Amcrest AD410 doorbell foggy lens replacement
In this article I will show you how to fix a foggy Amcrest AD410 doorbell camera lens.

WARNING
- We will be disassembling this device. If you value your warranty, don’t follow these steps!
- The device has developed an issue with the SD card. It is probably because I didn’t glue back the SD card reader plug. I don’t really care, because I save the camera images on my NVR, but if you need the SD card, you are warned.
Table of contents
Intro
I bought the Amcrest AD410 back in July 2021. I can no longer pinpoint exactly when it happened, but after about three years, the image started to get foggy. So much so, that I couldn’t even recognise people anymore.
I had noticed that the front of the lens had become milky white, so I suspected that moisture somehow had got in.

I found this topic (archive.org link) on the Amcrest forums, where they talk about a replacement lens from AliExpress. After having disabled the doorbell and taking some measurements of the lens, I can confirm this would be a good replacement. However, it was sold out on AliExpress, so I had to look for another source.

The specs to look for are M8 and 1.8 mm, and then look carefully at the photos of the thread length. Many AliExpress alternatives won’t give you any dimensions, or even correct photos, so you are buying a cat in a sack. After some serious Google voodoo, I found this webshop in Spain (archive.org link) that seemed to sell a worthy candidate: the Caddx M8 1.8 mm lens for the Baby Ratel 2 drone.

The price is cheaper than on AliExpress, but shipping adds quite a bit. I bought two of them for €28.69, shipping included, while AliExpress would have charged €27.69 including shipping, so all in all a good deal.
So once I received the lenses, it was time to start the repair.
Required tools

These are the tools you will need (from left to right and top to bottom):
- The two alligator clips lead to a 12V DC power supply. You will need this to power the doorbell on your bench to focus the lens. Yes, the doorbell works at 12V DC, although that is nowhere mentioned.
- Two short wires with ring terminals, to connect the doorbell power connectors to the power supply.
- Philips screw drivers: 2 mm, 2.5 mm and 3.5 mm.
- A lens: M8 1.8 mm (see above for details).
- An precision knife.
- Two tweezers with pointy and round heads.
Step 1: remove the back cover
Remove the eight rubber screw covers with the pointy tweezers and the screws with the 2.5 mm Philips screwdriver.

The cover will easily open. Disconnect the small connector for the speaker and set the back cover aside for now.

Step 2: remove the circuit boards
There are two circuit boards and an SD card reader. The top circuit board has the camera and covers two screws that hold the bottom board.
Remove these six screws with the 2 mm Philips screwdriver.

Carefully pry loose the SD reader connector with the tweezer with round head. It is glued on, so use a little force.
WARNING: After reassembly, my SD card no longer works. I tried reformatting it, but the doorbell doesn’t recognise the card. I’m sure the card is fine, so it’s most probably this cable that isn’t set correctly. I don’t really care at this point, as I save the images on my NVR. But if you are dead set on using the SD card, then this might be the moment to stop. You can’t reach the lens without removing this cable.


Disconnect the power to the SD card reader:

Now you can carefully remove the top board. With the two screws of the top board removed, it is mostly held by the camera that sits in a rubber ring, a small connector between the top and bottom board and some thermal pads.
With the top board removed, the two remaining screws, holding the bottom board, can be removed.

Next remove the IR led ring. Be careful with the thin wires!

Use a tweezer to remove the white led light.

You have now succesfully removed the circuit boards.

Step 3: remove the lens
The lens is glued on at two spots. Use the precision knife to cut away as much glue as possible. I had to break away the last bit of glue with pliers. In the photos below the glue has already been removed, but the location where it was is shown.


With the glue removed, we can unscrew the lens. You can see that the lens doesn’t have an IR filter. The one I bought does have this filter, so it needs to be removed.


Step 4: remove the IR filter from the new lens
If your new lens didn’t come with this filter, you can skip this step.

Take the pointy tweezers and carefully push it against the side of the filter.

It should pop right off.

I also removed the ring from the new lens, we won’t be using that.
Step 5: install the new lens
Screw in the new lens. For comparison, this is the old vs the new lens:

Step 6: focus the lens
Now we are going to partially reassemble the doorbell, and power it using the back cover. This way we can easily turn the lens to focus it, while we watch the livestream on the phone.
Connect the top board with the lower board, using the small white connector.

Now use the wires with ring terminals to connect the back cover to the 12V DC power supply.

Now press the board against the back cover to power it up. You will see the leds start lighting up.

Open the Amcrest app on your phone and wait for the camera image to go live. The stream will be rather slow, because currently the wifi antennas are not connected. The antennas are part of the front cover. Make sure you are close to your wifi access point.

Unless you are very lucky, the image will be very blurry.

Now start turning the lens until you get an image in focus.
Conclusion
And that’s it! Reassemble the device, don’t forget the two screws between the top and bottom board. As said, I still have an issue with the SD card, so at some point I might go back in and glue the SD card cable in place to ensure a good connection.
Enjoy your clear image!