I have been reading about blue iris here in the community forms & if I understand it correctly, I can use that software to work with a few generic cameras & save the recordings to my pc that is setup as a server. It will also work with smartthings. Am I correct? Reason I oozed is that it seems complicated & not sure how it would work with smartthings. Thanks.
ST aside, you have the gist. Blue Iris works with a huge amount of cameras. It’s PC based, records based on your preferences, etc.
It uses profiles, if you want to. So based on profile, different cameras can be recording, send alerts, etc.
It can use a mobile app so that you can view your cameras, view recorded clips, and get notifications.
It integrates with ST based on your needs, etc.
I use a ST community smartapp to change BI profiles based on ST mode. So home mode in ST sets home mode in BI, away sets away, night mode, etc.
I use other ST community device types to use my cameras as motion sensors in ST. So cameras see motion, motion sensor triggers. I use this to turn on various lights and whatnot.
The integration isn’t built in, it takes various community developed pieces. And the level of features will depend on the type of camera for some things. Various developers have made different device types for different cameras with different features.
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Can I use blue iris to setup camera to record on motion? I think I read somewhere that I can just have the cameras record 24 hours but am not sure I want to do yhat. I would like to setup to record motion when not there and be able to review everything in ST app.
Yes, you can set it up a host of ways.
I used to only record on motion for a long time. Now I record outdoors 24/7 and indoors might be on motion, or certain times, etc.
You can also set when you want or don’t want notifications if you set them up, for motion. Like notify anytime, only when not home, etc.
Video may or may not be viewable in ST. None of mine is… some device handlers for certain cameras support that, but if mine do, I haven;t set it up.
I just view in the BI app. I have a couple of Samsung cameras that are natively supported by ST (take that with a grain of salt), so they can be seen from in the ST apps without BI. But they do work with BI, so I can look at them through eiter interface
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U like your idea of recording 24/7 outside & motion inside. If I do something like that I will need power supplied cameras for outside.
I don’t have POE set up, but I’ve been trying to learn - I think POE cameras (power over ethernet) are the way to go.
You obviously need to run power to a camera. WiFi cameras are OK, I have several out there, but they are real finicky sometimes. POE allows you to to run a single cable to the camera that handles power and network.
I imagine setting up a network switch in the attic and running the cameras through that. It’s just real hard in my case, one story house, all concrete walls, and no overhang with the roof. WiFi gets bad coverage, but running wires is a nightmare.
Like I said, no experience, just something for ya to look in to
Could arlo pro, foscam & blink be setup as poe or does a camera have to be designed for something like that.
They have to be designed for it, when you look at camera specs, they’ll tell you if they are POE compatible.
Also, last I looked, blink are not compatible with Blue Iris … but they are compatible to ST, so to use those you’d have a hybrid setup of some sort
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I basically do the same as RVooDoo. I don’t think Blue Iris works with Blink or Arlo. Just IP cameras. The one thing SmartThings doesn’t have a lot of options with is cameras. Blue Iris has more options you could ever ask for.
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Arlo cameras (both the original and pro models) and Blink cameras connect to a network with wifi, and are battery powered. They don’t have Ethernet ports (PoE means power over ethernet as mentioned above).
I’m pretty sure there are some models of foscam cameras that support PoE.
I looking for cupom or good price for Blue Iris.
You can generally find folks selling a Blue Iris license on Ebay for about $10 off of the retail price. These sellers are buying a group of licenses from the developer at a discount, and then acting as a reseller.
Blue Iris only allows a license to be active on a single sever, so the Ebay seller can’t get away with selling the same license key to multiple buyers. If a seller gave the same license key to a second buyer, shortly after that key is activated on a second server, the first server’s license will be deactivated.
For more information and assistance, there is an active community of Blue Iris users at https://ipcamtalk.com/
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If you need a camera they will sometimes do a package deal
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