Preferred ways to get push notification of alerts from BI?

[Virga]

Problems I am trying to resolve are:

1. What are the preferred ways to get push notification of alerts from BI?
I have come across many references to the “Pushover” app.
Isn’t the BI mobile app supposed to be able to handle push notifications?
I have gathered that “Pushover” offers much granularity.

2. What might be my line of problem solving (see below) to restore reliable connectivity from other devices, both within my LAN and outside LAN, say Wi-Fi or mobile?
ZeroTier (ZT) has been working fine from the onset.

Background:
During 2023 I got started with IP cams.
Thanks to this forum, I identified cameras to buy, installed them, and got BI operational on a re-purposed and dedicated PC.
During this process, each interim step seemed a big deal but folks’ willingness to help went a long way in everything coming together.
When cameras are up and running, and can be accessed remotely (with ZT), it’s real nice.

Two aspects I by-passed, intending to get to them later, are:
– dialing-in the cameras, and for the most part and am still using them at defaults
– alerts and remote notifications
When I got to it, it turns out setting up alerts is simple of course.

It seems that the BI mobile app (iOS in my case) handles push notifications.
Trouble started when I tried to set up push notification of alerts, from BI.
Things that have been working fine for months started to fail.
I could not access BI remotely anymore, or even across my LAN from another machine.
Solved that by deleting the user account and deleting the push notification in BI.
Now it appeared that access from devices within my LAN was working fine.

Yesterday, I was away from base and discovered that I could not remotely access BI on a mobile phone connected to cellular network, which for many months used to work smoothly.
Came back to base and found that even within my LAN I could not connect to BI from other devices.
Looked at BI, and found a couple of cameras were not connected.
Rebooted BI machine, now all cameras were connected, remote access is operational again, both within LAN as well as on phone (tested by turning off Wi-Fi on phone).

Note – until I started experimenting with push notifications, access to BI within LAN and from mobile devices outside the LAN, was working flawlessly for many months.

The first thing I’m doing is replacing my router (separate history, not important for this purpose), and a replacement is arriving tomorrow.
My BI PC is an older repurposed PC, and there is no indication that any component is failing.
I had replaced the Wi-Fi module with a NIC to connect the PoE switch for the cameras, so I have a two-NIC motherboard, which has been working fine since I got started with BI.

Suggestions?

 

[wittaj]

The reason most of us use Pushover is because with the BI app, the only way you get push with photos is if you port forward (not recommended) or have a VPN open back to your home whenever away.

 

[Virga]

This is also a clue towards my connectivity problem.

A few minutes after I had setup up a basic push notification in BI on a camera looking towards the road that goes past my house (hoping for a test alert), I got an alert. I first heard the alert tone (iPhone was nearby, but not in my hand). I believe I saw a photo from that camera on my Watch when I happened to glance at it, and then the photo disappeared as I excitedly fumbled around for the phone.

The phone would not connect to BI, and soon after in BI I peeled off push notification and then alert, in searching for resolution.

I do not port forward or VPN, unless something changed by default.

So unless I am mistaken about having seen a photo on my Watch, that first and only alert to my Watch somehow got a photo through without VPN or post forward. I could not say how or why. It is the only time I got an alert notification on my Watch. Wonder if that somehow clobbered some internal network setting in BI.

 

[wittaj]

While at home on your home wifi you will get a photo with the push, it is only when away from home that you would need to be VPNd back home or have port forwarding on.

 

[Virga]

I see what you mean (I should have figured that out!), thanks.
So much for my speculation re. potential causation of my connectivity issue.

 

[Virga]

Should somebody else find their way to this thread, key points I learned in setting up Pushover notifications:

1. The first post from @jaydeel in an extensive thread on Pushover has everything you need to get Pushover notifications operational from Blue Iris.
All you have to do is copy one line of code from the first post into a clearly indicated area on the appropriate camera settings screen in Blue Iris and insert your Pushover credentials in place of clearly highlighted variables.

Send Pushover notifications with pictures and hyperlinks

I've figured out how to send Pushover notifications with pictures and hyperlinks from Blue Iris Actions without using external scripts. This approach uses curl and the Pushover API, and provides functionality similar to that recently described for Telegram . EDIT (5/16/2022) - For those who...

ipcamtalk.com

2. The first few pages of the ALERTS AND ACTIONS section of the Blue Iris manual are helpful to figure out how to get to the screen depicted in the above post.

3. Initially my Pushover notification sound alert was not working or seemed erratic. Pushover support info tells us that to get a sound alert, the Pushover app must not be active and the mobile device screen must be in sleep mode or another app must be active. Apparently there is a setting to override that, but the preceding is the default behavior. After carefully doing this, I got alerts on my Apple Watch (and my iPhone). I still haven't figured out the interaction between an iPhone and an Apple Watch, in general. But notification is sounding. Also, I don't know if the sound notification is because of the above referenced line of code, or Pushover at work, or both.

@jaydeel 's post can appear to be intimidating and technically complex. When you explain something you have to detail it out and be thorough in order to be clear. For a newbie it can seem a lot. When I got into it and tried it out, turns out it is not difficult. Having got Pushover notifications working, I hope to delve deeper into that string. Thank you @jaydeel .

 

[Pogo]

Thank you @jaydeel .

Ditto Ditto Ditto.

My Verizon alerts were working perfectly until a few weeks ago when I began experiencing significant latency on a fairly consistent basis. Kept hoping it may clear up but finally said screw it and began looking for alternatives for my MMS alerts..., which were only several a day. Nothing complicated or otherwise attention-getting in any way, shape or form.

Knew about Pushover and decided to revisit the initial @jaydeel thread after perusing it some time ago just out of curiosity. Seemed like a lot of work at the time just for a few alerts per day, but after relying on those alerts and getting used to, (and depending on), their regularity, well..., time to dig in and figure out Pushover.

Having a certain level of background in command line and scripting stuff is actually why I didn't initially get too excited about it knowing how some folks in the general 'field' tend to assume one of two things; Either everyone else is an idiot and couldn't possibly understand what they are trying to convey, or just the opposite assuming everyone understands (or should understand) their foreign language description of how simple it all is. (After all," there are only two kinds of people in the world -- those who understand binary, and those who don't.")

After revisiting the initial thread again after running across this one (at my BI console this time around), it all pretty much just fell into place for the most part and made perfect sense as applied to my needs for a reliable alerts replacement. Easy to follow and understand by simply referring to the examples given. Pretty damned slick, actually.

So anyway, I did plod along for a bit trying to figure out the easiest way to create a simple 'jpeg only' alert like my previous SMS config provided, but without all the extra bells and whistles for the touch screen links and stuff. Never did zero in on how to accomplish that with curl and decided to see how well the plain old email attachment approach worked instead. Works great, actually. Nearly instant notification even when off my LAN and back through Verizon. Very cool.

But am I missing something dumbass obvious for doing the same thing with the curl approach, or is email the way to go for 'image only' alerts?

'Preciate any additional illumination anyone may care to provide.

TIA