Alarm input/output on IPC-T5241H-AS-PV ???

[Cold-Lemonade]

Having seen a lot of high praise for the IPC-T5241H-AS-PV, I purchased two of them. When the boxes finally arrived and I opened them up, I was confused to find a cable with 4 wires (brown, green, blue, and gray) in addition to what look an analog audio in/out (plus the RJ45 cable). Has anyone used these cameras without attaching the brown-green-blue-gray cable? And am I correct that these are for a separate siren? I thought these cameras had built-in sirens. Is that wrong? If so, I'm going to feel somewhat deceived.

 

[wittaj]

The majority of people never use those extra wires. Plug in an ethernet cable powered by a POE switch and you are good to go.

I have 2 of those cameras and they work as advertised.

Those extra wires are if you want to add an external mic or external speaker or do some home automation alarm configuration. Some want a better mic or one closer to something and some want a louder speaker.

 

[Cold-Lemonade]

The majority of people never use those extra wires. Plug in an ethernet cable powered by a POE switch and you are good to go.

I have 2 of those cameras and they work as advertised.

Those extra wires are if you want to add an external mic or external speaker or do some home automation alarm configuration. Some want a better mic or one closer to something and some want a louder speaker.

Thanks @wittaj for the fast reply. Just to be clear, this camera still has a microphone and siren functionality using only the RJ45 (i.e., without attaching the additional wires)? Should I cover up these additional wires with some plastic wrap and electrical tape--they are showing bare wire. I'm going to mount this camera on a PFA130e junction box.

I appreciate any advice.

 

[wittaj]

That is correct. You can play one of the 12 or so sounds the camera has or add your own. All with the RJ45. No other additional wiring is needed. You could cut them off if you wanted LOL.

I put dielectric grease on the extra cables and tape them up and throw it in the junction box. You may not need them now, but you may in the future if you expand system or sell camera.

Pro-tip turn the the noise filter off on the internal mic - you will miss almost everything if you leave the noise reduction on.

 

[Cold-Lemonade]

Many thanks @wittaj I will do as you describe. I'll post some photos when I'm finished, hopefully later this week. I had shielded cat6 run throughout my house and now I've been spending my free time putting RJ45 connectors on them. Thank god someone invented passthrough connectors--I can't imagine how much of a pain it must have been before.

 

[Cold-Lemonade]

So I plugged these cameras into my router, one at a time. And I pointed my browser to 192.168.1.108, but I get nothing. The router's light for the port which they are connected to doesn't even come on. What am I doing wrong? It's been a while since I initialized an ip camera, but this is what I recall doing.

 

[wittaj]

Your router probably doesn't provide POE. Very few do.

You need a POE switch. You plug the cameras into the POE switch and then the switch to the router. OR you provide power via a 12vdc wall wart, but then you need two wires - power and ethernet.

NEVER plug more than one camera in at a time. Change the IP address of the camera before proceeding to the next one.

Here is how most of us get the cameras to the IP address of our system:

The default IP address of the camera is 192.168.1.108, which may or may not be the IP address range of your system.

Unhook a computer or laptop from the internet and go into ethernet settings and using the IPv4 settings manually change the IP address to 192.168.1.100

Then power up your camera and wait a few minutes.

Then go to INTERNET EXPLORER (needs to be Explorer and not Edge or Chrome with IE tab) and type in 192.168.1.108 (default IP address of Dahua cameras) and you will then access the camera.

Tell it your country and give it a user and password.

Then go to the camera Network settings and change the camera IP address to the range of your system and hit save.

You will then lose the camera connection.

Then reverse the process to put your computer back on your network IP address range.

Next open up INTERNET EXPLORER and type in the new IP address that you just gave the camera to access it.

OR use the IPconfig Tool, but most of us prefer the above as it is one less program needed and one less chance for the cameras to phone home.

 

[Cold-Lemonade]

Many thank @wittaj Your directions revived my memory. I think when I initialized my other ip cameras, I was using an old Dell computer with two NICs and one of these was attached to my POE which was connected to the ip cameras.

Incidentally, do you ever download new firmware for your ip cameras and flash them?

 

[wittaj]

Glad you got it going!

You really need to be asking yourself why are you updating? If it is just for grins and giggles or OCD behavior to be running the latest firmware, think twice.

A common theme around here is don't fix what ain't broke. If the unit is working and meets your needs, in many instances an update breaks what you had working and provides you with something you didn't need or bricks the camera. In most instances, updates are simply security vulnerability patches (usually years after the breach was found), but since we do not give our cameras internet access, the update is useless to us.

Here are issues I have seen people report here where they were upgrading just for the sake of upgrading (and many of these are not failed attempts, some of the functionality was removed intentionally):

• A Dahua Z12E that someone updated and then constantly reboots comes to mind.
• The Dahua 49225 and 49425 PTZ that loses autotracking with an update come to mind. Dahua intentionally removed it and yet each month we get someone here after they lost autotrack.
• The Hikvision DS-2DEA425IW-DW PTZ that loses autotracking with an update comes to mind.
• A Hikvision ANPR camera losing half the FPS and loses the ability to read US plates - those are big deals to have happen.
• A Hikvision ANPR DS-2CD4A26FWD camera that lost all ability to read plates - kinda makes the camera useless.
• A Hikvision camera that the user lost ability to control the LED light function at night.
• A Hikvision wifi camera that loses the ability to use wifi after a firmware update.
• Dahua 5442 that will not allow playback of the SD card.
• Countless other instances where the camera or NVR simply bricked and became useless.
• Countless examples where the camera or NVR went into Chinese.

Don't do it unless it is fixing a problem you are experiencing or adds a feature you really need.

My cameras are running on the firmware they came with.

