How to interface IP camera motion with HAI Omni

[swb_mct]

I have 8 Linksys Wireless Web Cameras (WVC80N) viewing outside scenes at a cabin. Also have HAI Omni lle. The cameras send ftp video or email messages upon motion detection (or both).

My problem: These cameras work well for uploading video clips to a server at our home when they see motion. But, when its windy and sunny the moving shadows on the ground from the trees trigger the motion detection perpetually.

I want the HAI Omni to power-off the cameras when the motion activity is over active. I can program the Omni to calculate over-activity if I could somehow use the ftp or smtp output from the cameras to create a trigger-event on OMNI. I know this is not a native interface for Omni, but can some think of a way to do this ?

Otherwise if I could find a low cost IP Web Cam with Contact-Closures for motion. I haven't been able to find one.

 

[electron]

Welcome to CocoonTech!

You have a few options, but I'm not sure if there is a cheap way of doing this.

1. Replace the cameras with cameras which support NC/NO contact closures upon motion detection (many cameras can do this, and some of them are even affordable, but I can't remember a specific make/model).
2. Use a PC to process the video and signal the HAI Omni whenever motion is detected. Most surveillance applications support executing a command when motion is detected, so in theory you should be able to send an ASCII string to the HAI to indicate motion has been detected. This does require a PC running 24/7 and software such as Vitamin D, WebcamXP, etc.
3. Many DVR's support NC/NO contact closures as well, but you would require analog cameras, or a DVR which supports IP cameras (more expensive).

Detection motion without generating too many false positives is pretty much the holy grail, and it gets expensive really fast (depending on how good you want the results to be).

 

[swb_mct]

Re: Coccon Tech Admin

I have a dedicated PC connected to the Omni controller for Web-Link and for hosting PC Access on-site. I access the pc with Remote Desktop over a VPN from home for HAI programming.

Your option 2 sounds very interesting. Can you tell me more about how to configure a command to send to the Omni controller from an app on this PC?

Thanks

 

[electron]

You would need to find an app which supports interacting with the Omni via command line, or write a small app yourself, which has the correct ASCII string (you'll have to look at the protocol SDK) hardcoded, and can send it to the Omni whenever executed. You could write this in something like AutoIT, or even VBScript. If I had an Omni myself, I would take a closer look, but I have an ELK M1, and that's how I would do it (concept should be the same).