Hikvision Cam and iVMS-4500 alert question

[houdini1]

Hi all,

I recently purchased a Hikvision DS-2CD2132 3MP IP cam to test out. Ultimately I'm looking to install 5 or 6 IP cams to cover the outside of my house, but I'm still in the process of researching and am a ways out on deciding on storage/software solutions (currently leaning towards a hikvision NVR though).

For now, I'm just getting a basic setup going with a single camera to test out the waters. I've set the cam to record motion directly to a micro SD card. It's all working for the most part, but I have 2 questions for the kind experts of this forum:

1 - iVMS-4500: I've installed the client on my iPhone and it (mostly) works well. I can access live view, remote playback, and receive push notifications. However, the "alarm" section never shows any events. From what I understand, this section of the app is supposed to show the events in a chronological list and give the option to play the recorded clip for each event. Has anyone gotten this to work? See below screenshots - this is what I'm seeing (ie nothing, lol):





2. It seems like the motion alerts are crazy sensitive. The default sensitivity setting is 60 and I've lowered it down to 40, but I still get phantom alerts all the time. Even a tiny particle of dust in the air will set it off. I guess I'll try lowing it down to 20 and see if that helps, but other camera's (mostly consumer stuff like dropcams and the like) were significantly better at detecting real activity at default settings.

Honestly, #1 above is more important to me. Ultimately, I probably won't set the camera's to send alerts since that will be handled by a future security system w/ PIR detectors, but I would like to be able to remotely pull up a list of motion events and quickly view the clip without having to use the horrible timeline/scrubber in the remote playback section of the app. This seems like it should be basic functionality for any surveillance software. Any thoughts?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Securame]

1. You need to activate "notify surveillance center" on the camera configuration, on the events you want notified via push notification to your mobile.
And then you need to hit "set alarm notification" on iVMS-4500, and activate the alerts on a given device.

2. Those are the wonders of video movement detection. You WILL get false alerts.

 

[houdini1]

Thank you Securame! Regarding notifications - I have "notify surveillance center" enabled on the camera, and I've also enabled "set alarm notification" within the iVMS-4500 app. This all works and I receive push notifications without a problem. What doesn't work, however, is the "Alarm" screen of the app (see screenshot in my original post). It's just a blank page, even after I receive push notifications alerting me to motion events. I believe the purpose of this screen is to show any recent motion activity, and allow me to watch the specific clip, but it's not working for me. Currently, the only way I can view recorded motion clips is by using the "remote playback" screen, which is a multi-step process (select date and time range, select camera, scroll through a long timeline, etc.) and in general is just cumbersome to use.

Does anyone here use iVMS-4500 on a regular basis, and if so, are you able to view a list of alerts on the "Alarm" page within the app? I'm wondering if maybe this functionality is only supported if I'm using a hikvision NVR or something...

Thanks again for any help!

 

[Securame]

If you think that sucks on your iPhone, you should try it with Android

Yes, the "Alarm" section shows you the notifications you receive. I don't have an iPhone, so I can not help you there.

With Android; the push notifications show up on the notification bar. When you open the alarm section, there is nothing there. Then you pull down the notification bar, touch the notification, and it will show on the alarm section. There is a link to the video, and you can choose to see the recording from the event, or live video. When you close iVMS-4500 and go in again, well, the notification are all gone.

So push notifications suck big time, and it has been like this for at least a couple of years. When I did try with an iPhone, it was better than with Android. I have no idea what they might have changed over time.

Oh, I can also tell you that sometime ago, push notifications started working with chinese cameras, I guess they changed something on iVMS-4500, but when I tried to turn on the alarm on a camera that had a chinese s/n it just timed out. With world region cameras I have never had any problems.

 

[houdini1]

Thanks Securame, out of curiosity are you recording to an SD card, or an NVR? It sounds like the experience sucks on both iOS and android. Reliability of push notifications doesn't frustrate me as much since that can be fixed eventually by adding a PIR sensor I imagine, but not being able to view a list of alerts/clips from the app is disappointing. I know it's *supposed* to work, I've seen screenshots or video demo's online (but of course I can't find them now), but it just doesn't work in it's current state... Hmmm....

 

[Securame]

I have used both; when using IP camera with integrated micro SD memory card, you will get the link on the "Alarms" section to be able to quickly playback the recording of the event. When using DVR/NVR, it depends on the firmware, but you will usually NOT have a shortcut to playback the recording of the event.

 

[houdini1]

I have used both; when using IP camera with integrated micro SD memory card, you will get the link on the "Alarms" section to be able to quickly playback the recording of the event. When using DVR/NVR, it depends on the firmware, but you will usually NOT have a shortcut to playback the recording of the event.

On iOS I don't get a link on the Alarms section anyways. I have no way to quickly playback the recording of the event, other than to use the "remote playback" section of the app (which is not quick).

Good to know that an NVR most likely won't solve this. I'll need to keep digging. I know blue iris does what I need, but I'm a little hesitate to add the expense and complexity of adding a PC to the equation.

Anyways, thanks for your help!

 

[Securame]

An NVR will just make it more difficult. I find that "push" with single IP cameras with SD is quite ok to use, it used to be OK on iPhone and not so ok with Android.

With an NVR it is usually worse, you get the alerts, but then you have to manually go to playback to find the recording, check the device you want, from/to date and time, etc... Push notifications are way better with Dahua