Cameras with ISY994 question about compatibility

[edokid]

Hi everyone, I have the ISY994 on order coming tomorrow and right now I just have the Hub.  I bought some D-Link DCS-933L cameras which are IP and seem to work pretty well.  They of course don't work with the Insteon hub and app as it only wants an Insteon camera.  I tried the demo of HomeSeer before I bought the ISY but I could never make them work with it.  One plugin would let me see a snapshot but never live video.  They support FTP upload but also have a url to access that shows the video in a browser, something like http://IP/video.cgi or something like that, but it just would never work with HomeSeer.

 

I was going to return these for some Foscam cameras but thought I'd check first regarding compatibility as I have a bunch of questions.

 

1) First one is I don't particularly need the cameras to interact with any devices, so being independent is fine.  The cameras are connected with Mangocam and record on motion which works fine.  Where I'm confused though is if not interacting with scenes etc, then where would I see the cameras with the ISY anyway?  Meaning, if I wanted to use MobiLinc or eKeypad, are the cameras set up on THOSE apps directly?  Or do I set the cameras up on the ISY and then the apps see them and control them?  If it's the later then I want to return them for Foscam cameras I think unless anyone can comment on compatibility with the ISY.

 

I thought I had more questions but I guess that's it actually!  I'm just confused since with HomeSeer the app has nothing to do with the cameras, you set them up in HomeSeer.  So I'm more just wondering if when looking for cameras, I'm looking for them to be compatible with the ISY, or with the app that I want to use to see and control them?  I think I'm going to return them for the Foscam ones either way since the viewing angle on these is insanely narrow, so having pan and tilt I think would be beneficial.  Thanks!

[oberkc]

They would be set up on your mobile app directly, without any intervention on the part of the ISY controller.

[stusviews]

IP cameras can be added via the ISY's HTML (web) interface and viewed from there. They do not interact with devices or scenes.

[bmercier]

I would suggest to base your choice on the mobile app, but also on the integration options, in general.

 

The ISY web interface has a feature to configure and display cameras. It has built-in definitions for a few cams, but you can define just about any cam, given that there is a URL available to get image snapshots. So that should not be a criteria, most if not all modern cams should have this.

 

However, with API from the camera, you can potentially control it using network resources. You could for instance enable/disable recordings. I know you can do that at least with Foscam and Axis cams.

 

On the opposite side, you may be able to control devices or scenes using the ISY rest API with some cams. With Axis, you can create custom scripts that gets triggered based on events like when there is motion, and I think that with such a custom script we could trigger events on the ISY. I have not tried that though. Foscam does not have this capability.

 

Hope that helps,

 

Benoit.

[edokid]

Great thanks everyone.  In general, if I use MobiLinc or eKeypad etc, are they creating their own scenes, devices etc independent of the ISY in the way that the Insteon App and Insteon Hub work?  Or are they actually integrated as in the app is pulling scenes and so on from the ISY directly?  

 

I think I'll keep these cameras probably and just get more later on as well, since they do work and can upload to FTP so it probably makes more sense to use a dedicated camera app which supports multiple cameras and is probably better, than trying to have one app that does it all with the ISY.

[oberkc]

I can speak mostly about mobilinc, but I believe this applies generally.  Apps that integrate with ISY use the insteon scenes and programs from the ISY controller.  From an insteon standpoint, the app are little more than an interface to the devices, scenes, and program created by the ISY-994. 

 

The bigger point is that video camera images do not rely on anything from ISY integration, unlike anything insteon.  As others have pointed out, the ISY (via network module) CAN provide some integration between camera triggers (motion, night) and can potentially control cameras, but this has nothing to do with viewing of the imagery from those cameras.

[Xathros]

As oberkc pointed out above, Mobilinc reads the device/scene/program and variable configurations from the ISY and presents a mobile UI to access those.  There is some Mobilinc specific configuration (at least on the iPhone/iPad) that can be done beyond what is configured in the ISY.  For instance, you can set custom Icons, status and control names to thake the place of things like True/False,On/Off etc.  In addition there is a Resource Manager in Mobilinc that allows some timer type automation managed by Mobilinc rather than ISY programs.  I don't use this feature so can't tell you much more about it.  There are other apps like iRule and Demopad that allow for much greater customization but these require you to build the interface from the UI elements to devices/scenes/programs on the ISY using the ISY's /REST interface via http network calls.  These apps generally offer the ability to interface with things beyond the ISY such as cameras, AV equipment, and much more all at the expence of being much more difficult to deploy.

 

Hope this helps.

 

-Xathros

[edokid]

It does thanks so much. Will try Mobilinc and then take it from there. Just got the ISY but I'm at the in laws for another 2 hours before I can go home and play!