Implementing temporary alert pause based on external

[AGPharmD]

One annoyance I have is that every time I pull into or leave my garage, I receive an alert. I would otherwise want an alert from this camera.

Considering I rarely ever leave my garage doors open, I was thinking about integrating them with Blue Iris. I have a longer than most driveway and typically hit the button before come within view of the camera.

So either with sensors on the door or or a relay on the motors, if the door is opened (by remote or button) a trigger would be communicated and BI would pause alerts (at least on that camera) for say 20-30 seconds, so I don’t receive an unnecessary messages. Just enough time to get in/out of the garage.

My primary question is what would be the easiest method to accomplish this? If my camera had I/O capabilities could an input trigger potentially be used to signal a profile or shield change in BI?

I suppose there’s an IoT way of going about this but that’s something I’m not familiar with in relation to BI and customized programming. Not to say I couldn’t teach myself.

Or does anyone have other methods they’ve used or ideas to accomplish a similar goal?

I haven’t gone down the AI route- maybe I’m totally wrong but it seems too experimental at this point for me to want to deal with. Perhaps one day I expect it’ll be easy enough for the system to learn my cars and ignore them. Recognizing my lawn guy’s mower to ignore and the pool technician’s van to temporarily pause notifications for the pool cameras would be amazing.

 

[wittaj]

If you have a camera in the garage, you could certainly have it change profile on being triggered.

Depending on the make/model and field of view, you could set up an IVS rule for any movement around the garage, and then set up another rule that would only trigger when the garage door is opened and have it be that.

Or you could use a Shelly I/O device - @TonyR recommends those.

If your field of view allows your plates to be read in the driveway, you can certainly put in plates to tell the cameras to not notify.

 

[TonyR]

+1^^
I use Shelly 1-UL Wi-Fi switches to input door status to Blue Iris or to receive an output from a BI condition or action.

Recommendations for door/motion sensors in a BI enviroment

I'm having insufferable analysis paralysis and I'm hoping ya'll can point me in the right (any!) direction! :) I'm a BI user at home, bought a cabin and just want to know if I closed all the dang doors at the cabin to appease my paranoia. Temp, water, motion sensors, smart door locks would be...

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What a great idea - garage roller door - wireless reed switch and door hinge

I installed a wireless alarm system and have wireless reed switches on every entry/exit door except my garage roller door. When I purchased the system, many months ago, I was told the system did not have a garage roller door reed switch, period. As I now know, that was the knowledge base...

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[jaydeel]

For arrivals, you could also try sending the following HTTP interface command to your garage/driveway cams when your device enters your geofence. Or do it manually by touching a URL link icon on your device’s screen.


It will accept camera group names for x. And if you want a duration different than listed , you can send multiple commands. Like n=2 then n=10 for a 20 minute pause.

EDIT: You do have some control over what happens when you use the Pause setting… you probably just want to check ‘Disable alerts’. I’d uncheck the ‘Disable recording’ setting.

 

[jaydeel]

Because I live in a neighborhood I prefer to leave my driveway cameras unpaused when departing. This is just in case anything happens while I’m backing out of the garage - I want to alert the event. For example, a speeding car, or a child zooming down the sidewalk behind the car.

This is probably not a concern if your house is in a rural location and you don’t have children that play in the area.

 

[AGPharmD]

If you have a camera in the garage, you could certainly have it change profile on being triggered.

Depending on the make/model and field of view, you could set up an IVS rule for any movement around the garage, and then set up another rule that would only trigger when the garage door is opened and have it be that.

Or you could use a Shelly I/O device - @TonyR recommends those.

If your field of view allows your plates to be read in the driveway, you can certainly put in plates to tell the cameras to not notify.

Thanks! I considered that the idea of having an indoor garage camera to dictate the profile/alerts but also was considering one for general security purposes. It seems there might be some conflicting logic there (motion disables driveway alerts vs wanting alerts for indoor motion when away)… though I suppose multiple cameras could resolve that.

I’m curious if you (or anyone) has experience with license plate identification. I know this is an option but something I haven’t read into. I do know LPR capable cameras tend to be pretty expensive (esp from the non-Chinese brands). I know BI has LPR and AI plug-ins, but I get the sense this requires tinkering and maybe not the most reliable results. Most significantly, I think placement would likely be an issue and I’m curious how well this works with low light, glare, etc.

Another idea I had was either using an “AI” enabled to camera or having a car sized object detection area. If I can set up an alerts so that the car/object must be present for X seconds in the driveway (longer than it takes to pull my car in/out) that would indicate a visitor vehicle is present since I basically never park outside.

 

[looney2ns]

New to LPR? Considerations Before You Begin | IP Cam Talk

 

[wittaj]

Thanks! I considered that the idea of having an indoor garage camera to dictate the profile/alerts but also was considering one for general security purposes. It seems there might be some conflicting logic there (motion disables driveway alerts vs wanting alerts for indoor motion when away)… though I suppose multiple cameras could resolve that.

I’m curious if you (or anyone) has experience with license plate identification. I know this is an option but something I haven’t read into. I do know LPR capable cameras tend to be pretty expensive (esp from the non-Chinese brands). I know BI has LPR and AI plug-ins, but I get the sense this requires tinkering and maybe not the most reliable results. Most significantly, I think placement would likely be an issue and I’m curious how well this works with low light, glare, etc.

Another idea I had was either using an “AI” enabled to camera or having a car sized object detection area. If I can set up an alerts so that the car/object must be present for X seconds in the driveway (longer than it takes to pull my car in/out) that would indicate a visitor vehicle is present since I basically never park outside.

Any good camera can be set up to read plates. It comes down to focal length, distance to plate, angle, and shutter speed. I have a $120ish Dahua OEM camera capturing plates and I am using a $250ish Dahua OEM for the other direction at a longer distance.

You would have to set the camera up specifically to read plates. You need the proper camera with OPTICAL zoom for the distance you are covering and the angle to get plates.

Regarding plates, keep in mind that this is a camera dedicated to plates and not an overview camera also. It is as much an art as it is a science. You will need two cameras. For LPR we need to OPTICALLY zoom in tight to make the plate as large as possible. For most of us, all you see is the not much more than a vehicle in the entire frame. Now maybe in the right location during the day it might be able to see some other things, but not at night.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night of vehicles traveling about 45MPH at 175 feet from my 2MP 5241-Z12E camera (that is all that is needed for plates):

See the LPR subforum for more details.


You could certainly use LPR to turn alerts off and on. Just remember that anything can be tricked. There are folks here that use LPR to open and close their garage door - personally I would never go that far.

I think your last option about a car being in spot for so many seconds is probably a safer choice.