Review-OEM IPC-T5241H-AS-PV 2mp AI active deterrence cam

[dudemaar]

I noticed your ir illuminator was on in the second my point of view video?

 

[MakeItRain]

Looney, do you have footage of the 2-way talk in action?

 

[MakeItRain]

@looney2ns
can the volume of the speaker be adjusted so it isn't too loud?

@EMPIRETECANDY
Is this compatible with the loryta gang-plate adapter? I just want to make sure since I ordered that and this camera is going behind a gang box.

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

@looney2ns
can the volume of the speaker be adjusted so it isn't too loud?

@EMPIRETECANDY
Is this compatible with the loryta gang-plate adapter? I just want to make sure since I ordered that and this camera is going behind a gang box.

This camera junction box PFA130-E and wall mount PFB203W, it's totally same as the IPC-HDW5231R-ZE, so no problem. @aristobrat have a review Review PFA200G Gang Box Adapter

 

[looney2ns]

@looney2ns
can the volume of the speaker be adjusted so it isn't too loud?

@EMPIRETECANDY
Is this compatible with the loryta gang-plate adapter? I just want to make sure since I ordered that and this camera is going behind a gang box.

Yes on volume

 

[MakeItRain]

Just installed this cam on the front door...

struggling real hard with the IVS intrusion/tripwire.

edit:

I think I have the tripwire figured out... I need to draw a big ass line all the way top to bottom.

 

[looney2ns]

Just installed this cam on the front door...

struggling real hard with the IVS intrusion/tripwire.

edit:

I think I have the tripwire figured out... I need to draw a big ass line all the way top to bottom.

Using a zig zag pattern for the trip wire works better in some circumstances.
Some have better luck using Intrusion Box instead,

 

[MakeItRain]

Okay the intrusion does not work at all for me period. I only managed to get it to work ONCE but that was because the camera was sitting on my desk and I walked by in the window. When it's mounted, it does not work period.

Secondly, the tripwire is flaky. it works 15% of the time. It seems to work with shorter person. I draw a big giant line separating two sides of the screen and anybody walking left to right, should've triggered it. Today it triggers 1 out of 15 times. It seems like a crapshoot. Real disappointed.

I'm not sure if it is because the camera is mounted 7 feet above ground facing downwards towards the ground because that is how my front door is. But it should still be able to discern a big object(human) moving from the left side to the right side.

 

[The North Face]

Okay the intrusion does not work at all for me period. I only managed to get it to work ONCE but that was because the camera was sitting on my desk and I walked by in the window. When it's mounted, it does not work period.

I would be keen to hear other peoples’ experience on this. After lots of lurking here, I dipped my toes into the IPC waters by ordering a (yes, lower end) HDW1230S camera and I’m now looking for a slight upgrade which I thought might be this cam. The Active Deterrence and People Detection features triggered by Tripwire/Intrusion would be the upgrade needed, but then I need to be pretty sure it works too.

Side note: when/if the intrusion/tripwire works, is it announced by ONVIF also? My past year of hanging around here learnt me that it might require a Dahua NVR.

 

[MakeItRain]

@looney2ns

I took your advice just now and I drew a equilateral triangle pattern with one face of it as A->B from sidewalk to my door. I overlapped the drawing like 8 times so imagine drawing 8 triangles on top of each other.

I went outside and tested IVS trip-wire intrusion and all four out of four times, it worked!!! The response is fast enough where it is acceptable now. It's 12:50AM right now so it works at night but there is still good light on the porch. I will try this test again in the daylight. Of course, I disabled the speaker so I don't wake up my neighbors with that crazy siren.

It seems like IVS trip-wire software algorithm is incredibly tricky to configure...

 

[aristobrat]

The problem with Tripwire that I had when using on a porch is that it takes time for the camera to notice movement and figure out if it’s an object or not. Sometimes it took long enough that the object had already crossed the Tripwire before the camera had identified it, so nothing happened.

