Control4 with Empire tech cams

[Jayman76]

Hi all

Has anyone integrated Empire Tech cams to Control4? I have their NVR and IPC-Color4K-T 3.6mm cams. Not sure what drivers to use and if any tweaking to get HD picture? Also if anyone in the NY long island area knows a good installer?

 

[The Automation Guy]

I don't use Control4, but I do use an automation system at my house. I also use BlueIris for my cameras. I use MQTT to integrate the two systems. BI has excellent trigger functionality built in and MQTT is one of the output options, so as long as the automation system can react to MQTT commands, it is really easy to integrate the two systems.

That being said, I only have one scenario that I've integrated. I have the system turn on my front porch light if: it's night, the front porch is currently off, and the front porch camera triggers from motion (camera based AI trigger on "people"). It turns off again after 5 minutes if the home alarm is armed night. Obviously I could accomplish the same thing with some sort of motion floodlight, but honestly this was easier and visually more appealing.

I really cannot think of any other scenarios that are important to me. Obviously one would be to set a BI profile based on the alarm status. For example I might record only outside cameras when the alarm is disarmed, and inside and outside cameras when the alarm is armed, but I don't have any inside cameras that I don't want recording 24/7.

I'm curious to hear what scenarios you see yourself integrating the cameras into the automation system. Maybe you'll have an idea that I haven't thought about!

EDIT - I will say that I have the CCTV cameras showing on my automation GUI. That's just using streaming ip addresses however, not really "integration" in my opinion.

 

[Jayman76]

I don't use Control4, but I do use an automation system at my house. I also use BlueIris for my cameras. I use MQTT to integrate the two systems. BI has excellent trigger functionality built in and MQTT is one of the output options, so as long as the automation system can react to MQTT commands, it is really easy to integrate the two systems.

That being said, I only have one scenario that I've integrated. I have the system turn on my front porch light if: it's night, the front porch is currently off, and the front porch camera triggers from motion (camera based AI trigger on "people"). It turns off again after 5 minutes if the home alarm is armed night. Obviously I could accomplish the same thing with some sort of motion floodlight, but honestly this was easier and visually more appealing.

I really cannot think of any other scenarios that are important to me. Obviously one would be to set a BI profile based on the alarm status. For example I might record only outside cameras when the alarm is disarmed, and inside and outside cameras when the alarm is armed, but I don't have any inside cameras that I don't want recording 24/7.

I'm curious to hear what scenarios you see yourself integrating the cameras into the automation system. Maybe you'll have an idea that I haven't thought about!

EDIT - I will say that I have the CCTV cameras showing on my automation GUI. That's just using streaming ip addresses however, not really "integration" in my opinion.

That's great info so thanks! Yeah I will talk to a few installers see if they can get something like that to work with Control4. I was thinking of a similar situation that you are doing. I need to think it through more on exactly what I want to do. Right now I'm just trying to accomplish having everything on one system to control easily. ( lights outside and inside, thermostats, locks, cameras and Sonos)

I did get from Andy at EmpireTech this wiki I believe this is the manufacturer who private labels his cams. They do have a Control4 driver listed under 3rd party on this page link below. But I see the driver says. Control4 can only support up to 720P for video streaming or snapshot from IP cameras, so the customer will need to contact their regional TC for getting customized firmware for the IP cameras. So we will see Hopefully I find a tech good enought to figure out a good solution. I'm not a tech person so much besides basic so it's hard for me to understand it all.

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