How to implement day, night, and away Blue Iris profiles with a geofence.
If you have struggled with this, as I did, perhaps this summary of instructions will help. This is not intended to be a full Blue Iris tutorial and I suggest YouTube videos by HomeTech Video and others for learning more about profiles and schedules. Nonetheless, I think this tutorial might help you successfully implement this.
Concepts to understand.
It is confusing at first to understand how Blue Iris profiles and schedules work and are interrelated.
Profiles: Each profile is a set of conditions which can selectively be applied to camera settings and other settings. Most settings can be linked to one or more profiles. So, when a profile is active, the conditions set in that profile are active. Only one profile is active at a time.
Schedules: Schedules divide a week by the day, hour, and even minute. Profiles are applied to each division of time, be it the whole day, or just a few minutes of one day per week. For example, from 9am to 5pm an “at-work” profile could apply. You can have multiple schedules but only one schedule is active at a time. While a give schedule is active, the profiles will automatically change based on the time of day and day of the week that you assigned to each profile.
The goal:
Bonus: If you need different settings during the day and night while away from home, add a fourth profile “Outside_Geofence_Night” and change your “Outside_Geofence” profile to “Outside_Geofence_Day”. Then divide up your “Away” schedule and assign the “Outside_Geofence _Day” and “Outside_Geofence_Night” profiles to the appropriate times within the “Away” schedule.
If you have struggled with this, as I did, perhaps this summary of instructions will help. This is not intended to be a full Blue Iris tutorial and I suggest YouTube videos by HomeTech Video and others for learning more about profiles and schedules. Nonetheless, I think this tutorial might help you successfully implement this.
Concepts to understand.
It is confusing at first to understand how Blue Iris profiles and schedules work and are interrelated.
Profiles: Each profile is a set of conditions which can selectively be applied to camera settings and other settings. Most settings can be linked to one or more profiles. So, when a profile is active, the conditions set in that profile are active. Only one profile is active at a time.
Schedules: Schedules divide a week by the day, hour, and even minute. Profiles are applied to each division of time, be it the whole day, or just a few minutes of one day per week. For example, from 9am to 5pm an “at-work” profile could apply. You can have multiple schedules but only one schedule is active at a time. While a give schedule is active, the profiles will automatically change based on the time of day and day of the week that you assigned to each profile.
The goal:
- When at home, we want one profile active during daylight hours, the “Daytime_at_home” profile, and another profile, the “Nighttime_at_home” profile, active during non-daylight hours.
- When away from home (outside your geofence), we want a separate profile active, the “Away” profile. This would be active during daylight or non-daylight hours. As long as you are away from home, this profile will be active.
- When returning from being away from home (reentering your geofence), the Day/Night, at home, settings are resumed.
- Create three profiles:
- Daytime_at_home
- Customize with settings you want while home during the day (for example, certain cameras are not active, or alerts are not active)
- Nighttime_at_home
- Customize with settings you want while home after dark (for example, certain cameras sensitivity is increased, or alerts are active)
- Outside_Geofence
- Customize with settings you want while away from home (for example, certain cameras are moved to different preset positions, or alerts are active)
- Daytime_at_home
- Create two schedules
- “Day_Night”
- Divide this schedule between daylight and non-daylight hours using the Daytime_at_home profile for daylight hours and the Nighttime_at_home profile for non-daylight hours.
- “Away”
- Do not divide this schedule. Assign all hours and days to the Away profile.
- While in the Schedule menu, enter your precise Latitude and Longitude. (You can use Google Maps web page to place a pin on your location then right click on that pin to see the exact lat/long to five decimal places.)
- “Day_Night”
- Use ZeroTier to allow VPN access to your Blue Iris server.
- Create ZeroTier account.
- Install ZeroTier on your Blue Iris computer.
- Return to ZeroTier to active an IP address for your Blue Iris computer.
- In Blue Iris settings, Web server tab, “Remove, external (WAN/Internet) access”, enter the ZeroTier IP address for your Blue Iris computer
- Similarly, install ZeroTier app on your cell phone.
- Pick your geofence software. You can use the Blue Iris phone app or use EgiGeoZone. While I use the Blue Iris Android app for remote access to our cameras, I found its geofence feature to be unreliable (as apparently many others have as well) (The iPhone app geofence feature seems to be reliable). Instead, I use EgiGeoZone on your phone to create and monitor my geofence.
- Load EgiGeoZone on phone and allow location and alert permissions.
- Create a geofence and set two “Server profiles”:
(xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx = your ZeroTier Blue Iris computer IP address)
(USERNAME = your Blue Iris user name with admin privledges)
(PASSWORD = password for this account) - URL zone entered:
- URL zone exited:
- Don’t forget to click the save icon at the bottom of the EgiGeoZone screen.
- Create a geofence and set two “Server profiles”:
- When using, be sure that in the ZeroTier One app on your phone, the network for your Blue Iris server is turned on. “Connected” then “Online” should appear at the bottom of the screen.
Bonus: If you need different settings during the day and night while away from home, add a fourth profile “Outside_Geofence_Night” and change your “Outside_Geofence” profile to “Outside_Geofence_Day”. Then divide up your “Away” schedule and assign the “Outside_Geofence _Day” and “Outside_Geofence_Night” profiles to the appropriate times within the “Away” schedule.