exposure
Brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness, wide dynamic range, day and night mode, and the iris — automatic or by hand. Where the camera offers them.
Focus
Automatic, or hold near and far to set it yourself. Cameras with a motorised lens.
Clock and restart
Set the camera’s clock from the phone — a clock that is far out makes a camera refuse a correct password — and restart it without climbing a ladder.
Recordings on the camera
List and play back what the camera keeps on its own card or storage. Cameras with on-board recording (Profile G).
Relay, wiper, infrared lamp
Trigger the contact wired to a gate or a light, run the wiper, switch the lamp. Where the camera has them.
Alarms while you watch
Motion and the camera’s other alarms shown as they happen, so you can check the detection zone from the ground.
Listen without watching
Sound only, picture off — a nursery, a workshop. Cameras with a microphone.
Picture in picture
Keep one camera floating in a corner while you use the phone for something else.
The wall, and saved views
One, four or one-plus-three cameras on a phone or TV; nine or one-plus-five on a tablet; sixteen on a Mac or a wide screen; more through pages that turn by themselves; “Yard” and “Tills” saved as views you open in one tap.
A page that keeps the answers
Response time, clock offset, the stream it is really sending, and what it answered last time — copied into a report with the passwords removed.
Lock the app, not the cameras
Face ID, Touch ID or the passcode on an iPhone — fingerprint, face unlock or the screen-lock PIN on Android — before the cameras show, and the wall is covered before the app reaches the app switcher. On a television, a four-digit PIN.
Hand it to another screen
A television or another phone gets the cameras with a code, over your own network, encrypted between the two devices.
Cameras that ViewTile can find and talk to
Most brands follow a shared standard called ONVIF — you will often see the name in the camera’s manual or on its web page. With such a camera, ViewTile finds it on the network, signs in with the camera’s own username and password, lists its pictures, and lets you adjust it: the resolution, the picture, the pan-tilt-zoom and the clock.
Before signing in, ViewTile compares the camera’s clock with the phone’s and works around a small difference. A clock that is far out is reported as a clock problem, not as a wrong password.
For the technically minded
- ONVIF Profile S is the baseline; Profile T cameras work the same with newer video codecs; Profile G cameras additionally let ViewTile list and play recordings stored on the camera.
- Sign-in: WS-Security UsernameToken and HTTP Digest, including the SHA-256 variants.
- Discovery: WS-Discovery and SSDP (UPnP), then a sweep of the local network on ports 80, 8000, 8080, 8081, 8090 and 8899, and an RTSP check on 554 and 8554 for cameras that only stream. “Search deeper” asks every address on each of these ports; a camera on any other port is added by typing its address.
Cameras that only give a stream address
A doorbell, a video server, a recorder channel or an older camera may not follow the standard but still offer a stream address — it usually starts with rtsp:// and is printed in the manual. Paste that address into ViewTile and it plays. There is nothing to adjust, because there is nothing to ask the camera.
For the technically minded
- rtsp:// and rtsps:// streams, H.264 and H.265.
- http:// MJPEG streams.
- The username and password are kept in the device’s secure storage, not in the address — also a login pasted inside the address, or a token some recorders put after a “?”.
Your network
ViewTile works on the Wi-Fi the cameras are on, and only there. It needs no internet connection and uses none. On iPhone and iPad it asks for permission to use the local network before the first scan, which is its whole job.
It can only find cameras on the network your phone is on. A camera on a separate network in the same building is not found by a scan even if it can be reached by address, and a router set to keep Wi-Fi devices apart from each other (“client isolation” or “AP isolation”) stops the phone from reaching cameras at all. When nothing answers, the app lists these as the likely reasons.
What depends on the camera
Pan-tilt-zoom, saved positions, focus, picture and exposure settings, a wiper, an infrared lamp, motion alerts and recordings on the camera are shown when the camera offers them and left out when it does not. The camera’s own page says which it did not offer.