Blue Iris UI3

[bp2008]

Oh, also,

No problem with composite/group images either.

Direct-to-wire has no effect on group streams, since those can only be created the hard way by Blue Iris, not cheaply repackaged from the cameras directly.

I thought I mentioned that in the earlier reply but I guess I lost that sentence somewhere.

 

[erkme73]

Oh, also,



Direct-to-wire has no effect on group streams, since those can only be created the hard way by Blue Iris, not cheaply repackaged from the cameras directly.

I thought I mentioned that in the earlier reply but I guess I lost that sentence somewhere.

I knew that. I was only relaying it as a data point to underscore that it was truly only when switching to D2W that was causing the error.

I suppose I could leave the higher resolution and use h.265, and keep just those cameras excluded from D2W, but then the view won't be smooth. I'm good with 1080p...

 

[erkme73]

Everything has been humming along since reducing the resolutions. No more crashes at all on any of the tablets. So grateful!

But I have another question/request...

Currently I get push notifications for external triggers on an IR beam sensor at my gate. While BI records on motion, it only pushes an alert when the beam is broken. I did this by setting the "on alert" function (under alerts tab on my gate camera) to send a text to my cell (which sometimes comes in HOURS late - thanks Verizon), a push to the official BI app, and an email. I'd love to be able to have my tablet(s) alert on UI3 the same way when the gate camera is triggered by the IR beam.

I've played with the "event-trigger sounds" but have only had limited success.




For example, when I turn on "camera alerting" to doorbell, for example, it does make that sound when the beam is broken. However, it also seems to make the sound with motion triggering - even though none of my other notification pathways (BI app push, text, or email) trigger. UI3 will only make the alert sound if that specific camera is in single-camera display (i.e. not in a group view).

So, my questions are as follows:

1) Is there a way to have UI3 alert in the same manner and scheme as the other BI notification pathways?

2) is it possible to produce that alert sound in UI3 regardless of which camera(s) is/are being displayed?

I realize UI3 can only respect the triggers if it's open and in focus. However, my tables are single-purpose, and stay on 24/7 on UI3.

I have "gifted" an extra tablet to my in-laws who live in a home that shares the same gate - so installing the BI app on that tablet solely for this single notification pathway is not ideal.


ETA: I just sent an email to Ken to see if there isn't a way for him to add "push notification to UI3 client" under the camera properties/alerts tab/on-alert module.

 

[bp2008]

1) Is there a way to have UI3 alert in the same manner and scheme as the other BI notification pathways?

Not entirely sure what you're asking. I believe the "Camera Alerting" sound is simply played when any of the visible cameras reports that it is alerting.

2) is it possible to produce that alert sound in UI3 regardless of which camera(s) is/are being displayed?

Technically yes, but I think I would have to add that as an option. I think I probably implemented it so that it only paid attention to the status changes of cameras that are visible on screen at the time. Edit: Yes, I confirm that is how it is right now. Sounds play for visible cameras only.

ETA: I just sent an email to Ken to see if there isn't a way for him to add "push notification to UI3 client" under the camera properties/alerts tab/on-alert module.

Heh. I honestly don't see that happening. Implementing a data channel for Blue Iris to send notifications to UI3 would be a fair amount of work for both of us, and it would force the web browser to maintain a continuous connection to the BI server which has a small amount of overhead data cost.

 

[erkme73]

Heh. I honestly don't see that happening. Implementing a data channel for Blue Iris to send notifications to UI3 would be a fair amount of work for both of us, and it would force the web browser to maintain a continuous connection to the BI server which has a small amount of overhead data cost.

Plus, it would undercut the only remaining reason to have the BI phone app. It is literally the only reason I still have it on my phones.

 

[bp2008]

For anyone following along, further discussion with @erkme73 has led to UI3-226 which allows UI3 to be commanded to play audio or text-to-speech via MQTT command.

Although Blue Iris doesn't provide its own MQTT broker (a.k.a. server), Blue Iris does have an MQTT client. So if you have an MQTT broker, you could connect both Blue Iris and some UI3 instance(s) to the MQTT broker, and have specific actions in Blue Iris cause MQTT messages to be sent to UI3 to play sounds.

 

[erkme73]

This is absolutely wonderful for those with Home Assistant which has an MQTT broker. Now I can use HA to take BI messages and send them to any of my open UI3 instances to play sounds... The potential here is unlimited. Thank you!!

 

[looney2ns]

Brian needs some pizza!

Pay Brian Pearce using PayPal.Me

Go to paypal.me/bp2008 and type in the amount. Since it’s PayPal, it's easy and secure. Don’t have a PayPal account? No worries.

www.paypal.me

 

[erkme73]

Brian needs some pizza!

Pay Brian Pearce using PayPal.Me

Go to paypal.me/bp2008 and type in the amount. Since it’s PayPal, it's easy and secure. Don’t have a PayPal account? No worries.

www.paypal.me

That's funny - I PM'ed him asking for that link. You beat him to it. Need to find another form of payment. I've closed my 23 year old Paypal account after they decided to punish/fine people for wrong-think.