On my porch, contrast was an issue that slowed the camera down. If the porch was dark and the person was wearing mostly darker clothes, most of the person wouldn’t be detected by the camera which slowed down the process. I had to mess with camera backlighting options to make the person more visible to the camera. At that time I was using a Dahua NVR and SmartPSS which would draw boxes on the screen to show you what the camera was thinking which made it easy to troubleshoot.

The other thing that helped was (like @looney2ns mentioned) was to use Intrusion zones instead of Tripwires. Intrusion zones have the options to trigger if someone crosses into them AND if an object “appears” in them, which covers the situation where the camera identified them after they’ve crossed into the zone. Also these smart AI cameras should have options in Intrusion zones to try and identify objects as People or Vehicles and only trigger on them.

 

[The North Face]

Also these smart AI cameras should have options in Intrusion zones to try and identify objects as People or Vehicles and only trigger on them.

Thanks for the tip on Intrusion zones.

@looney2ns you mentioned earlier in the thread that the People vs Vehicle detection worked as intended. Is there an option in Intrusion zones to trigger only on People, or what IVS function did you use to test?

 

[looney2ns]

Thanks for the tip on Intrusion zones.

@looney2ns you mentioned earlier in the thread that the People vs Vehicle detection worked as intended. Is there an option in Intrusion zones to trigger only on People, or what IVS function did you use to test?

Keep in mind, bigger isn't better.
IVS needs time to determine what is moving, before it gets to the line, and also the object must exit the intrusion/line to trigger.

If you set it up, and watch a live view while walking and testing, you can see this in action.

Be sure to enable smart plan (the light bulb) first.


Then under IVS, enable Object Filter

 

[MakeItRain]

Does the placement of that arrow matter for intrusion? For example, in that sample picture above, the bi-directional arrow is on the left side of the intrusion plane box. Shouldn't it be placed on the right hand side of the intrusion box since the person is expected to come in and out from the right side?

Also, why not just set the intrusion rule to "Appears" and not "enters&exit". As soon as an human appears in the box, cry out loud. Seems like adding more conditional logic in the IVS makes it more complex for the firmware to deal with.

Also, did anyone get IVS push notification to work for IVS? I registered both Cross Line and Cross Region for the IVS rule "tripwire", and I got no push. I did get push for motion detection and that works fine. I know IVS is working because the security LED is flashing so IVS is triggering.

 

[The North Face]

Interesting alarm audio with available custom audio files feature. Wondering is there a setting to set alarm to play only during customized hours like only after midnight? Or an event or IVS detection at a certain time that will trigger the alarm audio?

Yes, by setting different IVS rules. You can assign times to when the rules are active, thus choose when sound is active with which rule.

On this note, is it also possible to assign multiple conditions to the audio, directly in the web interface? E.g. when person first enters box, play message “stay away”, if person stays within box for 5 minutes, play alarm sound until person exits.

 

[The North Face]

Also, did anyone get IVS push notification to work for IVS? I registered both Cross Line and Cross Region for the IVS rule "tripwire", and I got no push. I did get push for motion detection and that works fine. I know IVS is working because the security LED is flashing so IVS is triggering.

What platform should generate the push notification and to where? Camera firmware to email, mobile, something else? As far as I know, notifications for IVS events require a Dahua NVR (maybe Blue Iris handles it too?) because those events are not sent over ONVIF. See my question on that above. I think people on the forum and elsewhere tried to look into that, last time I searched around Motion Detection generates ONVIF events but nothing IVS.

 

[MakeItRain]

What platform should generate the push notification and to where? Camera firmware to email, mobile, something else? As far as I know, notifications for IVS events require a Dahua NVR (maybe Blue Iris handles it too?) because those events are not sent over ONVIF. See my question on that above. I think people on the forum and elsewhere tried to look into that, last time I searched around Motion Detection generates ONVIF events but nothing IVS.

