# Home Surveillance System (HSS)

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726>\
**Category:** Share Your Projects\
**Created:** [30 September 2021 18:08 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726 "2021-09-30T18:08:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![dynamicdave](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/dynamicdave/32/96_2.png) [@dynamicdave](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dynamicdave)\
**Post date:** [7 October 2021 16:29 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/61 "2021-10-07T16:29:25Z")

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First of all you need to check/ensure the camera's URL is correct and is working.  
You should be able to drop the camera's URL into a browser and the feed should appear in the browser.  
If it doesn't - then there is no way it will work with HSS.

Please check the above and get back to us with the result.

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**Author:** ![JoseGodinho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f4b2a3/32.png) [@JoseGodinho](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/JoseGodinho)\
**Post date:** [7 October 2021 22:50 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/62 "2021-10-07T22:50:08Z")

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Hello @krambriw  
Once again, I appreciate the work of you and your colleagues. I understand that there are so many cameras and protocols that it's difficult to attend them all.

In my case I have a camera with rstp and the video is an FFmpeg. Any tips on how to integrate it into your excellent node red flow.  
( ps I got it work through vlc)

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**Author:** ![krambriw](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/krambriw/32/5429_2.png) [@krambriw](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/krambriw)\
**Post date:** [8 October 2021 03:43 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/63 "2021-10-08T03:43:28Z")

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Hello Jose, thanks for the kind words, in fact, Paul, David and myself spent quite a lot of time building the HSS and we are very happy to share our joint project with the community

I think your camera should be possible to integrate without any major problems. I have described in some postings above how to add an ip camera like yours. Could you look into that? Also post the url (remove your user and password if you have that) you are using in vlc, that will help me to better understand and give you advice how to proceed.

Some ip cameras, I think like Axis, do provide streams also via http so those are dead simple to integrate. Is a pitty I do not have any ip cameras myself so I cannot test, that's why I have used and provided those public streams as example, some of them are actually from Axis cameras

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**Author:** ![vtgav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f0a364/32.png) [@vtgav](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/vtgav)\
**Post date:** [8 October 2021 06:51 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/64 "2021-10-08T06:51:41Z")

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for streaming I'm trying to use [GitHub - arkhipenko/esp32-cam-mjpeg-multiclient: ESP32 MJPEG Multiclient Streaming Server](https://github.com/arkhipenko/esp32-cam-mjpeg-multiclient) with no success so far.  
To check the camera out I've used the ESP32 camera webserver example and that does seem to work ok, so I know the cam does actually function correctly ( although it does take a few seconds for the video to appear when I first connect to it )

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**Author:** ![vtgav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f0a364/32.png) [@vtgav](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/vtgav)\
**Post date:** [8 October 2021 07:19 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/65 "2021-10-08T07:19:48Z")

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once I found the streaming address ( as opposed to the web page address ) and plugged that into HSS its all working ! seems to take a little while for the stream to appear, but then its fine

thx for the help 🙂  
Gav

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**Author:** ![dynamicdave](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/dynamicdave/32/96_2.png) [@dynamicdave](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dynamicdave)\
**Post date:** [8 October 2021 08:37 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/66 "2021-10-08T08:37:16Z")

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Thanks for letting us know - and really glad you've got it working.

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**Author:** ![hepcat72](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/hepcat72/32/8078_2.png) [@hepcat72](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/hepcat72)\
**Post date:** [8 October 2021 13:25 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/67 "2021-10-08T13:25:23Z")

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I have a few questions related to how I would go about transitioning from Sighthound Video to HSS. I haven't dug very deep yet.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but given the feature list, I get the sense that HSS is geared toward a scenario where someone is sitting at a terminal (like a security guard) actively watching the feed, whereas I use Sighthound in a fully automated fashion, so let me ask a few questions about the features I use with SHV:

1. Can you create several rules per camera that, for example, let you:
  - Define an irregularly shaped region to watch for motion events
  - Detect motion from any object or a person
  - Define actions upon motion detection (e.g. export clip to a separate folder, sound an alarm, email a snapshot, call a webhook, etc.)

