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Something else you should be aware of about battery cameras: they are motion trigger. Like, you can't just have them up and watching what's going on or the batteries will be dead in no time. We're not quite there yet with battery technology to run a camera + wifi in a reasonable package. I'm running some inexpensive Windows software (Blue Iris) as a DVR and have a mix of mostly Reolink PoE cameras. I've found it's just the easiest way for me to go. I need to run one ethernet cable and have the right switch feeding it, and it's all set (feel the pain once running that cable and be done). The weatherproof dome cameras are like $50 on Amazon. I bought one of the $100+ PTZ ones and it's been sitting in the same position since about 3 days after I installed it.......turns out those features just aren't that useful to me. This all integrates pretty well into home assistant. To the point where I have my front facing camera on the driveway up on my Kindle "control panels". 
Motronic fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Apr 6, 2019 |
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Apr 6, 2019 02:49
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TraderStav posted:Thanks again for the feedback. Making me consider making the run for the Ethernet, which I may be able to make happen. Looks like it'll offer me the best balance of cost and flexibility of options. I run regular cat5e if it's inside. The outside cameras when mounted on a soffit or something I consider to be an inside run. If you're actually running outside, like you need to go basement to attic on the exterior of the building (a rain gutter downspout is a great way to hide to runs and is something that looks "normal" on a house) or you're doing a buried run to mount something on a post/tree, etc I'd use something like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MA3OIML/?coliid=I35Z4XMSNGDLVU&colid=2QZ0KGEGECZ9T&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it It's awful to terminate because it's proper direct burial cable that is full of "ickey-pick". You need to clean it off with alcohol and be thorough about it when stripping. The first few times you do this you'll get it all over your hands, your tools, places you can't even imagine you touched but somehow you did........ Regular cat5e riser or plenum just won't stand up to UV.
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Apr 6, 2019 16:01
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TraderStav posted:The cameras would be under a soffit but real challenging to get to as there isn't access to the eave. If I started from my second story there's a pretty clear shot and run down the j channels, but getting the Cat5 upstairs is now the challenge. Are there good solutions where I set up an access point upstairs to connect to my router downstairs wirelessly and then do the PoE from there to the cameras? If the cabling really is an issue, you can use a couple of UniFi AP Pros. I'm not ready to trench to run new utilities out to my barn (along with a fiber run) so I put a second UniFi AP Pro out there, plugged it into a PoE Switch and plugged in the cameras on the barn. The UniFi software just found the drat thing, I was able to "adopt" it as part of the network and it immediately treated the ethernet ports on it as downlinks. It was ridiculously easy, and I'm streaming 3 HD cameras over that, 24x7, and it's got plenty of bandwidth left for me to use that AP when I'm out in the yard (it's carpeted the back yard with wifi coverage) and/or bandwidth left over for the inside AP that it's associated with. I thought it was going to be a suboptimal solution, but it turned out so well I almost question running fiber out there (but it would be stupid NOT to if I've already got a utility trench open).
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Apr 6, 2019 17:07
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Hubis posted:Whats annoying about YAML? Everything. I'm really liking Node Red. It's made HA so much better for me.
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Apr 11, 2019 14:13
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Thermopyle posted:I do see how using yaml to write scripts can be annoying. Coding via configuration files of any format is bad. It's mostly this. And my hatred of YAML is not solely because of HA, but because of how often it's abused for this purpose or used in just plain nonsensical ways, along with the difficulty of debugging freaking indents. Yes, an editor can make up for some of this, but at that point you should be asking "why did I choose this format in the first place?"
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Apr 11, 2019 15:00
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Combat Pretzel posted:It looks like there's actual device nodes Are you confusing the device nodes installed by hassio into their node red install with being something that can directly control a zwave device or whatever?
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Apr 14, 2019 16:07
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Combat Pretzel posted:I've been looking over the Node RED component repository, and there's plenty of nodes to read and control IoT devices. This sort of tells me that Node RED can run standalone and do home automation. An IoT device (read: largely IP) is one thing, and yeah....that's pretty easy. But it you're talking zwave or something then while there are plugins for that, they all just control "something else" that control the device. In the case of zwave it's controlling openzwave, which means you need to be running that, add your devices to it, etc. I'm using home assistant because it ties all of this stuff together for me (zwave, rokus, harmony remotes, camera systems, etc) and I can interact with it all from node red in a way that seems a bit more consistent to me.
