The present application relates to the field of monitoring, and discloses a method for acquiring a camera state, a camera, and a camera system. The method comprises: sending to every second camera a state acquisition instruction; receiving a first data packet returned by every second camera, wherein the first data packet comprises state information of the second camera; and sending to a cloud server a second data packet, wherein the second data packet comprises at least one first data packet received by a first camera. According to the present application, state information of every second camera is acquired by a first camera, and sent to a cloud server, such that technicians can acquire state information of a camera in a camera system with access to the cloud server. As such, it is not necessary for technicians to operate near every camera when detecting a camera state, thereby reducing maintenance cost for a camera.