2. Enable/disable any of the rules
  - Manually (in the GUI)
  - Automatically (e.g. based on my Life360 node - I wrote a script to enable rules when the last one of my family leaves and disable when the first of us arrives home)

3. I have 6 cameras configured in SHV. Would they all be able to be monitored concurrently?

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**Author:** ![krambriw](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/krambriw/32/5429_2.png) [@krambriw](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/krambriw)\
**Post date:** [8 October 2021 13:53 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/68 "2021-10-08T13:53:17Z")

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Hello,  
Let me try to answer your questions

> [@hepcat72](#):
>
> Perhaps I'm mistaken, but given the feature list, I get the sense that HSS is geared toward a scenario where someone is sitting at a terminal (like a security guard) actively watching the feed,  
> _Well, yes and no. It is actually designed to fit on one or more tablets that you can place anywhere in the house to provide you with an overview "at a glance". If you would use the external triggering feature described below, you would get a kind of automatic monitoring and you would not need to sit in front of it at all_

> [@hepcat72](#):
>
> - Can you create several rules per camera that, for example, let you:
> - Define an irregularly shaped region to watch for motion events  
> _No_
> - Detect motion from any object or a person  
> _Yes by external triggering. So as example, you have IR detectors that detects motion, you can use such signals to trigger object analysis, looking for persons, dogs, cars etc but there is no continuosly running video analyzis of the video streams_
> - Define actions upon motion detection (e.g. export clip to a separate folder, sound an alarm, email a snapshot, call a webhook, etc.)  
> _Some of this is supported like saving recordings and sending notifications using Telegram. Since HSS is built with Node-RED, you can extend with personal features_
> - Enable/disable any of the rules  
> _No since there is no rule engine_
> - Manually (in the GUI)  
> _No_
> - Automatically (e.g. based on my Life360 node - I wrote a script to enable rules when the last one of my family leaves and disable when the first of us arrives home)  
> _Well, you could enable or disable the external triggering using such script_
> - I have 6 cameras configured in SHV. Would they all be able to be monitored concurrently?  
> _Maybe. Depends what type of cameras. If they provide streams via rtsp or http it should work except for some types that will require new fw to be flashed (ESP-CAM, ESP-EYE)_

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**Author:** ![wb666greene](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/wb666greene/32/6534_2.png) [@wb666greene](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/wb666greene)\
**Post date:** [8 October 2021 20:22 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/69 "2021-10-08T20:22:08Z")

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I had a setback trying to update using the Projects feature, and broke it. Not clear what I did wrong. THen something came up and I had to put things aside. Hopefully I can find some time to work on it a bit this weekend.

I'm going to wipe my flows file and start the installation over again. Then I'll try these instructions to get one or more of my IP camera rtsp streams playing. If I succeed here, I'm sure I'll have more questions eventually about modifying the flow to replace

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**Author:** ![davidz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@davidz](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/davidz)\
**Post date:** [8 October 2021 23:23 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/70 "2021-10-08T23:23:06Z")

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Very nice work. Thanks for sharing.

Will try it out when I have a chance.

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**Author:** ![krambriw](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/krambriw/32/5429_2.png) [@krambriw](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/krambriw)\
**Post date:** [9 October 2021 06:40 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/71 "2021-10-09T06:40:06Z")

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You are welcome, will try to help as much as possible. Once you got the basics working I am particularly interested in re-designing the subflow part so you can use your external AI solution. As you know, I have such myself for my other video system in operation since a couple of years, using yolov4

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**Author:** ![dynamicdave](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/dynamicdave/32/96_2.png) [@dynamicdave](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dynamicdave)\
**Post date:** [9 October 2021 12:52 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/72 "2021-10-09T12:52:20Z")

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**Release version of the flow 'hss\_complete\_v1.1.0.zip' has been uploaded to the website.**

This release includes the new version of Single File Gallery (SFG v4\_8\_0) which has many improvements and enhancements. We have packaged a new 'organise' script with this release as SFG needs to remove \_sfpg\_data as it now stores thumbnails in a different format.

**You will need to re-run Step 1 and Step 2 on the HSS Setup SAS tab-flow and then all of this should happen automatically for you.**

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**Author:** ![wb666greene](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/wb666greene/32/6534_2.png) [@wb666greene](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/wb666greene)\
**Post date:** [9 October 2021 14:04 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/73 "2021-10-09T14:04:02Z")

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I hosed my node-red introducing the "projects" feature to update to v1.0.3. Not clear where or how I messed up, but now that I've recovered and have had the v1.0.3 project running overnight, I'll try the update to v1.1.0 before I attack adding my rtsp streams.