 

[bp2008]

LOL I also accept amazon gift cards. As much as I order from there it is as good as cash.

 

[actran]

This is absolutely wonderful for those with Home Assistant which has an MQTT broker. Now I can use HA to take BI messages and send them to any of my open UI3 instances to play sounds... The potential here is unlimited. Thank you!!

@erkme73 Just in case you did not know, you can install MPD (Music Player Daemon) on any number of different devices.

Then, you can tell Home Assistant that a MPD is available via configuration.xml. Here is example of 2 devices with MPD:

media_player:
  - platform: mpd
    host: 192.168.11.241
    name: SurfacePro MPD
  - platform: mpd
    host: 192.168.11.211
    name: Optiplex MPD

From there, you can play an audio file or do TTS to each device.

I've been doing this before UI3-226. The benefit with the above approach is that UI3 does not need to be running on your device for you to send audio or TTS announcement.

Side note: If your device is Windows, you can install this Introduction - HASS.Agent (which can act as a media player as well as do many other things)

NOW, what would be net new with UI3 is the ability to tell it to switch to a different group or cam, or switch tabs, remotely via MQTT msg.

Still, any improvements by @bp2008 is greatly appreciated.

 

[bp2008]

@actran that is some good info about Music Player Daemon. If that works well on Android, it might be better than UI3 even if UI3 is always running, simply because it will never require user input after the page load to allow audio to play.

Basic remote controls via MQTT were added months ago. Not the ability to switch tabs though. I don't think that would actually offer any value. More valuable would be the ability to load a clip or a timeline position, but I have trouble thinking of how that would be useful to automate.

 

[actran]

@actran that is some good info about Music Player Daemon. If that works well on Android, it might be better than UI3 even if UI3 is always running, simply because it will never require user input after the page load to allow audio to play.

Basic remote controls via MQTT were added months ago. Not the ability to switch tabs though. I don't think that would actually offer any value. More valuable would be the ability to load a clip or a timeline position, but I have trouble thinking of how that would be useful to automate.

@bp2008 Sorry, you are correct. I didn't realize you had added MQTT capabilities months ago for switching cam/group view.

As you can see in screenshot below, I tried to switch from UI3 current "main2" group to "Doorbell" cam using MQTT Explorer but I don't see UI3 responding to that publish.

I can confirm that UI3 is connected to MQTT and when I manually switch groups from UI3, I can see that reflected in MQTT itself.

Any ideas where I am going wrong? Is my payload correct?

P.S. Side note, I do have BlueIris sending MQTT msgs to Home Assistant correctly, via Mosquito MQTT server installed on Home Assistant VirtualBox.

 

[bp2008]

@actran something super fishy about that. I wonder what I broke.

 

[bp2008]

Ok @actran, that "function Get" line is very suspicious. Did you set your instance id to "function Get" in the UI settings? Do you have a ui3_local_overrides.js file? What web browser are you using?


This part highlighted in yellow is your instance ID (unless the localStorage API is totally borked, which is likely what is going on).




The "Fqap5..." string is just a window ID so that each UI3 window has a unique place to report its online status.

 

[actran]

@bp2008 I'm using Brave browser v1.45.133, UI3 v226

I agree, not sure how "function Get" got there in MQTT. I assumed that is default behavior.

I followed your UI3 help:

http://192.168.11.211/ui3/help/help.html#mqtt

Looking at UI3 settings again, I can see "function Get" for Instance ID. I didn't specify that explicitly. Let me change that.



Update: MQTT publish is working now, I am able to change UI3 cam/group remotely as intended.
Thank you Brian.




P.S. Yes, I do have ui3-local-override.js

 

[actran]

@bp2008 Observation:

When initially setting up UI3 MQTT, the URL without slash at the end results in a hard error message. Example: ws://192.168.11.213:1884

I was scratching my head for awhile since IP address and port was correct and URL syntax looks correct.

Then I added slash and it worked. Example: ws://192.168.11.213:1884/

Suggestion: You may want to update

http://192.168.11.211/ui3/help/help.html#mqtt

to include a troubleshooting tip for the above possible situation.

 

[bp2008]

@actran I'll just make the thing more tolerant of the error. I'm surprised it has a problem with that. LOL.

 

[ncpilot]

"unable to display log file" "unable to connect to BI" was popping up a lot for me, sometimes a reboot of my tablet (primary viewing device) helped.

I went into the BI console and saw that the log file was quite large, when I cleared it, I could then see the log file on my tablet from UI3.

Is this a known issue? Log file too large to display?

Also disk usage stats sometimes are all crazy, clearing cache or rebooting on tablet usually fixes that issue...

 

[bp2008]

Is this a known issue? Log file too large to display?

Not known to me.

"unable to display log file"

I can find no sign of an error message like that in the UI3 source code.

Also disk usage stats sometimes are all crazy, clearing cache or rebooting on tablet usually fixes that issue...

No idea what that means. The disk usage stats are impossible to load from a cache, so it is likely not relevant that you cleared the (browser?) cache or rebooted.