Day / Night profile switching

[fnhanks]

I want to confirm my understanding here, as I've been struggling in trying to get my new PTZ cameras working in switching between day/night profiles. My 5442 cameras have a "Day/Night" profile under "Profile Management". This seemed like a very basic/obvious feature where I could configure different exposure settings for the day/night profiles and it would switch automatically between the profiles based on ambient light.

I have 3x PTZ cameras that have both the old firmware, and the new version of firmware, and neither of them have a "day/night" profile or the profiles section altogether.

I did come across this other post here: T54IR-ZE-S3 Proper way to set auto IR for inside use? Day/night Switch, Customized Scene, BI PTZ presets day/night

So is this really the case? These cameras can't actually switch between profiles? These are indoor cameras, so doing this on a schedule won't work, as it's variable depending on when lights come on or off. I had assumed that since this option existed on all my 5442 cameras it would exist on all the other Dahua cameras.

 

[wittaj]

You will find that there is no consistency.

Generally the older cameras day/night did not work as we would expect them to and behaved like that thread you posted. Real pain in the butt.

The newer GUI seems to work like we would expect. But not all of the cameras have the day/night switch either.

Since you are using them indoors, I would just run one profile with ranges for shutter, etc.

 

[fnhanks]

On my 5442's the day/night functionality works flawlessly, both indoors and outdoors. I've never had an issue. So it definitely can be done, it just seems like Dahua is moving away from it, which is frustrating and will most likely cause me to start looking around.

I had planned on moving one outside. Given that, is the only way to use the external utility to track sunrise to have it switch between profiles? A single profile outdoors won't work.

 

[wittaj]

Which PTZs and which browser are you using?

The PTZs in particular can be more browser dependent- I have several Dahua models and they all have profiles.

 

[fnhanks]

I have 1x PTZ1A4M-4X-S2 and 2x PTZ425DB-AT.

I'm using chrome to configure everything. To clarify, they all have profiles, it's just that none of these have a way to switch between profiles other than a basic schedule which is insufficient.

At this point, I'm going to have to potentially use my 5442s to query when they switch profiles and then script it to go change the profiles for my outdoor PTZs, and most likely either use LUX sensors in the indoor cameras, or poll via RTSP to grab images, get the ADL of a frame, and then change the profiles. Both of these are absolutely ridiculous that I have to do, but if that's the only way to match what a $20 ring camera can do, then I guess that's what I have to do.

 

[Mike A.]

My SD4A425DB has day/night (and a bunch of other profiles) and seems to switch over fine just using the sensor. It also has the newer "Time Plan Settings" schedule with lots of options. I don't recall having any problems with that one as far as switching. Or maybe I'm not understanding what you're wanting to do. Switch programmatically?

 

[wittaj]

Try Internet Explorer (yeah we know lol but it is still native in Win10 and Win11) and opens up more access than chrome will. The PTZs are sensitive to browser.

 

[fnhanks]

My SD4A425DB has day/night (and a bunch of other profiles) and seems to switch over fine just using the sensor. It also has the newer "Time Plan Settings" schedule with lots of options. I don't recall having any problems with that one as far as switching. Or maybe I'm not understanding what you're wanting to do. Switch programmatically?

The camera has all the profiles, but how do you have it configured to actually switch profiles automatically based on luminance, NOT scheduling? Are you referring to this setting (screenshot below)? As this has nothing to do with profile changing based on my understanding and the documentation.

 

[fnhanks]

Tried both cameras via internet explorer (not edge) and the settings unfortunately are the same. No option to have an auto-changing profile:

 

[Mike A.]

In the first case, if you leave it set as you show, that should auto-switch between Day and Night profiles with their respective image, exposure, and other settings based on ambient light. Whether it actually works or not in the case of a given cam/firmware/etc. is another thing. If not or you want something different, you can click on Time Plan Settings below and set up a time-based schedule to switch the profiles between day/night and a bunch of new choices.

