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Set up a CleverMail camera by chat

A CleverMail camera is a Hikvision or Dahua camera or recorder that emails its own alarm snapshots to CleverCam, instead of running through a CleverCam hub. Pointing a device at CleverMail by hand means typing SMTP details into the camera, turning on the right event and snapshot settings, and getting the one setting that attaches a picture exactly right — miss it and the camera never appears, silently.

Set up a camera by chat does it for you. While you are on the same Wi-Fi as the camera, the assistant reads the device, writes the correct settings for its brand, and then confirms with the mail server that the snapshots are really arriving.

Who can use it

This is a tool for a security company's staff. It appears only when your control room has it switched on, and you are signed in as someone that control room recognises for the site. If you do not see it, ask your control room to enable it.

Open it​

  1. Open the site, then the CleverMail hub.
  2. On the hub's page, under SMTP details, tap Set up a camera by chat.
  3. Make sure your phone is on the same Wi-Fi network as the camera or recorder.

What happens​

The assistant greets you as the CleverMail setup helper and offers two ways to begin:

  • Look for the camera — it sweeps the local network and lists the cameras and recorders it finds, with each one's brand.
  • I have the IP — you type the device's address yourself.

If it has set this device up before, it already knows the address and password and goes straight in. Otherwise it asks for the device's admin password, which is the camera's own login and not the CleverMail mailbox password. One mailbox can serve several cameras or recorders, each with its own login, so it keeps them apart and asks only for the one it is missing.

From there it works on its own, telling you what it is doing:

  1. Reads the device — its make, model, and current email settings.
  2. Asks which channels — on a recorder only. It reads the channel names off the device and offers them as buttons ("Main gate", "Carport", or All of them), because each channel becomes its own camera. A single camera has one channel, so it skips this.
  3. Asks before it writes — you tap Go ahead to let it change the device. Nothing is written without that tap, and one tap covers every channel you picked.
  4. Configures it — the CleverMail mailbox, and on each chosen channel the motion-to-email link with a snapshot attached.
  5. Confirms delivery — it checks the mail server itself. A device's own "test mail" can say it failed when the mail actually went through, so the assistant trusts the server, not the device.

Watching the cameras come in​

A channel only becomes a camera when its first picture reaches us, and a picture is only taken when the camera sees movement. So the last step needs you:

  • The assistant asks you to walk in front of each camera and tap when you have. With a recorder it works through the channels one at a time.
  • It then watches the mail server and calls each one out by name as it lands — "Main gate has come in. Still waiting on Carport and Back yard."
  • A camera can take up to a minute to appear after you trigger it.
  • If one channel never arrives while the others do, the mailbox is fine and the fault is on that channel — its motion or snapshot setting. The assistant says so and offers to fix it.

At the end it tells you which channels are live and names any that did not arrive.

If it needs you​

  • Wrong password — the assistant will say the device refused the login and ask you to check the admin password.
  • Mail arriving without a picture — the most common snag. The assistant fixes the snapshot setting and re-checks; on a Dahua that is the capture schedule, on a Hikvision the attached-image option.
  • Trigger some motion — for a device with no test button, it may ask you to walk in front of the camera so it fires a real alarm, then it confirms that snapshot landed.

You can type a message at any time. Tap the options the assistant offers to answer faster.

Step by step instead​

If you would rather enter the settings yourself, the hub's SMTP details card lists the server, port, username, password and receiver address to type into the camera's email-on-alarm configuration. See your control room's guidance, or the CleverOps hub docs, for the per-brand event and snapshot settings — and remember the camera must attach a picture, or nothing is created.