Video surveillance

How about compatibility with video surveillance systems. There are plenty of them out there. Most have DVRs and apps/ web viewers that allow live viewing or text alerts with snapshots. How about integrating these systems into smartthings? Especially IFTTT. if door opens camera goes on. If smoke detector goes off camera goes on if water sensor is tripped camera goes on. And on and on. Forget all the standalone IP cameras with fee based clouds…anyone? Especially since Samsung owns smarthings and already has several surveillance systems out there.

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SmartThings works with many IP cameras, including popular (and cheap) Foscam. It cannot stream live video, but it can capture still images. You can trigger image capture by motion or door/window sensor using build-in “Motion Photo Activity” smart app or community-developed apps (e.g. Smart Alarm).

[quote=“Mbeil, post:1, topic:9082”]
How about compatibility with video surveillance systems.
[/quote] I couldn’t agree more.

While I’m sure the existing IP cam functionality is fine (I haven’t worked with it myself yet), the limit of 4 per hub is discouraging. I’m sure managing more than 4 with ST would probably be a pain, so I think it would be incredibly useful to be able to integrate a dedicated system. Let the dedicated system deal with streaming and recording, but allow it to send notifications (movement, etc) to ST which could then trigger various other things (perhaps with Smart Alarm) if desired. I’m in no way downplaying the awesome functionality of ST, just suggesting a possible new feature. :smiley:

I also realize this is an old thread…

Agreed! Let the surveillance system do it’s thing but provide a API that allows ST to receive event notifications and maybe override surveillance system standard behavior in some cases.

Old thread, same problem. I’ve been using Arlo Pro with SmartThings for over 5 years without major issues. But now that Arlo announced the “end-of-life” for Arlo Pro, I’m looking for a replacement. Not going to make the same mistake again though and shell out hundreds of dollars for a cloud-based proprietary system (e.g. Ring, Arlo, etc.), so looking for a DIY, preferably open-source solution. Don’t mind doing my own integration. Can anyone recommend a candidate? I looked at ZoneMinder a few years ago, but it seemed a bit clunky.

Maybe you can get some inspiration from the below thread

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I have a video surveillance system that is an old school dvr with wired cameras. It does not require any subscription and does a fine job of recording on motion. It connects to my LAN/WAN and allows real-time viewing from phones/pcs both on my local LAN and from the internet when out and about. I’ve done a simple integration via IFTTT that triggers a ST virtual switch which is monitored to only turn on the lights at night. The surveillance system generates an email to IFTTT which triggers the ST virtual switch to turn on. The tricky part was getting the DVR set up to send the email properly to IFTTT. The rest was easy-peasy. If anyone wants more information, I can publish more details as far as how I set it up. The manufacturer of my surveillance system is NightOwl which I bought 8 years ago from Costco. I think most manufacturers offer similar functionality, probably more.