UNIFI cameras

has anyone installed / is using unifi cameras -- any advice experience would be welcome..

Karl

I have 3 of the UVC-G3 series working with Security Spy.

Great image quality, I plan to add a few more .

Do you have them outside?
Looks like not a lot of rain there.
There is some discussion that they are not well sealed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

All are outside, under eves, and no, not much rain here in the desert!

Also how is the dynamic range. ie full sun and darker light.. and did you get the IR range extender?

As an aside regarding IR: The LIFX+ lamps are very good at IR. You can't see that they are on with the naked eye but the room is completely illuminated when viewing through a camera in IR mode.

interesting.. do they work w/o alexa.. is the a plugin / api ..?

[EDIT] just saw this; https://lan.developer.lifx.com/v2.0/doc ... col-header

and the autologo plugin ..

I have five or six Unifi cameras installed outside. Most are in covered areas, but one has been directly exposed to elements of Florida since installing soon after Hurricane Irma hit this area about 8 months ago. It's POE via a cable that is probably 75' long. Image quality is good. Lens gets dirty and salty, though. Reliability has been perfect, as far as I can recall.

The biggest drawback I've noticed with these cameras is finding and applying the firmware updates, which requires checking the Unifi website, downloading to a computer, then uploading via the camera's interface on the local network. (Would prefer that it just checked for firmware updates and let me click to install).

Integrated into Indigo via the SecuritySpy plugin. Requires a manual configuration, but not difficult. Instructions on the Security Spy website.

... 5 or 6 cameras.... don’t know how many?


Have installed the free UniFi nvr system on a virtual box running Ubuntu on a 2008 Mac Pro. . Seems to work well.
Load with one camera is ~10-15% of one CPU ~5% total.

Will be adding more cameras over the next weeks. And will test the limits but it seems to be stable and performing.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

... 5 or 6 cameras.... don’t know how many?

Nope.

Also how is the dynamic range. ie full sun and darker light.. and did you get the IR range extender?

They seem pretty good all around, lots of bang for the buck!

I do not have the IR extenders.

found a nice little thing ..

if you are using unifies NVR (soft or hardware..) Here is how to reset the password of the unifi app running on the server-- not the server

ssh to the NVR box
enter

Code: Select all

mongo 127.0.0.1:7441/av
db.account.update( { username: "yourusername" }, {$set: { password: "$2a$06$cJz8kbmsELt.zmoXRGFs.uJwimjClVdIfu/NCt.A.pFdQyQJpji9K" } } )


will set yourusername password to ubtn
2a$06$cJz8kbmsELt.zmoXRGFs.uJwimjClVdIfu/NCt.A.pFdQyQJpji9K is the hash for ubnt

then you can login again the unifi app through the web browser with password ubnt and set the password to whatever you like


Karl

and a second .. if you are running the unifi app on a ubuntu virtual box this little python script comes in handy:

Code: Select all

import subprocess
vmMachine = "ubuntu"
vboxPath  = "/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/"
command   = "start" # or stop or test

runningVMs = subprocess.Popen(vboxPath+"VBoxManage  list runningvms",stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True).communicate()[0]
indigo.server.log("\n>>"+ runningVMs+"<<")

if command =="start":
   if runningVMs.find(vmMachine) ==-1:
      indigo.server.log(vmMachine+" starting vbox ")
      subprocess.Popen(vboxPath+'VBoxManage  startvm "'+vmMachine+'" --type headless &', shell=True)
   else:
      indigo.server.log(vmMachine+"  vBox is already running")

elif command =="stop":
   if runningVMs.find(vmMachine) >-1:
      subprocess.Popen(vboxPath+'VBoxManage controlvm "'+ vmMachine+'"  acpipowerbutton &', shell=True )

else:
   if len(runningVMs) > 10:   
      indigo.server.log(vmMachine +"  vbox is running ")
   else:   
      indigo.server.log(vmMachine +"  vbox is NOT running ")


this will do
- start Vbox with server = vmMachine
- stop (soft shutdown) server = vmMachine
- test if server = vmMachine is running


Karl

In process of adding the video nvr system to the UniFi plugin

It will have
- Camera info
- Motion events
Available in indigo

So you can set triggers on motions detected in the UniFi cameras.

Anyone interested .. if so, I can write up how to add a Ubuntu virtual box w the UniFi nvr app to your mac.

Karl.

Having just 2 up and running- adding 4 more. Really impressed by the hardware and software — well done.
Not on the cheap side but they look really good. Also the led ir booster works nicely. Illuminates > 20 meters.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Killer!!

I was just about to ask you about this !