HomeDaemon-MCP has now had added to it's bag of tricks an interface to Amcrest IP cameras.

It can now "sense" motion or other events (as defined on the camera) and trigger events on HomeDaemon.  Among other things Amcrest is nice enough to expose a simple HTTP-based API that allows you to move the camera to a given preset and take pictures.

This makes trivial interfacing and extending HomeDaemon's existing capabilities in providing an "alarm" service to include taking of pictures, using the camera's motion sense capabilities as a "trip" and, of course, securely copying them to your private file storage on or off your local network.

This functionality should work with all Amcrest camera devices on the market of reasonably-recent vintage and firmware. I have verified that it is fully functional with both the 1080p (one revision back) and 2k (current) models.

There is no longer a need to trust anyone else with said images other than yourself, ever.  It is trivial to, for example, have the system take images on a timed basis and upload them somewhere, whether that "basis" is predicated on an event (e.g. motion detected somewhere, not necessarily in the immediate area of the camera), to take a picture once a day of your pool water level and email it to you (nice if you are worried about evaporation being a problem so you can ask the neighbor to come turn the hose on for a couple of hours, etc) and more.

See here for more information.