This guide includes the following:

1. You can receive alarms when the camera detects abnormal.

To receive alarms make sure of the following:

  • You have turned the alarm on. See instructions in How to turn alarm on or off.
  • Your camera and mobile device have accesses to the Internet.
  • The HiKam app is not playing the live video from the camera.

You can opt to have the alarm delivered in one or both of two ways: Push Notifications and emails. See instructions in Alarm Delivery by Push Notifications and Alarm Delivery by Emails.

2. How to turn alarm on or off.

The on/off status is signified by the icon at the upper-right corner in the corresponding camera column. This icon is either the operational toggle switch or the non-operational exclamation icon .

Note:

In order to turn alarm on/off, the HiKam app and the camera must be able to communicate with each other using the Internet (because the app server needs to save all your configurations.) An abnormal communication is indicated by the exclamation icon, and is most likely caused by Firewall settings. If appears, you can neither operate the alarm nor retrieve alarm settings from the app server. But you may be able to watch the P2P live stream.

To turn on/off the alarm:

  • Launch the HiKam app.
  • Enable the alarm by tapping the toggle switch to On . A long beep from the camera signifies the successful activation. Alarm settings for other cameras remain unchanged.
  • To disable the alarm, tap the toggle switch to Off . Three short beeps from the camera signify the successful deactivation.


3. Alarm delivery by Push Notifications

With push notification on, the HiKam app in your mobile device can receive push notifications when an alarm is triggered by the camera.

To enable Push Notifications:

Step 1: Launch the HiKam app. Tap Settings at the right side in the corresponding camera column.

Step 2: Tap Alarm Settings.

Step 3: In the Alarm Settings window,

  • Enable Alarm Push by tapping on the toggle switch. When it is turned on, your app account ID will be bound to this camera and displayed as the Alarm Push ID.
  • Choose Motion Detection and/or PIR to trigger alarms. Motion detection is performed by image comparison. You may want to avoid nuisance alarms by disable Motion Detection. For details go to How to trigger alarms.
  • Optionally, toggle the on/off switch next to Siren by tapping on it. With it on, your camera will let out a siren-like alarm when it detects abnormal.

To check the Alarm Push ID, launch the app and tap Settings at the right side in the corresponding camera column. Then go to Alarm Settings > Alarm push ID.

To query your app account ID, launch the app, tap Account and Setups at the lower-right corner. And then tap Account.

To iOS users:

  1. When the HiKam app is running in the foreground or background, you can synchronously receive the push notification when the alarm is trigger.
  2. When the HiKam app is suspended or quitted, the HiKam push notification will be boosted by email paths and Apple Push Notification Service, which will introduce time delay and notification number threshold. For setting up the email path, you need to add an email account in Alarm Settings. See instructions in Alarm Delivery by Emails.

4. Alarm delivery by Emails

With a valid email account in the Alarm Settings, you can receive alarm emails if the camera detects abnormal. The alarm email will carry picture(s) as attachment, which is (are) taken at the moment the alarm is triggered.

Notes:

  1. To avoid a possible email account blocking, we have set up the limit of sending out one email per minute per email account.
  2. Mailbox providers may have installed automatic spam filtering function. The alarm email from HiKam may be dropped into Spam or rejected back to the sender due to the filter configurations.
  3. If you are not getting emails from HiKam, check your email spam folder first. If our emails are ending up there, add us to your address book or safe sender list so our emails get to your inbox. Otherwise, try other mailbox provider such as Gmail.

To add an email account into Alarm Settings:

Step 1: Launch the HiKam app. Tap Settings at the right side in the corresponding camera column.

Step 2: Tap Alarm Settings.

Step 3: In the Alarm Settings window,

  • Tap Alarm Email. When prompted, type in a valid email account from which you want to receive alarm emails. We limit up to 30 characters in the textbox. Tap Next at the upper-right corner.

5. Enable alarm recording

The camera can start recording and storing videos in the microSD card when the alarm is triggered. HiKam A7 has a built-in 16GB SD card.