The camera does not need a NVR to send out push notification. I’ve proven this by using tcpdump and making my raspberry pi the gateway/firewall. The camera(like the nvr) sends out dns requests to find the Apple push server, then sends out push to the gateway.

 

[The North Face]

The camera does not need a NVR to send out push notification. I’ve proven this by using tcpdump and making my raspberry pi the gateway/firewall. The camera(like the nvr) sends out dns requests to find the Apple push server, then sends out push to the gateway.

Wow, didn’t know that. What app receives the push notice in iOS? I’m on Synology Surveillance Station myself, so all camera notifications happen within those applications.

Does the camera output any IP packets on IVS triggers at all? A while back someone wrote a Python script to poll the camera for IVS events, then publishing the responses using MQTT: https://ipcamtalk.com/threads/trigger-blue-iris-with-ivs.17303. I sort of planned to make something out of that but never got around to, accepting the rather bad motion detection situation instead.

 

[MakeItRain]

Wow, didn’t know that. What app receives the push notice in iOS? I’m on Synology Surveillance Station myself, so all camera notifications happen within those applications.

Does the camera output any IP packets on IVS triggers at all? A while back someone wrote a Python script to poll the camera for IVS events, then publishing the responses using MQTT: https://ipcamtalk.com/threads/trigger-blue-iris-with-ivs.17303. I sort of planned to make something out of that but never got around to, accepting the rather bad motion detection situation instead.

The app is iDMSS plus. This is the generic default Dahua app for iOS. You "subscribe" to the push notification on the app.

Actually, no camera should need or require the NVR to do push. In fact, that's how I got started with Dahua cams. I first bought Amcrest cameras on Amazon. They are rebranded Dahuas. Amcrest promises push notification and they don't push or require their customers to buy NVRs. All Amcrest cameras support save to FTP (which was what I was doing back then), to memory card, or to a NVR. They all supported push notifications regardless if you are saving the stream or not.

The way the push notifications work is this:

The Camera sends out a DNS requests to a gateway that you set and the DNS server that you set. So if you set 8.8.8.8 for google, you will see a 8.8.8.8 DNS protocol traffic. The DNS server will reply with Apple's push server. This resides in the 17.x.x.x block. The camera then saves this address and then sends out push notification back out the gateway to 17.x.x.x and then Apple sends you the push notification.

That's all there is to it.

As to why IVS doesn't work, it should! But I don't know why it doesn't work the same way. Once the cameras firmware detects a IVS event trigger, it should follow the same firmware path, and send out a push.

FYI: Apple is serious about the intervals of how frequent you are allowed to send out push. It's on their developer site. They don't want developers flooding their servers with rapid push notifications.

We spend all our money on these cameras and we're essentially paying for the internal firmware functionalities. I guess it is fine to use BI or Synology for post processing but then maybe it would just be better to buy a "raw" camera where it has NO features. Just a sensor, lens, and a TCP/UDP/RTSP stream.

 

[MakeItRain]

Below is an example of this T5241H in action with push notification for motion. I rebooted the camera so you can see what's happening. My raspberry Pi is the gateway, so it captures and then forwards/masquerades the requests to the real gateway via IPtables. That is how I am able to capture the packet transmissions coming out of the camera.

The T5241H camera is at IP 192.168.0.17 and you can see it first goes and queries 8.8.8.8 for gateway.push.apple.com. The DNS returns 17.188.161.9 as the push server. From then on, I triggered a motion event, and it sent out a push to 17.188.161.9 port 2195. Remember, port 2195 is the default push port for all apple pushes.

Now I need to go figure out why IVS isn't sending out a push even though the camera IVS is working. "You are under surveillance" hahaha.

Edit: I just triggered an IVS rule outside, got the camera to flash and speak "You are under surveillance". However, TCPdump captured no outgoing push notification. So... it seems like the camera firmware isn't doing it's job for IVS push. Only motion push works for now...