Can I use BI to connect / record from a Nest Cam in another state?

[nbstl68]

Hi,
Looking at BI as an option for when I find some decent home sec cameras.
Just thinking though, my sister uses a Nest cam (formerly called Drop cam) for a vacation condo in Flat and is currently paying their monthly fee for cloud recording.
Since understand BI can connect to many camera types, I thou th the why not use it to connect and record the Nest cam and save her the monthly fees.

Is this possible or would that camera have some proprietary setup to not allow it?
Anyone know?

 

[fenderman]

Hi,
Looking at BI as an option for when I find some decent home sec cameras.
Just thinking though, my sister uses a Nest cam (formerly called Drop cam) for a vacation condo in Flat and is currently paying their monthly fee for cloud recording.
Since understand BI can connect to many camera types, I thou th the why not use it to connect and record the Nest cam and save her the monthly fees.

Is this possible or would that camera have some proprietary setup to not allow it?
Anyone know?

Cant be done. Nestcam does not allow it (its their business model). Even if it could streaming the camera 24/7 to a blue iris machines will user lots of bandwidth. If there is a cap that may be exceeded.

 

[nbstl68]

Bummer I thought that BI would let you connect to and record from most any IP camera (it should at leasrwork with my cheap foscam, right?)

 

[fenderman]

Bummer I thought that BI would let you connect to and record from most any IP camera (it should at leasrwork with my cheap foscam, right?)

BI would let you. This is a limitation of the Nestcam not blue iris. Blue iris cannot pull a stream that does not exist. Nestcam purposely does not provide a stream and locks it down to their own service. No vms or third party app can stream nestcam or similar cloud based cameras.
It would work on foscam.

 

[nbstl68]

Different question...could you use a NVR and BI together?
Say, If you already have cameras connected to a NVR that let's you see the cameras on your network through their direct IP like the latest Hikvision models I am reading about does...then could you not have BI connect to the cameras IP addresses as well and make use of controls and settings via both?


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[Larebear]

I have 4 cameras installed at my elderly Mom's house a few miles away from my home and I stream her cameras 24 hours a day to my BI system located at my house. Two of her cameras are Foscam's (640x480) and two are Dericam's (1280x720).

It works great, but as fenderman mentioned, it does take a huge amount of bandwidth to stream multiple cameras video & audio from a remote location.

My ISP (CenturyLink) cut me off a couple years ago for going over their cap. They claimed I was using several terabytes each month, which was way over their monthly limit. They left me with only one option to get my service restored. I had to subscribe to their business account which cost more than double the standard home rate. The plus side of having the business account is that they no longer complain about my bandwidth usage.

It would work with your foscam, but then you might have the bandwidth cap problem with your ISP.

 

[alphawave7]

I have 4 cameras installed at my elderly Mom's house a few miles away from my home and I stream her cameras 24 hours a day to my BI system located at my house. Two of her cameras are Foscam's (640x480) and two are Dericam's (1280x720).

It works great, but as fenderman mentioned, it does take a huge amount of bandwidth to stream multiple cameras video & audio from a remote location.

My ISP (CenturyLink) cut me off a couple years ago for going over their cap. They claimed I was using several terabytes each month, which was way over their monthly limit. They left me with only one option to get my service restored. I had to subscribe to their business account which cost more than double the standard home rate. The plus side of having the business account is that they no longer complain about my bandwidth usage.

It would work with your foscam, but then you might have the bandwidth cap problem with your ISP.

Okay..now you've done it! How much is Business class monthly on CenturyLink? Oh and is it mosly capless?

 

[Larebear]

It runs me about $118 a month for the 20 Mbps down (in reality about 16 Mbps down) and .75 Mbps up. It's been capless for me so far. I've streamed as many as 12 remote cameras at one time but usually only stream the 4 at my mom's house 24 hours a day. The others I enable once in a while in BI to make sure they're working and all is well.

 

[alphawave7]

It runs me about $118 a month for the 20 Mbps down (in reality about 16 Mbps down) and .75 Mbps up. It's been capless for me so far. I've streamed as many as 12 remote cameras at one time but usually only stream the 4 at my mom's house 24 hours a day. The others I enable once in a while in BI to make sure they're working and all is well.

