Amazon released a new software update allowing you to use your Alexa and Dot devices as intercom devices within your household using the green ring from the Alexa calling feature as an indicator. Just in time with the release of the Echo Show, Amazon released an update which allows you to enable a feature called “Drop-in”.
This feature can be configured per Alexa or Dot device to enable or disable drop-ins. The end user can use his or her cell phone via the Alexa app and call any device within the home.
The end user can also use any Alexa or Dot to call any device within the home by simply saying “Alexa, drop-in {device name}” for example “Alexa, call echo living room”.
This feature even works without being at home and connected to your home WiFi. You can use the Alexa app to connect and drop-in to any Alexa or Dot device, while being on the road and speak to your family.
Adding now Echo Show to the mix allows you to have a video chat conversation from your cell phone via the Alexa app and the Echo Show in real time.
For the initial setting the end user has to enable the “drop-in” feature and all devices will get enabled for drop-in. With that said, every device can be configured individually to support the drop-in feature or not.
You can select “On”, “Only my household” or “Off”. The “On” feature will allow any contact within the Alexa app, after having imported your phone contacts and checked which of your contacts has Alexa or Dot devices, to connect to your devices via drop-in.
The good news is that the default setting for every contact is “Off” for drop-ins. This means even if you enable the drop-in feature by simply saying “On” instead of “Only my household” nobody from your Alexa app contact list is able to drop-in unless you specifically allow the drop-in feature for that specific user.
All household members are by default enabled to drop-in without permission but even this can be disabled. You are also able now to block contacts within the Alexa app, which was a big issue at the beginning when the Alexa calling feature was released.
Seems like a lot of thought went into the default settings here with security in mind, while offering flexibility to expand the circle of users as needed. Families can now connect between houses e.g. Grandma/Grandpa can drop-in to the family household and vice versa.
The setup didn’t work immediately on all Alexa or Echo devices. Troubleshooting the issues did require some time and I wanted to share those experiences here as well.
One Alexa devices did not react at all to any drop-in request and the Alexa app on the cell phone or any other Alexa or Dot device wasn’t able to reach that specific Alexa as this Alexa was on the 5G version of my Home Wifi. Once I switched that WiFi setup to the regular WiFi the cell phone and all other devices were able to drop-in into that Alexa.
Another Dot device was not reachable either and this was due to the settings of that Dot device. This was a brand new Dot device, which was just configured for WiFi and no other settings were configured like Zip code and Time Zone. After those settings were entered, this device became reachable via drop-in as well.
Another important thing to mention is the naming of each Alexa or Dot device. If you change the name of any device to make it easier to drop-in or call that device, the Alexa app and the device do not immediately recognize that changed name. I found out, that if you on your conversation screen with the new blue bar stating drop-in, if you pull down like refreshing a browser page, then the new name will be refreshed almost instantaneously.
Last but not least I tried to connect my Magic Mirror Prototype and use the drop-in feature with that device. Unfortunately there is no option to enable the drop-in on that device using the Alexa Voice service API.
The video API and Echo Show integration was just released so I can only assume that it is a matter of time until this functionality will become available on other devices running Alexa Voice Skills and APIs.
Conceptually speaking having a smart mirror with a webcam and a speaker built-in would be a great addition for any bathroom. I would like to see a gesture to reject a drop-in or a voice command to deny or accept a drop-in given the location of the typical smart mirror, which would be the bathroom.
Overall the drop-in feature is a great addition to the Alexa and Echo Dot family and with the release of the Echo Show and its video integration there will be a lot of communication be happening within the household and between households.
The day after Microsoft announces their Alexa and Google Home competitor called “Invoke” based on Cortana’s voice engine, Amazon releases Echo Show as the latest member of the Alexa Echo Family.
Echo Show has a touch screen and also includes now a calling feature. You can not only control all your smart home devices with your voice as before, but now you are able to watch videos with your voice, place calls and send messages to other Echo member devices (Alexa, Dot) and everybody who has the free Alexa app on their Android or IOS phone.
