Camera control

From the camera screen you can pan, tilt, zoom and focus the camera. A button moves the camera while you hold it, and the camera stops when you let go.

Which cameras

Control works with Xiongmai cameras and with ONVIF cameras. Watchpost doesn’t move Hikvision or Hik-Connect cameras yet, and it doesn’t control Dahua devices or network equipment.

Choose the axes

The app can’t ask a camera which axes it has. Some cameras also report pan and tilt although they can’t turn. So you choose the axes yourself. Open the device’s menu, in the sidebar, in Devices, or on iPhone and iPad, and choose Camera Controls. Tick Zoom, Focus or Pan and Tilt. Your choice is kept for that device.

Enable only the axes the camera actually has. If a control does nothing, check the hardware capabilities, the account permissions and any error shown by the panel before changing the selected axes.

The panel

The panel appears when at least one axis is chosen. On the Mac it sits in the bottom right corner of the camera screen. On iPhone and iPad it appears under the buttons of the camera screen.

The pan and tilt buttons form a cross: Pan Left, Pan Right, Tilt Up and Tilt Down. Zoom has Zoom In and Zoom Out. Focus has Focus Far and Focus Near. Focus moves more slowly than zoom, because the lens travels a short distance.

Hold a button to move the camera. The movement stops when you release the button, when you open another camera, or when you close the camera screen. The tooltip reads Hold a button to move the camera.

If a command fails, the panel shows the reason in red under its buttons.

What the panel leaves out

Presets and the home position are not in the panel yet.

On Android

For Xiongmai and ONVIF devices, choose the available axes in the device menu, then open the camera. The control panel appears when at least one axis is enabled. Hold a control to move; release it to stop. Hikvision and Hik-Connect camera control is not supported.