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Apr 14, 2019 16:37
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Tapedump posted:Any recommendations for door open/close sensors.. something z-wave perhaps, SmartThings-compatible (sane thing I guess) that'll push notify a phone? I have a ton of Monoprice door and window sensors. Many of them are surface mount (for the sliders and windows) and I have the type that you drill into the top of the door for the regular doors. They've been working great for the 6+ months I've had them. I'm using Home Assistant, but I believe they are smartthings compatible.
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Apr 30, 2019 16:48
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Thermopyle posted:How's the battery life? I don't know what constitutes "poo poo battery life" for sensors like this, but they've been working for 6+ months and aren't complaining for low batteries.
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Apr 30, 2019 18:08
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I just ran out of propane, which reminded me that I had been meaning to find a tank sensor that I could tie into HA. I've got an R3D compatible gauge on the tank already, but most of the things I'm seeing are either made for propane delivery companies (cellular, expensive) or really sketchy looking. Anyone have some experience with any of these sensors?
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May 3, 2019 15:15
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Subjunctive posted:I haven’t done this, but before I decided on charcoal my plan was just a Z-wave pressure sensor underneath it and some custom alerts. That's going to be tough on the eventual (this summer) 500 gal underground tank. That's why I was hoping to find a non-poo poo R3D float gauge compatible one.
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May 3, 2019 19:30
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One Day Fish Sale posted:Here's just the sensor if it's useful to you. Thank you. I didn't think to look for/know how to find things like this. I have no idea how the output may look, but I ordered it because I've hacked in enough "zwave door sensors" with dry contacts that I'm sure I can make this work. Quality answer to help my blind spot on this thing.
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May 4, 2019 04:40
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Once again, why my home automation is full of local devices talking to a local server and nothing needs to talk to the internet for its basic functionality. Cloud connected devices are sold at "I own this hardware" prices, and you do. But it's a brick when the underlying service provider (who often has no sustainable business model since you aren't being charged monthly fees) gets sold to someone who exists to collect your data. Or just goes out of business entirely.
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May 7, 2019 23:53
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Combat Pretzel posted:Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but what does "cloud automation" even do? It's seems to be just very simple "when X then Y". When Google announced years back that they wanted to step into the game, I expected (optional) automation interfaces a la Node RED or that block editor like in HABmin eventually. With what being Google. But evidently not. The only thing is does is make it accessible to people who aren't very technically inclined. And it does them a disservice because they don't know any better. Most of the function simply do not require internet access or off-site processing since a raspberry Pi can handle it. But notifications and remote access are a lot easier this way. It's still bullshit. If they weren't trying to collect data/lock in these ancillary services would be optional and easy to set up with whoever. But this is about funding and "subscriber" /active user numbers.
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May 8, 2019 01:22
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* As long as you aren't trying to reconfigure it while Logitechs servers are having a bad day
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May 9, 2019 03:20
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apropos man posted:What's the current go-to PVR software to record 3 or 4 camera streams? I'm still using Blue Iris in a windows VM because everything linux based was still a dumpster fire the last time I looked. It's recording to my NAS and I sync the files from there because f doing that in windows.
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Jun 2, 2019 01:52
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Violator posted:I recently discovered Wyze cameras. $25 security cam with (at least to me and my uses) great image quality. But the reviews say it phones home to China and their "free" cloud storage is questionable since that has to be paid for somehow on their end and I can't imagine profits from cheap cameras would do it. Is going down this road of cameras worth investigating? I was thinking of dipping my toe in since they're so cheap and I could throw them up in a few spots but if it turns out to be security risk I'd rather go with something else. You can get an rstp stream out of it with this: https://github.com/openipcamera/openipc-firmware I have one (going to my BlueIris DVR) and it's........about what you would expect for $25. IR doesn't work properly with the new firmware ("night mode"), which isn't much of a loss because it just doesn't work that well anyway. It's obviously an indoor camera so it's not weatherproof. Spend $65 on a ReoLink dome camera and throw it on a non-internet accessible VLAN.