In the second case, yeah, that's confusing and again kind of works or not depending on the cam/firmware/etc. Some cams have another selection for Day/Night at the end of those Profile Management choices that you'd pick. Without that, to operate so that it auto-switches, you set it to General. Otherwise, you'd set up a schedule or in some particular cases you might run it full time on day or night settings.

That's how it's supposed to work anyway. In some cases it just doesn't. Which is why there are some ways that people use to change it programmatically. I'd have to test mine again to be sure, but I don't recall doing anything special for the SD4A425DB. I don't have the other PTZ to test. I do have several others that just don't work for whatever reason that I have to force to switch with a schedule or BI or bp's utility.

 

[Vettester]

That's how it's supposed to work anyway. In some cases it just doesn't. Which is why there are some ways that people use to change it programmatically. I'd have to test mine again to be sure, but I don't recall doing anything special for the SD4A425DB. I don't have the other PTZ to test. I do have several others that just don't work for whatever reason that I have to force to switch with a schedule or BI or bp's utility.

I use my home automation to send API commands to my cameras based on an outdoor illuminance sensor. It's been working really well for quite some time now.

 

[Mike A.]

Yeah, I've done the same with Home Assistant and illuminance from motion sensors. Lots of ways to do it. But to the OP's point, kind of a basic feature and you shouldn't have to.

 

[observant1]

Tried both cameras via internet explorer (not edge) and the settings unfortunately are the same. No option to have an auto-changing profile:
View attachment 210108

the 4min :20sec mark if you don't want to watch it all....but you might as well........

 

[fnhanks]

In the first case, if you leave it set as you show, that should auto-switch between Day and Night profiles with their respective image, exposure, and other settings based on ambient light. Whether it actually works or not in the case of a given cam/firmware/etc. is another thing. If not or you want something different, you can click on Time Plan Settings below and set up a time-based schedule to switch the profiles between day/night and a bunch of new choices.

In the second case, yeah, that's confusing and again kind of works or not depending on the cam/firmware/etc. Some cams have another selection for Day/Night at the end of those Profile Management choices that you'd pick. Without that, to operate so that it auto-switches, you set it to General. Otherwise, you'd set up a schedule or in some particular cases you might run it full time on day or night settings.

That's how it's supposed to work anyway. In some cases it just doesn't. Which is why there are some ways that people use to change it programmatically. I'd have to test mine again to be sure, but I don't recall doing anything special for the SD4A425DB. I don't have the other PTZ to test. I do have several others that just don't work for whatever reason that I have to force to switch with a schedule or BI or bp's utility.

Isn't "general" just another profile, just like "day" and "night"? The way you wrote it, you make it sound like "general" is equivalent to the "day/night" profile that the non-PTZ cameras have, but when configuring profiles you can actually select a "general" profile instead of a day or night profile, which leads me to believe this is just a standard profile.

I use my home automation to send API commands to my cameras based on an outdoor illuminance sensor. It's been working really well for quite some time now.

Yeah, I've done the same with Home Assistant and illuminance from motion sensors. Lots of ways to do it. But to the OP's point, kind of a basic feature and you shouldn't have to.

So I don't have to rebuild this from scratch, can you share what you've built? Is this some general automation or NodeRed flow? Even just sharing the scripts/snippets would be really helpful.

the 4min :20sec mark if you don't want to watch it all....but you might as well........

No, this is not doing what I'm asking. This applies an IR filter within the camera or forces it to be in color. It has absolutely nothing to do with actually switching between the "day" or the "night" profile. This is really only useful if you have a single profile, like general, where you want it to cutover from color to black/white WITHIN the same profile. I want to switch between profiles entirely.

 

[Vettester]

So I don't have to rebuild this from scratch, can you share what you've built? Is this some general automation or NodeRed flow? Even just sharing the scripts/snippets would be really helpful.

I'm using home assistant for most of my automation stuff and I also have a Hubitat C5 . I use the HE z-wave and zigbee controllers to add devices to HA and to create aome of my automations. Here's how I'm controlling the cameras through Hubitat.

The automation is using all three camera profiles with the general profile being used when illuminance is between 50 and 3500. This works well for dusk and dawn scenarios or when the sky is heavily overcast.

