Set camera to inactive on signal loss

Netwalker

Netwalker

Getting the hang of it
Aug 8, 2017
46
28
I have a couple of cheap Dlink wifi ptz's on my BI setup that I only plug in when we leave the house so that my wife can keep track of what our dogs are doing. It works great, plug them in, BI sees them automatically and then starts recording and streaming the video like the rest of our cameras. The Wifi is nice, because she likes to move them around to different locations occasionally.

The problem is that 90% of the time these cameras aren't powered (We don't like the idea of WIFI cameras in our home watching us), so I'd like to have them automatically removed from the "all cameras" view when they are not plugged in (No Signal).

I've looked around the forums and can't find the proper settings. Help Please :)
 
I appreciate the help - both of those settings have been set "correctly" and they are still showing up on any camera groups that they are part of. I even turned off overlays just to make sure that's not an issue. Any other ideas? It just hit me, could direct to disk be causing the issue? I'll check quick and report back.

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Netwalker said:
I appreciate the help - both of those settings have been set "correctly" and they are still showing up on any camera groups that they are part of. I even turned off overlays just to make sure that's not an issue. Any other ideas? It just hit me, could direct to disk be causing the issue? I'll check quick and report back.

View attachment 38695
Click to expand...
Direct to disk is not relevant here and should be on.
The cameras have to be inactive in the schedule for it to disappear. Set all indoor cams to be inactive during profile 5 for example (general tab for each cam). Copy all other settings for all other cameras so that they work as wanted during profile 5. Then select profile 5 when you dont want those cams on screen.
 
fenderman said:
The cameras have to be inactive in the schedule for it to disappear.
Click to expand...

Okay, thanks! That's what I thought. Great idea on the schedule workaround. A manual override probably won't pass the wife acceptance factor, but you got me thinking, maybe I'll try to automate it with geofencing. The last time I tried geofencing it was somewhat erratic (about a year ago). We've both upgraded to new phones since, so it's worth a shot.
 
Netwalker said:
Okay, thanks! That's what I thought. Great idea on the schedule workaround. A manual override probably won't pass the wife acceptance factor, but you got me thinking, maybe I'll try to automate it with geofencing. The last time I tried geofencing it was somewhat erratic (about a year ago). We've both upgraded to new phones since, so it's worth a shot.
Click to expand...
It has to be manual otherwise a user will not realize better camera is missing if it's malfunctioning or if there's a network issue
 
also consider that you are manually unplugging the camera. Hitting a single button on your phone is the least of the manual labor involved. In fact you dont need to unplug the cams if they are inactive and not recording. Alternatively you can simply leave them off the screen all the
time, if you are out of the house, why do you need the cams to display? they will record.
 
fenderman said:
also consider that you are manually unplugging the camera. Hitting a single button on your phone is the least of the manual labor involved. In fact you dont need to unplug the cams if they are inactive and not recording. Alternatively you can simply leave them off the screen all the
time, if you are out of the house, why do you need the cams to display? they will record.
Click to expand...

I agree with the button thing, alas my wife does not.

So these two "floater" cameras get unplugged for two reasons #1, they're inside our house on Wifi with WAN access. Maybe some day I could fix that, but it's pretty low priority.
#2 The wife likes to place them wherever she thinks the dogs might be (or where she has them cordoned off), and that varies on mood, season, time of day, astrological patterns, or god know what else. All I know is that if I mounted them, they would be in the wrong spot.

In any circumstance, having the 2 grey boxes on our displays isn't that big of a deal, and there are a few viable workarounds. (Schedules, Camera groups)
 
fenderman said:
Hitting a single button on your phone is the least of the manual labor involved. In fact you dont need to unplug the cams if they are inactive and not recording.
Click to expand...

If you and your wife both have cell phones with the BI app and GPS capabilities you could take this a step further. Using scheduling & geofencing you could enable the cameras automatically when everyone is gone and disable them when someone arrives.
 
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