curious about your BI setups

ccattie

ccattie

n3wb
Feb 7, 2018
25
10
Wyoming, Delaware
Not really an install section question, so I thought I would ask it here. How many people have their BI box someplace accessible vs stashed away someplace? I have mine down with my network rack stuff along with my Plex server. I just use the web interface for watching and RDP in as needed, but I wondered how everybody else does it.
-c
 
I cleared off enough space on a desk in an "office" room in my house to have room for a PC dedicated to BI, and a keyboard, mouse, and monitor just for it.

While I may not sit at that position very often, when I do need to add a camera, adjust things, view recorded events, edit them, save stills or clips, etc., it is really handy to have a nice place dedicated to those tasks.

The biggest problem is avoiding stacking and storing crap on this handy horizontal surface so that I have to clean it off when I want to use that workstation.

I have two other PCs, three other monitors, three printers, a scanner, etc., in this area where I do programming, photo editing and printing, circuit board CAD, etc. And most of the networking stuff for our house is also in there, so it's "Nerd Central". Thus, the BI setup fits into the "theme" of the room.

I don't like the idea of putting any of the computers or networking equipment in any non-climate-controlled location, especially areas that get hot. But I also understand that everyone's house or office is different, so we all have to set things up to fit our situation.

But I have to say that I really like having a dedicated workstation for working with the security camera system.
 
For a long time I ran mine headless in a spare bedroom along with other headless PCs doing servery things. But it is just too useful having a directly attached keyboard, mouse, and monitor. I eventually put a conduit through the wall to my main computer desk and put Blue Iris up on a monitor on the side. Then in January I decided it was time for a hardware upgrade and I built a new mini-itx system which sits on my A/V equipment shelf just above the monitor.
 
I have mine tucked away in an alcove behind a 65" TV in my family room. I'm using the TV as a monitor which is connected to the computer through a secondary HDMI port. I have an alert setup in BI that switches the HDMI ports on the TV so that I can see the feed from my front door camera when someone approaches the porch. The script is configured to switch the HDMI ports back to the TV feed after 10 seconds. If I need to access the computer I typically do it using RDP from another computer on my network.
 
I have 2 PC towers in my office, one dedicated to BI and the other for everything else. I hide the BI server in an easy accessible place so it is not at all noticeable and leave the other PC out. If someone does break in, I will have it on video, but if they steal your server, you will have nothing. You could always use a NAS and hide somewhere. Don't make it easy to loose your server with the video. You can think of it as leaving bait out. I would not store server in a unconditioned area.
 
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I've always run mine headless. It just sits on a wire shelf out of the way. I use either Team Viewer or Google Remote Desktop to access them remotely. Plus both of those programs are free. So I can view the BI machine from another PC, tablet, or cell phone if I need to. And with a PC it's looks just like it does if I had a monitor connected to it.
 
Got mine mounted in a mechanical room in the basement, it has an old monitor attached to it, but I mostly access via RDP unless I get it locked up then I can walk down and login. I will say when I access RDP over WiFi, it must be a bandwidth hog (or maybe CPU), because I have to be careful with resolution and refresh rates or I get graphic anomalies and weird video latency and it acts up (I dont see when sitting at computer).

The mechanical room was where the fiber internet runs into the house, so it has the pfSense box and primary switch, and some exposed 2x4s which I attached shelves to act as computer rack. Further it was the only unfinished room (excepting crawlspace), and it has the best access for running wires to most the house (i.e. to the garage via crawlspace, to the basement via the floor joists, to the attic via a vertical void that contains the furnace exhaust up to the roof). After living here a year I am realizing it collects some moisture (the floor occasionally is wet in that room), so may have to rethink if it starts killing equipment.
 
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