Sending an On Alert email only when my house is unoccupied.

[Marty_B]

Hi Everyone,
I currently have several cameras set up to send me an email when an alert occurs on those cameras. For example, I have task set to send me an email if a person is seen at my back door. When I am home and going in and out of my back door, obviously I get lots of emails that are not relevant. I would love to be able to have my home automation system (HomeSeer) send an MQTT message to Blue Iris to tell it of the home is occupied or not. Then Blue Iris can decide to send On Alert emails only if the house is unoccupied. I have a decent understanding of MQTT.
I currently have Blue Iris send an MQTT message to Homeseer when an alert happens and then Homeseer sends me an email if the house is unoccupied but does not send a picture. I have been unable to get homeseer to email pictures reliably.
So again, my goal is to have Homeseer decide if the home is occupied or not, and if possible, set a bit in Blue iris via MQTT. This bit would then be evaluated when an alert happens to decide if an email containing a picture should be sent. Does anyone know if this can be done? I have never used the DIO bits before and this seems like a way.
Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[wittaj]

Set up a profile that doesn't send alerts and have it set BI to that profile when you are home.

 

[Marty_B]

Set up a profile that doesn't send alerts and have it set BI to that profile when you are home.

How do I tell Blue Iris that I am home?

 

[wittaj]

Lots of ways.

Manually switch it.

Have homeautomation send a profile change request based on your home automation settings.

Have an alarm disabled change it.

And probably several other ways.

 

[Marty_B]

So my home automation knows if I am home or not, it can send mqtt messages. Can a profile change request be done via mqtt?

 

[JNDATHP]

Here is an example of two events to Speak “Driveway” if a person is identified by a camera facing the driveway. The first event is called by BI in Alert/Web request or MQTT. I am using Web request.

192.168.0.2/JSON?user=user&pass=pwd&request=runevent&id=29 Substitute your HS user and password as indicated.

My HS4 computer is at 192.168.0.2 and the first event writes its event ID in the log so I can include this ID in the Webhook from BI.

You could add any conditions you want in the second event to prevent it or allow it to run.

 

[JNDATHP]

Instead of using email, I suggest using Pushover. Much more reliable and it is quicker than email from HS.

 

[hikky_b]

I don't know of any built-in mqtt control over profiles but it can be done with a http request:

http://blueirisip/admin?profile=1&lock=1&user=USER&pw=PASSWORD

lock = 1 will hold the profile until you change it again.

 

[Marty_B]

Thanks to everyone. It looks like a web request to change profiles is what I will try. Thanks again.

 

[jpc-s4]

Late to the game, but adding my two cents. I use Hubitat as my controller, and when both my wife and I are gone, Hubitat changes mode to away, which I have then programmed to change the profile to an "away" profile in BI. Sounds like a lot of people doing the same thing using different HA hardware...

 

[Marty_B]

Thanks again. Unfortunately with the holidays sucking up all of my time, I have not had a chance to try it yet but I am glad to hear from folks that have implemented this function successfully. I am relatively new to Blue Iris and don't fully understand the Profiles feature but am sure I can figure it out. Thanks again!

 

[looney2ns]

Getting BI and HomeSeer Talking To Each Other | IP Cam Talk

 

[Marty_B]

I was able to get this working as desired by your suggestions, using profiles, having Homeseer sent HTTP request to Blue Iris to change profiles and configuring Blue Iris to only send emails with certain profiles. Thanks again for everyone's help.