Data consumed for alarm recording depends upon the quality of the video and the duration. For our current resolution and the default time duration (1 minute), it consumes around 5M for each recording.

The alarm recording runs in a loop mode. When the SD has no memories, the oldest file will be overwritten by the newest.

To avoid fragments in SD card, we do not allow erasing of single recording file. Recording files can be fully deleted by Settings > Storage Info > Erase SD Card.

To enable alarm recording,

  • Turn alarm on, Refer to How to turn alarm on or off
  • Tap Settings at the right side in the corresponding camera column.
  • Tap Recording Settings.
  • Choose Alarm Recording.

A notice of “Modify successfully” will pop up to indicate a successful setting. Later on the alarm record will be automatically stored in the SD card.

To manually record,

  • Tap Settings at the right side in the corresponding camera column.
  • Tap Record Settings.
  • Choose Manual Recording. A notify “Modify successfully” indicates a successful setting.
  • Turn on the toggle Record Switch by tapping on it.

6. How to play the recorded video.

Stored videos can be listed and played on the HiKam app by the following:

  • Tap Playback in the corresponding camera column.
  • Select the Tab from One day, Three day, One month, and Custom.

  • Tap the file you want to play. The file is named in the format of “disc name/data_time_recording mode.av”, where the recording mode is indicated by M(manual), A(alarm), or S(scheduled).
  • The playback starts immediately. To quit tap the phone icon at the lower-right corner.

You can opt to watch the recording from other applications such as our HiKamPC (for Windows) or YouTube. To play the recording file on YouTube you need to download it by using our HiKamPC and then upload it to YouTube.

7. How to trigger alarms.

HiKam A7 has two ways to trigger alarms: motion detection and external wireless sensors.

Motion detection,

  • image comparison and matching are used. An abnormal is labelled when the following image does not match the one preceding it. If the abnormal number reaches to a specific value in a certain duration, an alarm will be triggered.
  • Motion detection has a high, non-customized sensitivity, and hence false alarms. With the current version you can avoid distraction by either go to Settings > Alarm Settings and disable Motion Detection, or go to Settings > Alarm Settings and disable Alarm Push.

External wireless sensors, 

  • we provide the safety switch and the PIR for your choice. The external sensors have their own mechanism to detect abnormal and then send alarm signal via 433MHz frequency radio to the paired HiKam camera.

To pair the external wireless sensor with the camera:

  • Make sure the camera has set up successfully and the battery in the sensor works well.
  • Note: For the safety switch put together the two pieces and then separate them. If you see a red LED indicator blinking once, then the battery works well. For PIR Make movements in front of it. If you see a blue flash, then the battery works well.
  • Mount the 433 antenna onto your camera if needed.
  • Launch the HiKam app.
  • Select the camera you want to pair from the Device list. Then go to Settings > Defense area. Then choose whatever you like. For instance Door Lock.

  • Select a number, e.g., 1, Tap OK. For pairing the door lock, separate the two pieces of the switch. For paring the PIR, make movement in front it. The alarm signal sent from the sensor will be captured by the camera.

  • After the successful pairing, on Android phone the number you have chosen will get a baby blue background color , on iPhone the number you have chosen will be followed by . 

To unpair tap this number.

To verify a successful pair:

You will receive either the push notifications or the email, with the keyword "external" to specify the alarm source. 

For sensor manuals, go to:

http://www.hi-kam.com/download/HiKam_DoorLock_BI.pdf

http://www.hi-kam.com/download/HiKam_PIR_BI.pdf

8. To Android users

To Android users the live video stream can be played in the popup window when an alarm is triggered. With the push notification enabled and playing live video upon alarm detection activated, the Android user is able to see a popup window with live video played at the time an alarm is triggered.

To activate playing live video upon alarm detection, go to Account and Setups > Installation. Then check Live-Video by Alarm on. With it on, the configuration for "Alarm Tone" and "vibration" will be disregarded.