BI - Blue Iris Digital IO and IoT

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davej

Getting the hang of it
Apr 25, 2014
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I noticed that the BI options menu has a settings tab for "Digital IO and IoT" which includes the following fields...
-Serial port
-MQTT
-Sealevel Systems
-Control

I have been thinking of using a Raspberry Pi or Arduino to monitor some temperatures and some PIR motion detectors. It would be nice if this could generate BI alerts or perhaps overlays for some of the temperatures. Is anyone already doing this?
 
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Interesting. I had not seen that conversation. So the Arduino sends bits which can trigger BI. What is your planned application?
 
Using it to trigger a camera from a pir. I would like to change profiles, ie: alarm system arm-disarm, but I haven't found a way to do that yet. I don't think BI supports it.
 
Okay, so is this communication in both directions? You can trigger an alert with a digital input from the Arduino. Will a BI alert from a camera send a digital output back to the Arduino?
 
I'm not using that feature right now, but from the description in the thread I posted and looking at the Arduino code I would say yes.
 
I got the text-messaging feature to work yesterday and that seems like it could be very useful.
 
davej said:
I got the text-messaging feature to work yesterday and that seems like it could be very useful.
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HI davej, do you know if BI can read inputs from IP cam? For instance: IP cam has an input alarm in a form of a simple switch configured as - N.O., so when switch is closed the input alarm is triggered on the IP cam. Question is, will BI read this trigger from IP cam?
 
BKG said:
HI davej, do you know if BI can read inputs from IP cam? For instance: IP cam has an input alarm in a form of a simple switch configured as - N.O., so when switch is closed the input alarm is triggered on the IP cam. Question is, will BI read this trigger from IP cam?
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Question number two: does BI integrate with external input/output devices such as MOXA for example?
 
Just an update on my earlier post, an Arduino can be used to switch profiles. I'm using it when we arm- disarm our alarm system.
It can be used to send any command BI supports.
 
opus too said:
Just an update on my earlier post, an Arduino can be used to switch profiles. I'm using it when we arm- disarm our alarm system.
It can be used to send any command BI supports.
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Thanks for the info opus too! I am interested in connecting serial adapter to my alarm panel and see if BI accepts it.
 
BKG said:
HI davej, do you know if BI can read inputs from IP cam? For instance: IP cam has an input alarm in a form of a simple switch configured as - N.O., so when switch is closed the input alarm is triggered on the IP cam. Question is, will BI read this trigger from IP cam?
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I have not experimented with discrete camera inputs. I suspect that they will trigger that camera, which will trigger BI, but I don't know if BI can be told that they should do more than simply triggering that camera.

Overall, I am interested in integrating my "home data collection" and "security alarm" so that these make the most of available Blue Iris features. For example recording when garage doors are open, or the doorbell is pressed, or other events.
 
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Just to note, MQTT is a great option for this as well. Basically you can use MQTT as a digital I/O trigger. Of course you have to set up a MQTT server, but that is simple enough and can even run on the same machine as BI. MQTT will not have any limitations in the number of devices it can work with and you can create unique topics for any situation. For example, if you have profiles set up in BI, you could use a different topic for each trigger so you would have a unique notification for each cameras and profile combination, etc, etc, etc.
 
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gmartin808 said:
What kind of latency is there going through MQTT?
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Virtually none. Any delay seems to be measured in milliseconds and definitely not seconds. I have a camera trigger my porch lights on if it is night time and the house alarm is armed "night" and then off again after set delay after the motion stops (because the lights should be on automatically if it is night and the house alarm isn't armed "night" and I don't want the lights turning off when we are awake). Obviously all that takes some computing time in my automation system, but the lights seem to turn on immediately with the trigger.

PS - let me clarify that statement. The BI system sends out a MQTT on every trigger for that particular camera. My automation system then has it's own trigger set up when that particular MQTT event happens. The logic to turn or not turn the light on/off is determined in the automation system (based on time of day and alarm status), not BI or MQTT.
 
I have a devices with 64 BNC outputs that I would like to independently trigger recording of 64 different cameras. Whenever the TTL is high: recording on: low recording off. I would prefer latency of <100 ms. googling around it says that mwtt latency is on the order of 120 ms.
 
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