How can I improve my recording-only IP cam setup?

[freshes]

So I've set up a PC with Blue Iris on it, which is connected to the 3 IP cams around the perimeter of our house:




I'm away from the house for months at a time and this gives me a chance to log in remotely and see whether everything looks okay / house is still there. It means that if I come home and the place has been burgled, or if I spot something amiss remotely, I can trawl back through the recorded footage and try to locate footage of the incident.

I would have liked it to alert me if someone comes but I've had zero luck with the motion sensing features due to the (1) very frequent wind combined with the (2) vegetation (and their shadows) that moves constantly in the wind and (3) at night the insects numbers are INSANE and attracted by the IR light.

Any suggestions on what I could do to improve my set up?
Maybe some other feature I could try setting up in Blue Iris?
Maybe something else ?

 

[fenderman]

So I've set up a PC with Blue Iris on it, which is connected to the 3 IP cams around the perimeter of our house:

View attachment 34436


I'm away from the house for months at a time and this gives me a chance to log in remotely and see whether everything looks okay / house is still there. It means that if I come home and the place has been burgled, or if I spot something amiss remotely, I can trawl back through the recorded footage and try to locate footage of the incident.

I would have liked it to alert me if someone comes but I've had zero luck with the motion sensing features due to the (1) very frequent wind combined with the (2) vegetation (and their shadows) that moves constantly in the wind and (3) at night the insects numbers are INSANE and attracted by the IR light.

Any suggestions on what I could do to improve my set up?
Maybe some other feature I could try setting up in Blue Iris?
Maybe something else ?

Yes an alarm system. This is a must. They are cheap.
You have to read the help file and watch the tutorials on motion detection and zone crossing as well as integrating pir.

 

[freshes]

Yes an alarm system. This is a must. They are cheap.

Ah..of course!

So maybe put something like this inside the house, which presumably will send me an email notification if movement is detected inside the house, at which point I can log into Blue Iris remotely and take a look at the live feed / recently recorded footage and see what is going on.

Have I understood correctly?

 

[FoulFoot]

A smart hub (I use a Samsung Smartthings) can help with this, but there's a steep learning curve to getting it to do exactly what you want it to do. For starters, you'd set up door sensors to detect any exterior door opening, which would then trigger BlueIris to start recording the camera covering that door. You can use each camera's "pre-trigger recording buffer" setting to back up the recording to before the door opens, say 10 secs or so, but this will use more processing power.

My front door camera catches a lot of blowing vegetation, shadows, and bugs too, so I found a good workaround: mounting a motion sensor (PIR) underneath the roof eave above the front door, pointed straight down. Something physically approaches the door, the motion sensor notifies the smart hub, which triggers BlueIris to record that camera. Zero false alarms since.

Foul

 

[fenderman]

Ah..of course!

So maybe put something like this inside the house, which presumably will send me an email notification if movement is detected inside the house, at which point I can log into Blue Iris remotely and take a look at the live feed / recently recorded footage and see what is going on.

Have I understood correctly?

no, get a real alarm system that will sound an alarm and call authorities.

 

[freshes]

No I don't want an alarm sounded or the authorities called, I just want to know if someone might be in my house, so that I can check out the footage and see what's going on. I can notify the authorities myself if I decide it is the right thing to do.

A smart hub (I use a Samsung Smartthings) can help with this

I'm happy to keep it simple and just record 24/7, so I won't need something to trigger a camera / Blue Iris. If I just want to get an email sent, do either of you know if there are other options besides these wireless things like the D-Link one I mentioned above? I'd prefer to mount a sensor in the ceiling or corner of the room and just connect it via cable to my PC or router. Do such things exist?

 

[freshes]

no, get a real alarm system that will sound an alarm and call authorities.

 

[fenderman]

No I don't want an alarm sounded or the authorities called, I just want to know if someone might be in my house, so that I can check out the footage and see what's going on. I can notify the authorities myself if I decide it is the right thing to do.



I'm happy to keep it simple and just record 24/7, so I won't need something to trigger a camera / Blue Iris. If I just want to get an email sent, do either of you know if there are other options besides these wireless things like the D-Link one I mentioned above? I'd prefer to mount a sensor in the ceiling or corner of the room and just connect it via cable to my PC or router. Do such things exist?

Yes because you're always around your cell phone... And the internet connection is always.... Pretty foolish for a place you don't visit often....