Integration with smart home - turn on all lights

[jwkbrb]

Hi,

The idea:
When there is line-crossing event alarm I want to switch on all garden lights.
Hardware:
I have NVR DS-7608NXI-K1 / 8P and couple of cameras DS-2CD2343G2-I. I'm planning to extend installation with some cameras with alarm output.
Garden lights are controlled remotely with Shelly Plus 1 Mini smart switches.

Possible solutions:
1. Use camera alarm output, wire it with another Shelly switch. When there is an alarm camera triggers Shelly switch - I can create scene and turn on all other smart switches (and light up the garden)
2. Create a simple application which listens to ISAPI event notification from NVR (

https://url/ISAPI/Event/notification/alertStream

) and then triggers shelly smart switches over http protocol
3. Possible to set the NVR to triggers shelly directly over http? Found this topic but it's old and there is no much information: http listening

Does anyone worked on such integration? Know how to wire up camera alarm output with some smart switches? Any other ideas or tips that could be usefull?

Many thanks!

 

[JB1970]

Hi,

The idea:
When there is line-crossing event alarm I want to switch on all garden lights.
Hardware:
I have NVR DS-7608NXI-K1 / 8P and couple of cameras DS-2CD2343G2-I. I'm planning to extend installation with some cameras with alarm output.
Garden lights are controlled remotely with Shelly Plus 1 Mini smart switches.

Possible solutions:
1. Use camera alarm output, wire it with another Shelly switch. When there is an alarm camera triggers Shelly switch - I can create scene and turn on all other smart switches (and light up the garden)
2. Create a simple application which listens to ISAPI event notification from NVR (

https://url/ISAPI/Event/notification/alertStream

) and then triggers shelly smart switches over http protocol
3. Possible to set the NVR to triggers shelly directly over http? Found this topic but it's old and there is no much information: http listening

Does anyone worked on such integration? Know how to wire up camera alarm output with some smart switches? Any other ideas or tips that could be usefull?

Many thanks!

There will be multiple ways of doing this depending on your smart home system.

1 - If your NVR model has the alarm output, you could configure your events from any camera to trigger that output closed. I'm not familiar with the Shelly so it depends on whether it uses a DC input or line voltage input as to whether you can connect it directly or need to trigger a relay with the output and connect it's isolated contacts across the Shelly. Shelly do a few 12V DC Z Wave input devices as do Zooz. I use the Fibaro Smart Implants in my Hubitat system when I need this sort of thing.

2 - Again this is dependent on your smart home platform. Hubitat has a built in integration that uses the camera's http listening/alarm server feature to trigger virtual button push events that can be used in rules to do whatever you want. However the cameras http listening/alarm server feature is only usable when your cameras are connected to the network directly rather than to the NVR PoE ports (due to the isolation between the NVR camera network and the LAN).

3 - http listening. See above regarding the need for the camera to be on the LAN. You can get around it by diverting your NVR network cable through a PoE switch at the NVR, reconnecting your cameras to the switch and reconfiguring them with a LAN address but it's not ideal.

Node-red would be my recommendation if you have an always on device. I have node-red installed on a Raspberry Pi 4. You can get a Hikvision palette that allows you to access the NVR event stream so that any camera connected to the NVR (via the PoE ports or otherwise) can be used. The node connects to the NVR event stream. In my case I the events are configured to trigger virtual button presses in Hubitat. These are then used in rules to bring on lights, send alerts, voice notifications to HomePods/Sonos and whatever else I want to do. Additionally there other useful nodes such as the text overlay I use to dynamically add text to a camera; I use those to add the outside temperature overlay along with an illuminance value from another sensor. I have a flow used to switch camera modes based on the lux value from an external sensor. All of that requires no wiring at all. Node-red offers some serious automation possibilities for the small cost of a Raspberry Pi.

6 of my cameras being switched using illuminance:




Text overlay on cameras - outside temp, lux level, alarm system status:



Line crossing events from NVR cameras triggering button in Hubitat:



The possibilities are endless...

 

[jwkbrb]

My NVR does not have alarm output, and my cameras are connected through NVR POE ports.
But still I can subscribe to NVR alertStream, I guess it will work, no need to subscribe to each camera stream separately?