 

[Mike A.]

Isn't "general" just another profile, just like "day" and "night"?

So I don't have to rebuild this from scratch, can you share what you've built? Is this some general automation or NodeRed flow? Even just sharing the scripts/snippets would be really helpful.

Yeah, thinking about it again I believe you're right re the General profile. I was thinking that kept the exposure and other settings when auto-changed on some of my cams without the day/night but looking again I don't think so.

I'm doing something different now but see this thread. I think that's what I used to get started:

Thread 'Home Assistant? Dahua cameras? Wanna switch day/night profiles?'

Jan 11, 2021

Here's the thread at the Home Assistant community forum, in the 'Scripts' sub-forum:

Dahua cameras - switch between Day and Night video profiles

Rather than using the ‘sun’ integration with ‘sunrise’ and ‘sunset’ events, or trying to offset these events by some fixed amount, I use an ESPHome sensor built from a Wemos D1 Mini (ESP8266) and a BH1750 ambient light sensor. This sensor is located in a window on the south side of my home...

community.home-assistant.io

It's a BASH shell script that runs on the Home Assistant system.
It uses a Wemos D1 Mini with a BH1750 ambient light sensor in ESPHome to know WHEN to switch.
A Home Assistant 'automation' triggers the BASH script to run.
Worst part of this setup is the cameras.dat text file, and it's not so difficult, just tedious.
If anyone knows how to extract camera info from Blue Iris programmatically, I'd be...

• VorlonFrog
• Replies: 0
• Forum: Home Automation

 

[fnhanks]

I'm using home assistant for most of my automation stuff and I also have a Hubitat C5 . I use the HE z-wave and zigbee controllers to add devices to HA and to create aome of my automations. Here's how I'm controlling the cameras through Hubitat.
View attachment 210116
The automation is using all three camera profiles with the general profile being used when illuminance is between 50 and 3500. This works well for dusk and dawn scenarios or when the sky is heavily overcast.

Yeah, thinking about it again I believe you're right re the General profile. I was thinking that kept the exposure and other settings when auto-changed on some of my cams without the day/night but looking again I don't think so.

I'm doing something different now but see this thread. I think that's what I used to get started:

Thread 'Home Assistant? Dahua cameras? Wanna switch day/night profiles?'

Jan 11, 2021

Here's the thread at the Home Assistant community forum, in the 'Scripts' sub-forum:

Dahua cameras - switch between Day and Night video profiles

Rather than using the ‘sun’ integration with ‘sunrise’ and ‘sunset’ events, or trying to offset these events by some fixed amount, I use an ESPHome sensor built from a Wemos D1 Mini (ESP8266) and a BH1750 ambient light sensor. This sensor is located in a window on the south side of my home...

community.home-assistant.io

It's a BASH shell script that runs on the Home Assistant system.
It uses a Wemos D1 Mini with a BH1750 ambient light sensor in ESPHome to know WHEN to switch.
A Home Assistant 'automation' triggers the BASH script to run.
Worst part of this setup is the cameras.dat text file, and it's not so difficult, just tedious.
If anyone knows how to extract camera info from Blue Iris programmatically, I'd be...

• VorlonFrog
• Replies: 0
• Forum: Home Automation

These both are incredibly helpful. Thanks!

 

[Mike A.]

Also maybe of interest, see here for bp's utility and how to use BI to change profiles based on sunrise/sunset:

Thread 'Dahua day/night switch utility - DahuaSunriseSunset'

Mar 29, 2017

I wanted to use stronger noise reduction at night and weaker during the day, but Dahua seems to have made a mess of the profile management. On most cameras, there doesn't seem to be a way to have the camera switch automatically between Day and Night profiles when the camera changes between "Color" and "Black & White" mode.

The Profile Management tab has a "Normal" mode which is evidently supposed to do this (IPC/Camera Configuration - Dahua Wiki). But I just tried it. It doesn't do that at all. Choosing "Normal" just makes the camera use a third profile, which is neither...

• bp2008
• Replies: 684
• Forum: Dahua

•