Is the API between Blue Iris and Sentry documented? Can we replace Sentry with our own software as long as it integrates in a similar way or is the integration too custom for Sentry? I currently have something set up locally to do the AI and works pretty accurately, but the integration is a mess, I'd certainly like to improve it. My main concern with Sentry is that of sending images to the cloud. That's the main reason I've got Blue Iris running locally instead of buying all cameras of 1 brand and just relying on their cloud to do everything for me.
What is your experience with Sentry?
- Thread starter GentlePumpkin
- Start date
Anyone has experience replacing Sentry with a localhost approach that leverages the same integration points?
Trying again to see if there's any luck this time. Can we use the same BI integration points as Sentry? I have a setup that does the detection via AI locally (no Internet connection required), but the integration is awful, where as using the same integration as Sentry would be ideal. I definitely don't want to send pictures to the cloud all the time (whether that's Sentry or any other party)
fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
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pmcross
Pulling my weight
Push notifications have been working for some time. You will still see alerts that Sentry cancelled with no human activity in the alerts view, but will only receive push notifications for human activity. They’ve recently added a nice feature that flags alerts triggered by Sentry so that you can filter by flagged alerts.
Folks - going through all the pages. Can someone comment to performance at night with a good Starlight camera? Is it as good as day in detecting humans? Also, what is the latency between BI sending sentry the image and receiving an alert on the phone. Thanks
pmcross
Pulling my weight
Sentry still struggles with false alerts at night when the camera is in IR mode. I get several each night with Sentry on the few cameras that I run in night mode, but not with cameras that are forced color at night.
It takes about 5 to 6 seconds round trip to receive alerts from Sentry for human activity.
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fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
- 36,892
- 21,408
Five or six seconds is a short time for alerts. For five dollars a month there’s nothing better at this point. We shall see what their new pricing is. You could be waiting years for the Other integration.
fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
- 36,892
- 21,408
Lol sure. What you need is an alarm system. No artificial intelligence is perfect so if the most you can wait as one second you need to live monitor with someone watching it all the time I’m sure you have some thing that’s really mission critical and that’s why you’re using Blue Iris instead of commercial grade software.
I have been using Sentry for a few days. I am getting an average response time of 2.8 seconds. My broadband is 30Mbps down and 5Mbps up. I only have 1 camera which is an LaView doorbell camera and the image BI is receiving is 1536 X 2048 image. The Millers are bad right now and the camera uses IR at night which attracts the moths so I get about 30 BI alerts each night. Without the IR at night the image is very poor. I have received 1 false alert from Sentry that identified a Barn Swallow as a person and 3 BI alerts with no responce from Sentry. I have a PIR motion detector installed above the door against the ceiling. The PIR detector is getting about 6 false alerts each night from the Millers. When I receive a flagged Sentry alert BI sends a JSON command to HomeSeer which changes the state of a virtual device to on. About 12 seconds later BI sends another JSON command to HomeSeer when the alert resets. This turns off the virtual device. When the motion detector triggers it turns on the outside lights and turns a second virtual device on which turns off 10 seconds later. If I get a Sentry alert and the motion detector triggers within 10 seconds of each other I know a person triggered both devices. I have several HomeSeer events that run based on if the 2 virtual devices are on at the same time. The PIR and Sentry alert both detected the Swallow so I have 1 false alert in 6 days of testing.
I had hopes for Sentry, bur for me, it's a bust. Maybe I'm configured wrong, but the way I see it, even 1 false negative is a failure. Think of it like anti-spam software on a mail server. It's better to have a few spam emails get past the filters than to have one legit email get flagged and removed. If that happens, the software has failed. My BI is recording several events per day which are indeed human activity while sentry cancels the alerts or doesn't even process them at all. Half the time, sentry doesn't even show whether it confirms or denies a motion trigger. For me, good ol zone crossing has proven to cut way back on false positives and is much more reliable at triggering an actual legit alert. Good thing there was a trial period for Sentry as I will definitely not be buying a subscription.
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