PoE camera support/DVR ideas

[jogentry]

Has anyone had success deploying PoE cameras with the Netcam plugin?

Also looking for suggestions on a dvr solution. I'd like to run something as a vm and use NAS (NFS/CIFS) for storage.

[mikedr]

I don't have the NetCam plug-in, but I'm running a Synology box with surveillance station. The cameras are all Acti B95/B96, which are incredibly cheap PTZ outdoor PoE cameras, and amazingly highly quality, with a lot of different mounting options.

With HST, I can do snapshots, but I'm not sure otherwise how to integrate with HS3.

The surveillance station software on Synology is pretty robust. Does recording, etc.

[Pete]

POE support isn't provided by Homeseer. That said I do have a managed POE Tycon midstream switch which does manage the POE ports and power.

There is CCTV PVRs out there that do provide POE and network ports for IP cameras.

Here I utilize Zoneminder with now mostly all Grandstream IP HD poe cameras. Zoneminder is free. It is purely a Linux solution and runs fine on a VM. You can test run it via a live ISO if you want to check it out.

I do snapshots and used to use Netcam and it worked fine with Homeseer. I am looking at the new Grandstream NVR which is reasonably priced and has multiple features on it.

Note that Netcam is not a Homeseer DVR/NVR controller rather its just a snapshot tool for single or multiple cameras.

Relating to Homeseer integration to a DVR/NVR....typically the off the self contained CCTV NVR's are using propietary embedded Linux without publication of a public use API.

Most folks have gone to software for integration.

In the Wintel world of CCTV software you have Blue Iris which works with a variety of IP cameras and there is a Homeseer Plugin for Blue Iris which provides much functionality.

In the Linux world you have Zoneminder and other Linux based CCTV software.

With Zoneminder you can also send commands (events playback et al) via one liners to the web interface.

Relating to snapshots typically you can go to the IP cameras directly or indirectly to the NVRs. Mostly the NVR snapshot stuff is propietary to whatever the MFG of software / hardware is utilizing.

Relating to motion sensing / trigger events stuff; the software utilizes video algorythms to detect motion. That said for outdoor CCTV stuff the video algorythms detection methodologies are close but not soup. Best mechanisms for detection of outdoor motion / CCTV triggers are analog and even these are not perfect.

In a recap you can integrate analog sensors into Homeseer and have them chat to the CCTV NVR in software / hardware for motion triggers / event recordings. Many Homeseer folks utilize wireless outdoor sensors to trigger multiple netcam snapshots and it works for them.

Note all of the above relates to DIY stuff utilizing Homeseer and CCTV IP cameras / NVRs as there is no CCTV NVR functions / standards of function built in to base Homeseer Pro 3 plugins / scripts. There is better snap shot stuff using 3rd party plugins like UltraJones stuff and Blue Iris stuff posted here.

Some folks run Blue Iris and Homeseer on one OS / box.

Note that multiple HD streaming / recording of multiple streams is very resource intensive and personally I would not recommend doing both on one OS / Computer. That is a personal comment. I have though tested Homeseer 3 running on the Zoneminder box running Ubuntu 14.04 64 bit server and it does run without much effort without loading up Homeseer with multiple plugins, events, variables and scripts.

[jogentry]

Thanks for the tips. I am very familiar with PoE, just was curious about what cameras others were using. I have both Cisco and Meraki PoE switches. I am looking at Foscam and Cisco PoE cameras.

[Pete]

Yup all of the new POE connected cameras some POE standard.

Not sure if they are using the older IEEE 802.3af-2003 or newer IEEE 802.3at-2009.

There was some discussion with the earlier POE IP cams and some differences relating the wiring power leads in the catxx right here on Homeseer.

Too that many of the POE switchs were only used for VOIP phones originally.

Here I push it a bit with cams and 5VDC tabletop touchscreens.

The original POE splitters I used for the Touchscreens were Tycon. I switched over the TP-Link splitters cuz they were smaller.

Tycon was mostly doing this stuff for POE connected outdoor AP's. (well they do energy solar stuff too).

The 5VDC PS that comes with the tabletop touchscreen is a 4AMP one though.

Well similiar to the older Cisco POE switches using their original POE standard (propietary). Here not used any more have the older Cisco AP's which POE connected to these old switches from a few years ago.

Most of the cams I have played with come with a 12VDC pigtail and the POE connection. The 12VDC included test power supply is typically switched 1 AMP device.

The whole camera HD IP technology thing providing much for little cost these days versus just a few years ago.

I'd like to run something as a vm and use NAS (NFS/CIFS) for storage.

I have had good luck with Zoneminder as it'll work with just about any type of camera and VM.

[mikedr]

FWIW, I have five B96 Acti PTZ outdoor cameras (PoE), and two B95 ones. Cheapest outdoor PoEs with good zoom (10x) I could find.