Where I'm a little unclear is how to I stop the current running project when I create and deploy the new one? Or does it happen automatically when I create/open the new project? I've never been motivated to try the projects feature so I didn't pay much attention to the discussions when it was introduced.

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**Author:** ![wb666greene](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/wb666greene/32/6534_2.png) [@wb666greene](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/wb666greene)\
**Post date:** [9 October 2021 14:12 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/74 "2021-10-09T14:12:44Z")

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When we were first starting on our projects, you provided me some "rosetta stone" sample python code that really got me on the right track! I think it would be great if we can make this work.

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**Author:** ![dynamicdave](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/dynamicdave/32/96_2.png) [@dynamicdave](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dynamicdave)\
**Post date:** [9 October 2021 14:16 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/75 "2021-10-09T14:16:38Z")

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I would strongly suggest switching on the 'projects' facility in Node-RED as it will make your life a lot easier when you come to upgrade/update to newer versions.

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**Author:** ![krambriw](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/krambriw/32/5429_2.png) [@krambriw](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/krambriw)\
**Post date:** [9 October 2021 14:29 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/76 "2021-10-09T14:29:21Z")

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> [@wb666greene](#):
>
> Or does it happen automatically when I create/open the new project?

Yes, it happens automagically, no worries! Works brilliant!

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**Author:** ![wb666greene](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/wb666greene/32/6534_2.png) [@wb666greene](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/wb666greene)\
**Post date:** [9 October 2021 14:29 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/77 "2021-10-09T14:29:50Z")

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I did when I tried to update to v1.0.3 from v0.55.1 and managed to hose my node-red.

I've recovered and am running v1.0.3 as a project (the only one) now. My question is how do I stop the v1.0.3 project and start the new one? Or does it happen automatically when I create the new project? Can I rename a project" or do I clone it to a new name to accomplish it.

I haven't really thought thru the issues of starting to use the projects feature. It'd be nice to have project HSS be the current version and rename it to HSS\_v1.0.3 when I update, but there could certainly be better ways. These development system "meta issues" can certainly be important in the long run, but they are initially a distraction when trying to just get something working.

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**Author:** ![krambriw](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/krambriw/32/5429_2.png) [@krambriw](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/krambriw)\
**Post date:** [9 October 2021 14:34 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/78 "2021-10-09T14:34:40Z")

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> [@wb666greene](#):
>
> Can I rename a project" or do I clone it to a new name to accomplish it.

No you can't rename a project at least what I know

But you can clone or you can actually export everything and then re-import it into a new project. Then delete the one with the name you do not like

To export everything, click on the first tab then go to the last tab at, hold shift and click on it. All tabs should now be selected, then select export, download to file. Open a new project with the name you like, then import what you just exported

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**Author:** ![krambriw](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/krambriw/32/5429_2.png) [@krambriw](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/krambriw)\
**Post date:** [9 October 2021 14:59 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/79 "2021-10-09T14:59:23Z")

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> [@wb666greene](#):
>
> I think it would be great if we can make this work

I'm sure we will, already thinking that we if possible should modify/extend the current sub-flow in such way that we can have support for both the current internal coco and an external like yours. So on the input have some smart switching, selecting the path for the object detection. If triggered with some "external AI" attribute, sending the image data out (via MQTT) and then receieve the result including annotated image and detected filtered objects in some way. Sort of. Or if simpler, create a new parallel subflow. Not sure yet which one would be best and easy to implement

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wb666greene](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/wb666greene/32/6534_2.png) [@wb666greene](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/wb666greene)\
**Post date:** [9 October 2021 18:02 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/home-surveillance-system-hss/51726/80 "2021-10-09T18:02:56Z")

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> [@krambriw](#):
>
> > [@wb666greene](#):
> >
> > Or does it happen automatically when I create/open the new project?
> 
> Yes, it happens automagically, no worries! Works brilliant!

I just created a new project to update to HSS v1.1.0 and it couldn't have been smoother. Projects really needs a way to rename them as its hard to get a good naming scheme the first time you try as you are figuring it out.

Now that I've tried it, I'll probably always use it going forward. But it seems clunky at best, to take an existing flow and turn it into a project. Doubt I'll bother with it on my dedicated systems, but on my development system where I have many "disabled" flow tabs it'll clean things up nicely.

Next up, following your instructions to try and get some IP cameras in the Presets. About done for today unfortunately.

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