Blue Iris 5 - Notifications to Android app

[Kevin Wilson]

Hi all,

I've had BI set up for a few months now, and can connect to it from the Android app just fine both inside the home on WiFi, and when out and about via 3G/4G. I've set up my home router to do inbound NAT.

When I have the app open on my phone and the screen on, I get motion trigger alerts constantly with a delay of about 1-4 seconds. However, when the screen is off, or the app is running in the background, I don't get any notification of motion triggers at all. That is until the next time I open the app, at which point I get them all at once! Has anyone else experienced this? Did you find a fix for it? I've disabled the battery optimisation for the app but it hasn't helped. I'm also not getting any notifications pop up in the notification tray at the top of the phone. Is this normal?

Phone is a Samsung Galaxy Note 9.

Any ideas welcomed!

K

 

[looney2ns]

How to Secure Your Network (Don't Get Hacked!) | IP Cam Talk
Are you using push notifications, if not you should?
Make sure the Windows firewall isn't blocking the BI outbound.
No that's not normal.

 

[Kevin Wilson]

Thanks looney for taking the time to reply. I'm fairly up to speed on network security, and in an ideal world I would disable port forwarding. I tend to ensure that I expose the absolute minimum number of IPs and ports to the big bad world, and those that I do expose I try to ensure that 2FA is enabled and auto-lockout of unsuccessful logins is turned on. It seems BI doesn't support 2FA, so I agree that care is needed. I'm not sure how practical using an always-on VPN is for day-to-day use though.

My old QNAP NAS-based surveilance system was pretty good at sending almost-instant notifications to the mobile app whenever motion was detected, regardless of whether the app was running in the foreground or background. For the life of me, I can't get the same thing working with BI. If I have the app open in the foreground, I get an alert, but if the app is in the background there is no notification. I've enabled push notifications, have checked that the app keeps me logged in (it does), and updated to the latest software.

If it's working ok for others, can anyone share what you did to set it up? Is there any documentation for BI anywhere? I'd have expected it to be on blueirissoftware.com

 

[IAmATeaf]

I’ve also never managed to get this working, I just gave up in the end. I’m using the IOS app.

 

[looney2ns]

Thanks looney for taking the time to reply. I'm fairly up to speed on network security, and in an ideal world I would disable port forwarding. I tend to ensure that I expose the absolute minimum number of IPs and ports to the big bad world, and those that I do expose I try to ensure that 2FA is enabled and auto-lockout of unsuccessful logins is turned on. It seems BI doesn't support 2FA, so I agree that care is needed. I'm not sure how practical using an always-on VPN is for day-to-day use though.

My old QNAP NAS-based surveilance system was pretty good at sending almost-instant notifications to the mobile app whenever motion was detected, regardless of whether the app was running in the foreground or background. For the life of me, I can't get the same thing working with BI. If I have the app open in the foreground, I get an alert, but if the app is in the background there is no notification. I've enabled push notifications, have checked that the app keeps me logged in (it does), and updated to the latest software.

If it's working ok for others, can anyone share what you did to set it up? Is there any documentation for BI anywhere? I'd have expected it to be on blueirissoftware.com

Documentation is included within both the BI app and the BI server software. Click the ? mark.
Push Notifications work fine on 3 android phones and two old fire tablets I have it setup on.