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Jul 3, 2019 20:18
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Night mode is IR on, switch to B&W. Confirming it's working would be as easy as checking the camera when it's in a dark room. If all you can see is black it's not working.
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Jul 5, 2019 16:46
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Chu020 posted:Is there any reason outside of convenience to go with ADT, Vivint or Vector for a security system rather than Ring or Simplisafe? Like are their response times or customer service at all better? Central stations (the place where your alarm goes to and who calls the relevant help in) are highly regulated. And very much contracted out by pretty much all "alarm companies" these days. ADT stuff is typically junk and purposefully incompatible with anything else. It's also middle tier to garbage equipment. They like to do shady poo poo for retention. Do not recommend. (note since there may not be crossover to many DIY threads from here: I'm a former fire marshal. I dealt with alarms/alarm plans/testing/sign off and alarm companies as part of my job.) I'm currently using Abode. I've had some false alarms, and it looks like it's the First Alert combo smoke/CO2s causing the issues (which is the recommended smoke to pair it with). Their support has been top notch through this, even though its looking like it's technically not "their problem". They've sent out a new gateway just to be sure and have told me to hold on to both for a while. Super responsive and helpful.
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Aug 10, 2019 22:59
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I'm still pretty happy with hass.io, but based on the stories I've heard I certainly wouldn't be if I was running it on a Pi. Mines on my VMWare server.
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Aug 11, 2019 15:22
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KillHour posted:I generally haven't had many USB passthrough issues with ESX 6. Same. And absolutely none with this zwave stick.
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Aug 11, 2019 19:05
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Tapedump posted:How many people afraid of Dahua/Hikvision/et all dialing home to China give their cameras valid gateway / DNS values? Giving them valid DNS is not enough. Confirmed by my traffic logs. I just thrown them on a VLAN that isn't accessible to the internet and it works just fine. The only other thing on that VLAN is one of the NICs for my DVR. Not surprisingly, when I was doing this kind of thing professionally for municipalities and police departments even with super expensive Axis gear many certification standards would not allow the cameras to be on an internet accessible (from either direction) VLAN. And in fact manufacturers like that actually encourage/demand you set it up that way and specifically support it in their DVRs (like not requiring internet access for camera updates and having a piece of software/component of the DVR that acts as a proxy to upgrade firmware). To the extent that some versions of Axis Camera Station would throw up warnings if any of the cameras could reach some arbitrary and not-necessary internet address/IP. Motronic fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Aug 19, 2019 |
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Aug 19, 2019 00:24
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Tapedump posted:I should have clarified better. Is there DHCP? Because I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised to see them drab DHCP info if they can't get to the internet with their manual config. Or one of a host of other ways of figuring out the gateway. Bottom line - what's the huge blocker from simply doing it right? They are a known high risk, so put them in non-internet jail like they're supposed to be.
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Aug 20, 2019 15:15
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Thermopyle posted:If I was trying to slurp up info with my firmware, the first thing I'd do is check a bunch of common gateway addresses and DNS servers. Yeah. <first three of my static assigned IP address> .1 and then .254. Sweet, gateway. 8.8.8.8
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Aug 20, 2019 16:47
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stevewm posted:This is one of the reasons at work all of our IP cameras are on completely separate physical network infrastructure from the rest of our network with their own cabling and switches. The only time the networks "meet" so to speak is at the NVR server on its own NIC. The camera LAN has no path to the internet or indeed anywhere off that network. When you've got enough cameras to do this I don't see why you wouldn't. Most places I've done this just aren't big enough (local PDs, etc) so they get their own kitty jail VLAN just for cost savings. You know if someone screwed up because the camera server's "dirty nic" won't be able to find the vlan on the port of the cameras where it got fat fingered and it doesn't look for cameras on the other NIC. This is been good enough for the state and FBI's compliance requirements.
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Aug 20, 2019 21:38
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sharkytm posted:network-chat: I've got a couple of PoE Mikrotiks (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079YSKPSJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1). One in the barn, one upstairs (rack is in the basement). The barn currently doesn't have any ethernet out to it, so it's powering 3 cameras plus a Ubiquiti UAC-AC-PRO set to downlink from one of the same in the house. Been working pretty well. The other little Mikrotik is upstairs to run the cameras I have in the soffits/dormers of the house and is cabled down to the switch in the rack.