This node-red sounds cool - and, from what I understand, it does not require any settings changes on NVR - just subscibe to the alert stream from NVR in node-red?

On your scheme - NVR - Line crosssing, what kind of event it is?

 

[JB1970]

My NVR does not have alarm output, and my cameras are connected through NVR POE ports.

Yeah I couldn't remember whether the K1 had an alarm output, I think it's only on the K2.

But still I can subscribe to NVR alertStream, I guess it will work, no need to subscribe to each camera stream separately?

Yes if you're able to do that and pull the information per channel.

This node-red sounds cool - and, from what I understand, it does not require any settings changes on NVR - just subscibe to the alert stream from NVR in node-red?

Correct. There are specific Hikvision nodes to configure. Firstly you configure a server - which is your NVR; specifying the IP address, Http port, username and password:

The channel ID (camera number) is pulled from the event stream and becomes the payload:

Then it gets split so that the individual channels can be forwarded on:

Those individual messages can then be sent on. In my case it's to a virtual button but it could be to any other node such as a http request in your case. There are so many nodes available free I'd be amazed if you didn't find other uses for it. There are nodes for my Honeywell EvoHome heating available, LG ThinQ for home appliances, HomeConnect for home appliances. You can search for nodes to add to your palette either from the web interface that node-red provides or from Library - Node-RED. It's the "Hikvision Ultimate" I'm using above.

 

[jwkbrb]

Wow, this looks amazing!
You connect directly to cameras or to NVR?

Wondering if I'm doing something wrong or it does no work with my NVR cause I cannot get any of the event to log. The debug node works itself (when I turned off NVR got timeout errors). Server seems to be configured property as Picture node gives me image from camera.

Any way - this is me first time using node-red so I have to get to know it.

 

[JB1970]

Wow, this looks amazing!
You connect directly to cameras or to NVR?

Wondering if I'm doing something wrong or it does no work with my NVR cause I cannot get any of the event to log. The debug node works itself (when I turned off NVR got timeout errors). Server seems to be configured property as Picture node gives me image from camera.
View attachment 12732

Any way - this is me first time using node-red so I have to get to know it.

In my flow, the top three nodes in the first post are - "NVR - Line Crossing", "Set Channel" (a Change Node) and "Split Channel" (a Switch node) The setup for those three nodes is shown in order in the second post. I'd start by setting it up that way for just Line Crossing or whatever. For your debug node, open the dialogue and ensure that the output is set to 'complete msg object' rather than 'msg.payload'. Be sure to 'Deploy' modified nodes after every change you make.

node-red is a struggle for me but with trial and error and a lot of web searches I've managed to achieve a fair amount with it, not only on the CCTV. I've got an MQTT broker running on the Pi which intercepts all of the activity from my Honeywell Dimension (Galaxy) alarm system. That's allowed me to mirror every door contact, window contact and PIR on the alarm to virtual devices in Hubitat, so I've not needed to add wireless devices to trigger lights internally, I can just automate with what I already have.

 

[jwkbrb]

Yeah, I see it's a back and forth process. I was able to get the alarm event data with another lib: node-red-contrib-hikvision

Many thanks for the help, you made my day!

 

[jwkbrb]

Just in case someone else experiences such problems:

When cameras are connected through the built-in NVR PoE, they are on a separate network and thus cannot be directly accessed. However, if you enable "Virtual Host" (Network → Advanced → Other), it turns out that the Hikvision Ultimate node can make a direct connection to the cameras and read all alarm streams—works like a charm!

 

[JB1970]

Just in case someone else experiences such problems:

When cameras are connected through the built-in NVR PoE, they are on a separate network and thus cannot be directly accessed. However, if you enable "Virtual Host" (Network → Advanced → Other), it turns out that the Hikvision Ultimate node can make a direct connection to the cameras and read all alarm streams—works like a charm!

I've got an inkling it would still work without Virtual Host with that node as the it's the NVR event stream not the camera's that the node connects to. The issue comes when you try to use the alarm server (or http listening depending on firmware) of an NVR PoE connected camera. In that scenario, as previously mentioned it's not possible, as the camera on the NVR PoE subnet is sending out the data to a server specified with a LAN address and the message cannot traverse the subnets. Not even virtual host will work in that scenario, as it's a camera to server connection.