Trigger -> Record -> Not Notify & Notify Question

[bbdude]

I have 4 cameras in my BI5 setup. I have 3 of the 4 cameras setup to trigger on motion, record, and send me a push notification. The 4th camera is mounted over my garage and looks straight out my driveway with FOV covering my driveway, front yard boundary to the road, and the full width of the road in front of the house. The road is a culdesac with not much traffic so I have this camera setup to detect motion -> trigger -> record events in that entire FOV, including cars and people entering/leaving my driveway and cars/people passing on the culdesac (road). This is not an excessive amount of video data to record; however I don't want to be notified (push notification) every time a car passes the front of the house -- but I do want to record these. Thus my current setup on this camera triggers and records but generates no push notification.

My question is this: Is it possible to have this camera continue to operate as described above (always motion triggering/recording events in the entire FOV), but generate push notifications only for motion in a subset of that FOV (ie only in my front yard and driveway)?

[bbdude]

I never got a reply to this question from a couple months ago, so I pretty much concluded that what I am wanting to do here is impossible, but just to be sure, let me rephrase the question:

Is it impossible, for a given camera, to have it trigger and record on motion anywhere within its field of view but only send push notification for motion within a region that is a subset of the full FOV ?

[athlonxp]

Isn't "Motion zones" under "Alerts" tab exactly made for this scenario? E.g. Zone A is full FOV, Zone B is a part of it, so fire mail alert only for trigger source Zone B.

[bbdude]

Thanks athlonxp. That worked! I've now got zone A covering the full FOV and zone B covering just my front yard and driveway. I always record when triggered anywhere in the full FOV but only push-notified with motion in zone B.

I have the alert generated for all zones but used the On Alert menu to be specific to zone B. On the Alert menu I have all the zones checked.

One thing that is still not doing what I want is if a car drives up the road, enters zone A (and I begin recording but no push notification), then if that car pulls into my driveway and the driver gets out and immediately walks around the corner and up to my front porch, I do not get a notification from the driveway camera. I think that is due to the camera already being triggered when the car is in zone A and then the motion in zone B occurs within that same initial trigger period so no new trigger or retrigger so no notification. I've found that if I walk up the road through zone A then into the driveway (zone B) and then walk back & forth in the drive way for 20 or 30 seconds or more then I do get a notification (presumably from a retrigger or a new trigger not sure which). Any suggestion on how to increase the probability that I will get a notification for the scenario where the zone A followed quickly by zone B followed quickly by cease of motion all comes close together?

Thanks again for the great help!

[athlonxp]

Hard to say how to archive it, my spatial imagination is not the best. For me it sounds like you need to define more non-overlapping zones instead of one full FOV zone or get an additional front porch camera.
Two things to play with:
"Break time" under "Trigger" tab (duration of the triggered state - default is 10.0 seconds) and
"Also re-triggers" under "Alerts" tab (option to alert for re-triggers).

[MikeBwca]

That's correct. What you could do is to define a CLONE of the camera with the other specific set of triggers.

[bbdude]

Thanks athlonxp & MikeBwca. I was not aware until just now there is a capability to clone a camera. I've only recently come across the HomeTech tutorial videos -- just watched the one on cloning a camera. I clearly have a lot more to learn about BlueIris. What an immensely capable program. I will resolve to do more of the requisite homework to get some literacy here.

[bbdude]

Ok I setup a clone of the garage camera.

I renamed the clone master to Culdesac. I set the 1 zone (zone A) to be the entire FOV. I set the trigger Min Object Size / Contrast to 550 / 40. This camera always records when triggered (ie on motion anywhere in the road or my property).

I named the clone to Driveway. I set the 1 zone (zone A) to be my front yard & driveway. I set the trigger Min Object Size / Contrast to 520 / 30. This camera does not record when triggered but does send push notification (ie on motion only on my property).

This seems to be working as desired, so far. One thing I don't have a very clear understanding on is what part of motion detection, object definition, and zone definition occurs in the camera H/W and what part occurs in the BI S/W? Since I can setup different object sizes, contrasts, and zones in the camera settings and the cloned camera settings, even though the master camera and cloned camera are really the same physical camera H/W, this makes me think all motion detection is being done in the BI S/W. Am I correct here?

[MikeBwca]

I've done the same with one of my cameras! Named the clone 'Driveway', and setup zones so I know when anyone enters my driveway area.

Yes, all motion/triggering is done in BI - Unless you specifically setup your camera to do it.

If our camera is setup for H/W detection, you can disable BI's 'motion sensor' to save cpu/gpu. Then, enable 'Camera's digital input or motion alarm' (I think' so that BI's can trigger alerts.

[bbdude]

One more question on camera cloning: As I mentioned above, I cloned the camera above my garage, called the master ‘Culdesac’ and the clone ‘Driveway’. Only the master Culdesac camera causes recording and does so for motion anywhere in the camera’s FOV, with an alert but no push notification. The cloned ‘Driveway’ camera has the zone limited to my driveway & front yard, when triggered generates an alert, and a push notification.

In the camera settings for the cloned camera, I set it to Hidden. I did this because I do not want to use up screen real estate with a duplicate live video window. This also has the effect of hiding the Driveway alert in the BI5 & UI3 clips pane.

It would be nice to keep the cloned ‘Driveway’ live video window hidden but show the ‘Driveway’ alert (makes it easier to find the Driveway alerts in the bigger haystack of Culdesac alerts).

So ideally what I am trying to accomplish is:
1) Keep the cloned (redundant) ‘Driveway’ live video window hidden;
2) Show the cloned Driveway alert;
3) If I could accomplish the above, then when I click (in BI5 console or UI3) on the Driveway alert, ideally it would link to the corresponding Culdesac video clip (since in my settings there is no video recorded directly from the cloned camera).

Is this possible?