 

[Cold-Lemonade]

Great advice! Thank you again.

Also, the siren on the IPC-T5241H-AS-PV is surprisingly loud. I'm sure it will scare away the neighborhood teenagers who congregate on my stoop from time to time.

 

[wittaj]

Yeah it is loud enough to scare those close to it but not loud enough to wake the neighbors! I don't hear mine when inside.

 

[Cold-Lemonade]

Is there a way to turn the siren on without being in the camera's web GUI? I'm running Home Assistant and Frigate and it would be ideal if I could turn the siren on if it detects a person.

 

[wittaj]

Use the capability of the camera. Setup an IVS rule that when the camera sees a person it triggers the siren.

You can setup multiple rules and schedules as well.

Or you can use API commands with other systems.

 

[Cold-Lemonade]

Okay. I will research IVS rules and figure out how best to do it.

 

[TonyR]

Okay. I will research IVS rules and figure out how best to do it.

According to posts here, you can create a new IVS rule then enable it with the API ==>> Review-OEM IPC-T5241H-AS-PV 2mp AI active deterrence cam

The Dahua API "PDF" file posted by @The North Face ==>> here.

Curl script by @marigo to control the white LED ==>> here

For direct HTTP command (without curl) I would assume you'd just use the URL inside the quotes.

 

[Cold-Lemonade]

According to posts here, you can create a new IVS rule then enable it with the API ==>> Review-OEM IPC-T5241H-AS-PV 2mp AI active deterrence cam

The Dahua API "PDF" file posted by @The North Face ==>> here.

Curl script by @marigo to control the white LED ==>> here

For direct HTTP command (without curl) I would assume you'd just use the URL inside the quotes.

@TonyR This is great! Thank you for pointing it out to me. I think I should be able to have Home Assistant run a script that logs into my Ubuntu Server that connects to my ip cameras and execute the curl script to turn on/off the siren.

 

[Cold-Lemonade]

With some effort, I have figured out how to get Home Assistant to turn on this camera's siren (or issue any of the other API commands listed in the sources that @TonyR listed above). In case someone else uses Home Assistant and wants to try this out, here's a basic description of what I did.

Here's the setting... I'm running a standard Home Assistant OS installation on a Raspberry Pi 4. My ip cameras are connected via a Netgear POE switch to a separate computer running Frigate in a docker container on Ubuntu Server 22.04 (which I refer to as my Frigate NVR below). Home Assistant is on a different subnet from the ip cameras. The Frigate NVR has two NICs and physically connects to both. Home Assistant is on 192.168.X.X and the ip cameras are on 192.168.Y.Y.

One of the sources @TonyR pointed to shows that the siren can be trigger using curl:

curl --digest -g "

http://username:password@192.168.Y.Z/cgi-bin/coaxialControlIO.cgi?action=control&channel=1&info[0].Type=2&info[0].IO=1

"

where 192.168.Y.Z is the ip address of the IPC-T5241H-AS-PV and username and password are the credentials you use to access it via its web GUI.

When I issue this command in my computer running Ubuntu Server, it triggers the siren. The challenge is that I cannot issue this command in Home Assistant because it is operating on a different subnet and cannot see 192.168.Y.Z. The solution is to have Home Assistant to log into the Frigate NVR and issue the curl command above. Here are the steps.

1. Create a new user account on the Frigate NVR (called "ha-script"). This will be the account that Home Assistant uses to log into the Frigate NVR.

2. Create ssh keys using the command line in Home Assistant (using the "SSH and Web Terminal" add-on). I put a copy of the keys in folder called /config/cert on the Home Assistant computer.

3. Copy the public key over to the Frigate NVR using ssh-copy-id

(Note: I need to edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file on the computer running Frigate so that PubkeyAuthentication yes was not commented out.)

4. Now I can run the following command in Home Assistant which essentially tells Home Assistant to log into the Frigate NVR and execute the curl command above:

ssh -i /config/cert/id_rsa -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no ha-script@192.168.X.X 'curl --digest -g "

http://username:password@192.168.Y.Z/cgi-bin/coaxialControlIO.cgi?action=control&channel=1&info[0].Type=2&info[0].IO=1

"'

where 192.168.X.X is the ip address of the Frigate NVR.

My next step will be to make a button in Home Assistant so that I can manually trigger the siren there. Once I get that working, I will create more elaborate automations. For example, I going get a Google Coral USB and have the siren go off if a person is detected in the vicinity of my ground floor windows.

Also, one observation, the siren only goes off for approximately 10 seconds so there is no point to having Home Assistant to turn it off. It seems to turn off automatically. This means I have to have Home Assistant continue to repeat the process as long as someone is outside my windows.

Hopefully this helps someone out there.

 

[isabido]

Hi @Cold-Lemonade I also just purchased a 5241H-AS-PV on the recommendation of @wittaj which I will receive in a few days. I am also a HomeAssistant user and doing tests with Frigate (I still don't have Coral).

What do you intend to do with Frigate that the camera's own AI cannot solve, it seems quite powerful from what I've seen.

 

[Cold-Lemonade]

Hi @isabido I want to control when the camera's siren goes off.

My brownstone is currently being renovated and I have a lot of contractors coming in and out the back of the house through the deck. I don't want them to trigger the siren. To prevent them from triggering the siren, I created a helper in Home Assistant that acts as a "system armed" switch. If the system is not armed, then when Frigate see a person on my back deck the siren will not go off. When contractors go home for the day, I turn the helper on and the system is armed. If someone gets on the deck at night, then Home Assistant will tell the camera to turn its siren on.

I also have a second camera in the back that doesn't have a siren. So I have Home Assistant turn on the first camera's siren if the second camera detects a person on the deck.

I finally bought a Google Coral TPU usb and it is amazing.