OpenAlpr Watchmen help

Tash

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Hi Cam Pros

We are looking for a system to record all the car license plates that go through our carwash bay and record it to an access database or even a excel file, or even a system that allows us to count daily cars and search license plates.


Please kindly advise if this system, Watchman, can do this, and secondly, if yes, please kindly advise what specific hikvision cameras we would require with model numbers that Watchman works with, so we may purchase the required hardware.


We currently have a hikvision analogue DVR with CCTV, i am certain our system is very old and outdated, therefore we would like to upgrade to a system that can cater for Watchman.


Thank you in advance and looking forward to your response.
 

DLONG2

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The OpenALPR services are for IP cameras. They offer a free Watchman tier which retains data in their cloud for 2 days. You could then build some custom applications to automate the download and importation of their cloud data into your own standalone database, and query, view and quantify the plates per day.

Check out this thread on building your own Visual Studio LPR plate retention and query applications:

 

d.lux

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Hi again @DLONG2

I can't seem to figure out the "free watchman tier"...

It appears this service is now a thing of the past?
 

DLONG2

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Hmm. When I signed up a year ago they didn't have this Watchman plan; it was just a Cloud API where you install their software on the local PC, and tag the IP camera, and it sends images through the cloud for accounting of plates. It allowed for 2 days of plate retention, and still does. I looked at my dashboard and it says I am on the Trial Plan, which allows for "50 API recognitions per month for free". But the dashboard also has a CSV file download link, and that is where I am getting the records from.
 

d.lux

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I had to re-register with a different e-mail to "get a new trial", but when my first e-mail hit the end of the trial, I could see the agent log filling up with something to the affect of "expired license"...

I'll let this new email trial expire and see what happens, but I know I will need more than 50 API recognitions per month as I would guess I see 50 to 100 cars per day down my street...

Thanks again for the input...
 

DLONG2

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I had to re-register with a different e-mail to "get a new trial", but when my first e-mail hit the end of the trial, I could see the agent log filling up with something to the affect of "expired license"...

I'll let this new email trial expire and see what happens, but I know I will need more than 50 API recognitions per month as I would guess I see 50 to 100 cars per day down my street...

Thanks again for the input...
Same with my street, 100 cars a day, and I can capture them all using the CSV downloads, with my 'expired trial commercial version'. It's not clear what a 'recognition' actually means, it might just be a plate which is marked for special alerts. As long as you can log in and download the full CSV file then all should be well.
 
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