Not too shabby for that amount of data. Those down speeds are about where my DLS speeds are, but about 3Mbps up...whereas my TMobile smartphone connection is 50Mbps Down/30Mbps Up, unlimited LTE but an actual cap of 23 Gigs before 3G throttle, at $70/mo. Wireless is def. better, but pricier...always the tradeoffs!

 

[Larebear]

I wish Comcast was available in my area but it isn't, so my only option is CenturyLink. I had wireless for several years but it was much slower at around 2 Mbps down and they wouldn't let me stream the cameras from remote locations. So right now, CL is the only game in town in this area.

 

[erkme73]

Interesting thread. It got me thinking what I use. I just checked my router, and for the month of January, with another week still to go, I've moved about 7.5tB.

Total TrafficIncoming (MBytes)
5975532
Outgoing (MBytes)
1464885

I have Verizon FIOS residential service with 75/75. My BI server has about 35 cameras - 25 are local, 10 remote. Plus, all of my outdoor cameras are available to my family - two of whom log on 24/7 with their own BI servers. That creates two off-site backups. All three of us (me, my brother, and my dad) do this with each others streams. We burn some bandwidth. Never a peep from VZ... I never did understand why the caps. That'd be like selling you a car that can do 100MPH, but only allowing it to do that for 1 hour total each month. If you pay for a certain diameter pipe, you should be able to fill it 24/7. That's just me.

 

[fenderman]

Interesting thread. It got me thinking what I use. I just checked my router, and for the month of January, with another week still to go, I've moved about 7.5tB.

Total TrafficIncoming (MBytes)
5975532
Outgoing (MBytes)
1464885

I have Verizon FIOS residential service with 75/75. My BI server has about 35 cameras - 25 are local, 10 remote. Plus, all of my outdoor cameras are available to my family - two of whom log on 24/7 with their own BI servers. That creates two off-site backups. All three of us (me, my brother, and my dad) do this with each others streams. We burn some bandwidth. Never a peep from VZ... I never did understand why the caps. That'd be like selling you a car that can do 100MPH, but only allowing it to do that for 1 hour total each month. If you pay for a certain diameter pipe, you should be able to fill it 24/7. That's just me.

Seems like you need to hit 10tb before they say anything http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Insider-Verizon-Caps-FiOS-at-10-TB-and-DSL-at-15-TB-133610....caps in general are a good thing. Otherwise the low bandwidth users end up subsidizing the bandwidth hogs. They should sell tiers of service. The problem to maximize profit they dont discount the low bandwidth users but simply increase the price to the high bandwidth user.

 

[erkme73]

Seems like you need to hit 10tb before they say anything http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Insider-Verizon-Caps-FiOS-at-10-TB-and-DSL-at-15-TB-133610....caps in general are a good thing. Otherwise the low bandwidth users end up subsidizing the bandwidth hogs. They should sell tiers of service. The problem to maximize profit they dont discount the low bandwidth users but simply increase the price to the high bandwidth user.

I know I've taken this OT, and I apologize to the OP...

In principle, I don't have an issue with caps either - if they're clearly defined. The problem is when carriers and providers market the data as "unlimited" but then in the fine print (or in VZ's case, not at all) have gotchas.

My thought is if you have a maximum speed, then you should be allowed to use that speed all the time. In other words, if I'm paying for 100mbsp up/down, and i used that full speed for a month, I would consume 32.4tB (100mbps = 12mB/s * 86400 (seconds in a day) x 30 (days)).

So by limiting the actual 'unlimited' consumption to 10tB, they're effectively saying you can only use 30% of the pipe you've purchased. If you're on Comcast, or other providers that have limits as low as 250gb/mo, that's a whopping 0.8% of your pipe.

If they're going to limit the amount of data you can have in a month, then why even bother with speed limits? Why not just charge for a block of data (like wireless carriers do)? Instead you're paying premium to get to the limit faster. They're getting the cake, icing, and eating it.

 

[fenderman]

I know I've taken this OT, and I apologize to the OP...

In principle, I don't have an issue with caps either - if they're clearly defined. The problem is when carriers and providers market the data as "unlimited" but then in the fine print (or in VZ's case, not at all) have gotchas.