Powered by Dolby, Echo Show is fine-tuned to deliver crisp vocals with dynamic bass response and expansive sound. Watch as the display comes alive to show song lyrics, custom stations, curated playlists, and album art with Amazon Music. Echo Show also connects to Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn—giving you voice control for all of your music. Echo Show is Bluetooth-enabled so you can stream other popular music services like Apple Music from your phone or tablet
Introducing a new way to be together more with the people who matter most. Make hands-free video calls to friends and family who have an Echo Show or the Alexa App. When you’re busy making dinner, just ask Alexa to place a call from your Echo Show to anyone with a supported Echo device or the Alexa App. You can also enable a new feature called Drop In for the special cases when you want to connect with your closest friends and family. For example, you can drop in to let the family know it’s time for dinner, see the baby’s nursery, or check in with a close relative.
With the Alexa App, conversations and contacts go where you go. When you’re away from home, use the app to make a quick call or send a message to your family’s Echo. Alexa calling and messaging is free.
For news and information you can see and hear, just ask Alexa for your video flash briefing from CNN, Bloomberg, and more. Curious about the latest movie trailers or a need a how-to video from YouTube? Just ask.
Echo Show helps keep you organized at home. Start a timer in the kitchen and watch as it counts down, or easily see and manage your family’s calendar. Sign in to the Alexa App to take your to-do and shopping lists with you. Just add an item to the list from home, and whoever is out shopping will see it added instantly on their Alexa App.
Equipped with eight microphones, beam-forming technology, and noise cancellation, Echo Show hears you from any direction–even while music is playing.
People believe “smart homes” and “connected homes” are the same. You might even see terms like “true smart home”, where companies try to bring their point across of having a home, which is more than an assembly of connected devices. Let’s look into those terms and define, what a “smart home” really is.
Let’s start with the official definition outlined by Wikipedia. Smart House on Wikipedia refers to Home Automation. Within Home Automation you will find the following definition.
“Home automation or smart home(also known as domotics or domotica) is the residential extension of building automation. It involves the control and automation of lighting, heating (such as smart thermostats), ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC), and security, as well as home appliances such as washer/dryers, ovens or refrigerators/freezers. They use Wi-Fi for remote monitoring and are a part of the Internet of things. Modern systems generally consist of switches and sensors connected to a central hub sometimes called a “gateway” from which the system is controlled with a user interface that is interacted either with a wall-mounted terminal, mobile phone software, tablet computer or a web interface, often but not always via internet cloud services.“
The key word here is “automation”. Putting so called “smart devices” into a home doesn’t make the home smart. The industry is using the term “smart” for devices, which can be controlled by a smart phone, tablet or nowadays voice control devices like Amazon Echo or Google Home. Another example would be the trend of smart doorbells. Just because a doorbell will notify you on your cell phone, emails or texts you or allows you to speak to your visitor from your cell phone with two-way audio, doesn’t mean you have a smart home.
I created the following picture to demonstrate one example home with smart devices and then I will go into the details with real life use cases/examples of what would make this home a “smart home”.
You can see a lot of devices within this “smart home” ranging from thermostats, speakers, media and entertainment, etc. Most or all of those devices can be controlled from a smart phone, tablet or Alex Echo / Google Home with individual apps or skills (as Amazon calls them). They don’t have to be necessarily have to controlled by a single home automation hub/controller/gateway.
With that said, let’s provide some examples, where the true benefit of having a home automation hub/controller/gateway will showcase, what a “smart home” should look like, otherwise this home would simply be a “connected home”.
Geo Fencing
The most common use case is GEO fencing. GEO fencing is the term for location aware reaction of your home automation system.
In this example you create either one or two virtual fences around your home. The first fence is very close proximity e.g. 100 to 200 feet to capture if you leave your home. The second fence could be a couple of miles.
Most people go with one fence only but others go with a second one to e.g. set the temperature of the home to a more comfortable setting so by the time they get home, the house is nice and cool or warm and cozy and if it is night, turn on the lights in certain areas of your home and open the garage door, when you approach the inner perimeter.