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Aug 21, 2019 15:14
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LastInLine posted:Honestly I'd never considered a situation where a single living space would have two separate Google Home users. Really? You must be a product manager in the bay area. If not, you're perfect for the job.
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Aug 30, 2019 15:26
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Subjunctive posted:I was joking about the mowing, but it looks like I’m out of luck in general yeah. All of the voice control that is currently available is basically a hand full of single-use party tricks that may or may not work depending on your accent. You consume these party tricks at the risk of security (in all but roll our own on prem solutions which work even worse in my experience). I just don't see the benefit. My home automation control is entirely tablet and switch based (switches to override anything, with a big "off" button for the automation should it poo poo the bed and I don't have time to mess with it).
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Sep 1, 2019 17:47
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LastInLine posted:I'd actually go the other way and say that home automation without voice control is as useful as a car without wheels. Owning both a home automation system without voice AND a car that currently doesn't have wheels on it I can definitely tell you that having my outdoor lights come on and go off on a timer based on sunset, having them turn back on if it's dark out and someone breaks the driveway sensor, notifying me and sending a picture any time the driveway sensor is broken, alerting me if the heat or AC is on while a window is open and also notifying me if a window is open and it starts raining, controlling lighting scenes from the three specifically provided hard buttons on my Harmony in the home theater and many other functions is doing me a lot more good than the car that doesn't have wheels on it. LastInLine posted:There's absolutely no point to it at all if you have to use a physical switch or smartphone to do anything useful in my view and if it's not reliably some with natural voice controls it's probably not worth automating. I'm not using a smartphone - it seems you haven't read my post. Most thing require no interaction at all because they are based on sensors. The rest can be controlled through tablets that are throughout the house. Sure, you can pull up that panel interface on the tablets on your smart phone, but I don't see why I'd want to.
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Sep 1, 2019 20:06
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LastInLine posted:And as for the other part, "tablets that are throughout the house" (lol) well, isn't that just using a remote control for poo poo that used to be on the wall along with a stop button you hope is convenient when your Rube Goldberg machine starts eating the cat or playing EDM at 4am? So that's great if you see no value in being able to glance as a display that give you status as well a camera views, but I'm not not sold on the utility of having things play out of crappy little speakers has unless you are a renter. My home has in ceiling speakers in places I want that to happen, and yes, you can control them through the home automation. Or simply pull something up on your phone and cast to "<room> Airplay". LastInLine posted:Sensor based automation was what everyone was selling this stuff on when it first came out but my experience has been that I haven't found a single situation where I'd want something to react based on something else 100% of the time. Even if you gave me smarter, rule-based triggers, I'd be at a loss to describe any situation where I would always want a rule to govern a specific action. Now again, I don't know your living situation, but let's say you lived on a couple of acres in a reasonably rural area where when it's dark it's DARK. You also have a garage that has auxiliary lights, not just the lovely ones on the garage door openers.  This is just something that happens that nobody in the house every thinks about. Unless something happens that makes it not work. These subtle things in the right place that "just happen" are the real "automations" of home automation. The only thing you seem to be really adamant about is that voice is better than <insert x other way of MANUALLY making something happen, even if that "something" is a string of things you pre-preogrammed>. And that's not automation. It's a fancier switch. E: and as far as happening "all the time" in regards to an automation you are in fact correct. Most things don't make sense to happen all the time. Which is why most automation platforms are set up with both a time and an outdoor light and weather awareness. My most used global variables are "house mode", which is morning/day/evening/night and "dark" which is true or false based on sunset and sunrise that day. Note how the garage light automation even takes into account if someone has used the regular light switch and doesn't mess with that. These are the things that need to be thought through to make automation truly work. This isn't hard. Nothing about it is "rube goldberg". They are simple rules, laid out in an easy to understand visual format in Node Red. Of course I've had unexpected results when setting up a new one - but it's quite easy to parse why it happened ad what you didn't think about (like the garage lights) and fix it. Motronic fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Sep 1, 2019 |
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Sep 1, 2019 21:48
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Wibla posted:That looks an awful lot like the FBD programming I do at work as an industrial automation engineer For good reason. Node Red is based on the same concepts and adapted to allow for being extended to arbitrary I/O functions.