My thought is if you have a maximum speed, then you should be allowed to use that speed all the time. In other words, if I'm paying for 100mbsp up/down, and i used that full speed for a month, I would consume 32.4tB (100mbps = 12mB/s * 86400 (seconds in a day) x 30 (days)).

So by limiting the actual 'unlimited' consumption to 10tB, they're effectively saying you can only use 30% of the pipe you've purchased. If you're on Comcast, or other providers that have limits as low as 250gb/mo, that's a whopping 0.8% of your pipe.

If they're going to limit the amount of data you can have in a month, then why even bother with speed limits? Why not just charge for a block of data (like wireless carriers do)? Instead you're paying premium to get to the limit faster. They're getting the cake, icing, and eating it.

You are correct, they should not sell it as unlimited. They should be selling both the speed and the total data. Each of these effects cost and the power user who hog it should pay more.

 

[nbstl68]

Wow, I wish I even had the chance to have some of these problems...my only provider option is CenturyLink...they know it, they give us only absolute min bandwidth and rip us off for it.
My max Down is 4Mbps and my max up is 0.5.
So I guess I am screwed when it comes to viewing cams remotely?
I can view my one little foscam ptz on my cell. It looks good on such a tiny screen but try to use the ptz and there is nice lag.
Cannot imagine being able to use something like BI remotely to see and control several cams at once!
"First world problems" we all have, huh?


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[nbstl68]

...and they charge me S$50 A month for this!

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[fenderman]

Wow, I wish I even had the chance to have some of these problems...my only provider option is CenturyLink...they know it, they give us only absolute min bandwidth and rip us off for it.
My max Down is 4Mbps and my max up is 0.5.
So I guess I am screwed when it comes to viewing cams remotely?
I can view my one little foscam ptz on my cell. It looks good on such a tiny screen but try to use the ptz and there is nice lag.
Cannot imagine being able to use something like BI remotely to see and control several cams at once!
"First world problems" we all have, huh?


Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk

blue iris lets you limit the bandwidth on the webserver so it will work, but the image will not be the greatest.

 

[erkme73]

Wow, I wish I even had the chance to have some of these problems...my only provider option is CenturyLink...they know it, they give us only absolute min bandwidth and rip us off for it.
My max Down is 4Mbps and my max up is 0.5.
So I guess I am screwed when it comes to viewing cams remotely?
I can view my one little foscam ptz on my cell. It looks good on such a tiny screen but try to use the ptz and there is nice lag.
Cannot imagine being able to use something like BI remotely to see and control several cams at once!
"First world problems" we all have, huh?


Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk

@nbstl68, you won't have any issues viewing your BI remotely - even with a paltry 500kbps upload speed. I'm not far behind you with the DSL service at my vacation home. It's 4 down, 1 up.

I don't know how familiar you are with BI settings, but if you configure the webserver stream limit to, say 256kbps, you'll be able to view the cameras through BI with reasonable quality. You can set the limit as high as your max upload speed, but that leaves no additional overhead for other network devices or actions that require upload capability.

In my case, I have the webserver set to 256kbps for stream 2, 512kbps for stream 1, and unlimited for stream 0. When I'm at the home and on the local LAN, I use stream 0. When I'm logged in remotely on my phone (to preserve cell data) I use stream 2. When I'm remote on a PC, I use stream 1.

This allows the server to provide the correct bandwidth based on each scenario. 256 won't be crystal clear, but it'll be plenty fluid enough to see what's going on.

 

[Robert D.]

to larebear would you be willing to share the setup you used to view your mother house.?? Thanks

 

[Larebear]

to larebear would you be willing to share the setup you used to view your mother house.?? Thanks

I had 5 cameras at my mom's house, 4 of them running wireless and one through a PLA (power line adapter). My mom passed away last December so I removed two of the cameras, but still have 3 (wireless) installed for security.

I have Blue Iris running on my main PC at my house and I stream the video/audio from the 3 cameras 24/7 to my B.I. over the internet. It works great and I don't have any problems other than it taking a large amount of bandwidth. With the 5 cameras I was streaming about 2.5 to 3.0 terabytes a month. Comcast didn't like that so much but since I've cut back to 3 cameras, they haven't complained.