To power them, I have two types of PoE injectors/switches. Some terminate into a garage that gets very hot, and I have a non-PoE industrial Ethernet switch (some type of Moxa) -- I was having trouble with "regular" switches just dying from the heat. So I bought a few "Neewer autoranging switching 48v-0.5A wall plug POE injectors" from Amazon, and have them plugged into the individual switching outlets of an Aeon Z-Wave powerstrip (I want to be able to reboot them remotely if needed). The Neewers are cheap, <$10, and "just fit" side to side in the outlets of powerstrip.

The way I power others of them that terminate indoors is to use a TP-Link TL-SG100P PoE switch. It's an 8-port switch, with 4 PoE ports. Also works perfectly with these cameras (as well as with a PolyCom PoE IP Phone I have). Also relatively inexpensive -- $80.

The TP-Link provides maximum power of 53W, whereas the Neewers each do 24W.

My cameras are all IEEE802.3af, with maximum power of 12.95watts ("built-in heater and fan on" -- although I think this may be a misnomer -- I see no fan or heater in them, although the cameras are rated -4F to 122F. At least one will be seeing temperatures >120F in the summer (west side of the house, outdoors in Az) so hopefully it'll stand up).

[Pete]

Personally and over the years your ROI will be mostly related to the cameras.

If its a security thing then ideally you want an autonmously configured CCTV system which doesn't need Homeseer to work.

Secondarily if your direction is relating to utilizing Homeseer with the CCTV system then pick something; whatever it is that will work with the basics of Homeseer (snapshots - Homeseer 3 plugins).

Personally here security has the priority over automation.

The icing on the cake is that Homeseer works with my CCTV security and not the other way around.

[randman]

I use Synology Surveillance station configured with cameras from various makes. So, in that sense, my system is autonomous from HomeSeer. However, there is some interaction. I use UltraNetcam to get simple snapshots in events. I also wrote a JSON script that I can use to start and stop the recording of a camera from HomeSeer. The JSON script uses the Synology Surveillance station's web API to start and stop recording, which I use, for example, when motion is detected.

I just got 2 of the ACTi B95 cameras. I haven't mounted them yet but started playing with them in my network to make sure that I can control their recording from HomeSeer via web app and UltraNetCam.

One thing I like about my (POE powered) ACTi cameras is they support digital input and provide 12v power so I can use an external PIR motion sensor. I am still testing with external PRI motion sensor. Plan is to define an alert in the camera when motion is detected. The camera can then call a URL, which would be a JSON call to HomeSeer JSON API to call an event, like set a virtual device to "motion on". This should be much more reliable than using a Z-Wave sensor outside, given its wired and you can get good reliable motion detectors. Better than Aeon sensors or relying on camera motion detection.

[Pete]

Very nice randman.

Here looking at similar with the most current Grandstream IP HD OS on my test cams which provides a digital i/o via the network, SIP and an analog input and output.

This brings the camera to almost what I get with my Optex combo's and the analog PIR is already built in. (well night day sensor plus PIR) which I am looking to retrofit with Grandstream IPHD camera boards removing the analog board as they are now about the same size.

The Grandstream 38mm sized boards with most current OS now include USB/SD card, DIO, SIP, time lapse photos with FTP/SMTP upload / local save, record video event and upload, email video event. This noted the new boards are tiny computers.

With these features you can just upload video events / JPG stills / text event information right to your HS3 box and stream live video to an HS3 console.

[Phaeton]

Hi Pete, do you have a link of the Grandstream module you are using?

[Sireone]

+1 Synology. I believe the developer of the BlueIris plug in may write one for the Surveillance Station.

[Pete]

I still utilize Zoneminder. (have a Grandstream NVR but haven't used it yet).

The Grandstream software / NVR / telephones /encoder-decoder all work with the IP camera SIP functions which is built in to it.

[AgileHumor]

I have 9 x 720P Dahua IP Cameras outside running on Synology Surveillance Station and love it.

Used to use Blue Iris and then ISpy, but prefer cameras on their own device as they just constantly are hitting the disk (I keep always on recording for 12 days).

One integration I'd like to build between HS is to log an event in Synology Survailence Station every time their is outside motion or door opens so that you can quickly review events that happened (without having to depend on camera motion).

http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=172676

[LeoS]

I have 9 x 720P Dahua IP Cameras outside running on Synology Surveillance Station and love it.

Used to use Blue Iris and then ISpy, but prefer cameras on their own device as they just constantly are hitting the disk (I keep always on recording for 12 days).

Other than the dedicated hardware aspect, is there any other feature/characteristic of the Synology SS that you like over Blue Iris?

One integration I'd like to build between HS is to log an event in Synology Survailence Station every time their is outside motion or door opens so that you can quickly review events that happened (without having to depend on camera motion).

http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=172676

+1
It should appear as an 'alarm' event on the Synology's timeline