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Sep 1, 2019 23:23
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Thermopyle posted:3 percent of the time At this point in the technology I'd consider that a win and is also why I refuse to not have conveniently located (i.e. where they would be with no automation) manual switches to override.
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Sep 2, 2019 02:10
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Subjunctive posted:I also don’t really want to put tablets in reach of every seating area...I think? Maybe. I definitely do not do this. Kitchen, living room....one in the basement/home theater, one in the master bedroom. Frank Dillinger posted:Getting into bed and turning off all of the lights that may be on with one push of a button is pretty awesome. Turns out I can do this by touching something instead of using my voice and it works every time. Works without internet access or sending potentially everything that happens in my house to "the cloud." And it is awesome. I even know if I've left any windows or doors open.
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Sep 2, 2019 04:13
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Welcome to google auth.
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Oct 8, 2019 01:38
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Keyser_Soze posted:How do I keep my mother (who lives alone now 140 miles away) from calling ADT and getting ripped off by slimy local installers and being stuck in a 3 year contract? Is SimpliSafe still a decent alternative that I could order and install for her and pay the $25/month for the monitoring? We don't need full integration with any smart apps or even her phone. She also already has upgraded CO2 and fire alarms. I've head good things about them, and I've been using Abode and have been quite happy. With the zwave First Alert smokes it counts for a burg and fire cert so she could save on homeowners as well. Fast and easy to install but standard warning about "this poo poo is all battery, so you're gonna need to change them eventually". But the app tells you/you get email.
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Oct 17, 2019 21:51
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n0tqu1tesane posted:You could also try and find a local monitoring and install company. That's what we did, we had to pay for the physical install, and we're right at $25/mo for monitoring and a cellular communicator. There are no more local monitoring companies. Even my local big one went over to contracted central station several years ago. Even if it looks like they are doing their own monitoring, they are at one of the several centers in the US and the agents pick up or place calls using their name. Locals are fine for install I guess, but the technology has moved on enough that if you're willing to peel and stick some sensors for an hour and change batteries every year or so there really isn't much "install" that needs doing for residential. All of these places (that actually survived) seem to be making their real money on commercial now. Think prox card access, camera systems, rental properties etc.
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Oct 17, 2019 22:07
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n0tqu1tesane posted:But, having a local company to do install and service is nice. Especially if it's for someone's mom who lives a 2+ hour drive away. Depends on how often the visits are, but yeah, that could be a real concern. One year trip report with Abode: I've changed the batteries in the smokes twice because of course, that's what you do (seriously, you all need to do this no matter what some app battery level says or worse yet stand alones with no battery monitoring), I had a bunch of false trips which was tracked down to one of the smokes being bad (First Alert replaced it) and even before that was determined for sure Abode just shipped out a replacement gateway to make sure it wasn't their problem. I expect to start getting low battery alerts over the next year or so depending on the device, but it's all very manageable and it seems one could just replace smoke batteries every 6 months and all the batteries yearly and never worry. Their keypads used to be loving useless, so I wouldn't have recommended this system for someone who is not app-using, but the new ones are so nice it's actually more convenient than opening the app to arm/disarm.
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Oct 17, 2019 22:33
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I use the toggle style Honeywells, and a friend uses the GE version: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M1AHC3R/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I wouldn't be comfortable with line voltage wired in device that being manufactured on behalf of a home automation company by who knows who and prefer to stick with recognized manufacturers. That switch claims to be cUL listed. Are you in Canada? If not, I would absolutely not install that device in my home.
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Nov 15, 2019 17:41
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If you find the doorbell solution let me know. The rest is a standard IP camera system other than whatever you think it should do with Alexa, which is probably addressed by some DVR/NVR software. Fake edit: I checked, I use Blue Iris and it supposedly supports alexa things.
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Nov 23, 2019 23:38
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Thermopyle posted:I haven't used BlueIris in many years, but it seems to be a jack of all trades so I wouldn't be surprised if it can serve a web page with the cameras displayed however you want. It can. That's what I've been using begrudgingly (the only windows thing I'm maintaining but it's worth it) Unofficial plugins for the http interface are great.
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Nov 28, 2019 06:26
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