Recommendations for door/motion sensors in a BI enviroment

M

marty9876

n3wb
Nov 28, 2020
7
10
Minnesota
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 great - did I mention a garage is ~ 200' from the cabin (e.g. I'm assuming out of zwave range).

So I'm going to setup a local BI instance with cameras at the cabin because the camera quality there obviously exceeds Ring, Simplifi, Wyze and all that but... what do I do about door sensors? Just stick camera everywhere and be done with it? I'm trying to limit the mobile apps in play here, maybe having Ring and BI mobile isn't such a problem but if there is a way no to do it that's be awesome. Seems like it's either Ring + BI or <door smart lock> + BI at the very least. If that's the case - one approach recommended over the other?

Appreciate any input!
 
BI doesn't have any native, direct functions to monitor/control/report door and other sensor status as far as I know. It does have some capabilities to interface with various other systems via web calls, MQTT, etc. So, other than visual, you'd first need to have some other alarm/home automation system in place. Once you have that, you'll likely have better options than BI to directly monitor/control things. Though there still may be a variety of things that you may want to do between the two.

I use Home Assistant myself to do things like triggering a cam when a door or motion sensor is tripped, triggering a light when a camera senses motion, etc. It's great but kind of a lot to first jump into. My alarm system is completely separate. Probably could be better integrated in some way but I haven't done that. Rather than trying to have some single, centralized system that everything rolls up to, generally I tend to go more with the approach of playing to the strengths of whatever individual systems and using HA to manage/do things among them. I know that Ring has a good API but don't know enough about it to say how well it integrates with various other things like BI.
 
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+1^^ re: using HA with BI.

In the interim, Shelly devices can receive a hardwired input and then send an HTTP command to Blue Iris to trigger a cam, move a cam to a PTZ preset, change a cam's profile and likely more as those are the only 3 I've tried and used so far. There are Shelly motion, water and temp sensors as well.

Once an input is received by the Shelly device, Blue Iris, by using BI's macros, can also place an overlay text on the cam's video stating which device it is and what the condition it is, such as "GARAGE DOOR OPEN" ,etc.

Additionally, Blue Iris can send an HTTP command to a Shelly1 device to close a relay and turn on a light, sound an alarm and more with it's 15A-rated "dry" contact.

More recent Shelly devices such as the Shelly Pro 1 can communicate not only via Wi-Fi but also via Bluetooth and hardwired LAN. It provides one 16A-rated "dry" contact.

Forum member @jaydeel uses a Shelly motion detector to tell Blue Iris when his mailbox is opened ==>> Mailbox monitor using Shelly Wifi Motion sensor & Blue Iris

You can find a lot more detailed info in my post regarding Blue Iris and Shelly Input/Output here from July 2021. Be sure to download that post's attached PDF file for specific setup and configuration examples.==>> Simple Blue Iris I/O using Shelly1 Wi-Fi Devices

Below are HTTP commands I've used successfully, allowing the Shelly device to provide input to Blue Iris.

TRIGGER
Trigger camera x (x = camera's short name)
http://BI-server-IP:BI-port/admin?camera=x&trigger=1

TRIGGER WITH AUTHENTICATION*
http://BI-server-IP:BI-port/admin?camera=x&trigger=1&user=username&pw=password

PTZ PRESET
Goto PTZ preset n on camera x (x = camera's short name)
http://BI-server-IP:BI-port/admin?camera=x&preset=n

PTZ PRESET WITH AUTHENTICATION*
http://BI-server-IP:BI-port/admin?camera=x&preset=n&user=username&pw=password

*NOTE : If user “anonymous” is NOT enabled in BI and you have created a user and password in BI to be used by Shelly, then you must also place that user/password at the end of the URL that Shelly sends to BI. That would add “?user=username&pw=password” to the end. Additionally, you must also go to “Web server” => “Advanced’ and UNcheck “use secure session keys and login page”.
 
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If I had a remote cabin, I would want an alarm system on it. That should tell you about closed doors and windows.

There are plenty of home automation systems that integrate with alarm panels. I have an Elk system here at the house which integrates with HomeSeer.
 
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