Yes, you could use your cell phone and open your Nest or Ecobee app, while you are driving, and set the temperature to the desired level. You could press the button in your car to open the garage door, when you are in front of it. The Geo fencing feature does all that for you based on logic you defined and if any delay occurs like traffic jam on the highway, you wouldn’t have to worry about opening your app and changing states of your smart devices.
Disaster Prevention
Less known, but very efficient and effective example is the combination of water shut-off valves and water leak sensors. In the old days you could buy a system, which connected to a telephone line and if the water leak sensor detected a leak, it called out and notified specific people. Those systems were expensive in up front cost and in some cases they charged monthly fees for that service.
In addition to that, the sensors were limited in terms of how many of those sensors could be installed and how long those wires could have been. Those costs and limitations prohibited a wide deployment of such notification systems.
With today’s technology, the picture has changed drastically and situations like on the picture should be a thing of the past. As many wireless water leak sensors you need communicating with your central hub/controller/gateway and in case of a flood the “smart home” will take action, which can be a simply notification via email or text, announcement within the house over all speakers, alarm sirens, etc the options of actions is very long.
This example doesn’t prevent any flooding, but it will take action at the slightest amount of water reaching the water leak sensors, which can prevent coming home to a completely flooded basement. Those costs will run in the thousands of dollars and the best of this whole example is: “Insurance companies will give you a discount, if you install water leak detection systems in your home”. Simply ask your insurance and they will tell you what discount you will receive, if you chose to implement this example.
This applies to home owners and landlords. The investment of having such a system implemented can be recovered after several months or years. Example would be a 10% discount for a home owner insurance of $1,500 per year. Those savings of $150/year would give you a break even point from your investment of 2 or 3 years, not to mention the cost savings of not having to repair a flooded basement or laundry room, which typically range in the area of $3,000 to $5,000 or more.
Energy Control
Another example would be energy control of your home. You could have remote controlled blinds, fans and thermostats in your home. You could use your cell phone, smart tablet or voice to turn those “connected devices” on as needed. A true “smart home” would do the following and this is just one example, which can be adjusted to any need or location…
IF summer AND IF morning AND IF temperature reaches 75 degrees –> THEN lower blinds
IF summer AND IF morning AND IF temperature reaches 75 degrees AND blinds lowered –> THEN turn on ceiling fan
IF summer AND IF morning AND IF temperature reaches 75 degrees AND blinds lowered AND ceiling fan is ON –> THEN power on air condition
In simplified text, this logic does the following. In the morning, when the sun rises, the temperature in your house rises as well. Most households have their thermostat set to a certain temperature, before the air condition kicks in. Even if they have smart thermostats, they will get trigger by a certain temperature.
The example logic above delays the air conditioning kicking in by using the alternative methods of blocking out sun or using ceiling fans first before the more power hungry and costly air conditioning system kicks in. The “smart home” will try to block the sun first by lowering the blinds. If the temperature still rises, then the “smart home” will turn on the ceiling fan. Only if all that isn’t enough, then it will turn on the air condition.
Security and Fire Alarm
The top rated reason for people adopting “smart home technology” is security. The security industry has been around for many years and alarm systems have evolved in many directions over the years. Security systems today include not only window/door sensors, glass break and motion sensors, but also fire alarm detectors and cameras with motion alarm.
Having those notifications going to a service provider, who will call the authorities is a good thing. However, nobody has thought about the actual home owner in those situations. To be more specific, image a fire alarm going off in your home. The sirens will go off, you might get a call from your service provider and the whole family will be up in no time. What is not considered is, how to make this situation easier and less stressful.
Imagine the same scenario, but in this case once the alarm goes off, the lights in the whole house will go on or change color to e.g. red, the blinds will open allowing a clear view from the outside into the house for the firemen, the alarm system will disarm after the authorities have been notified (last thing you need is your alarm system sirens going off just because you or your family opened the door and you forgot to enter the code to disarm the alarm system), the door locks will unlock allowing easy exit of the house, the speakers throughout the whole will announce that there is fire and with the right equipment it can also announce, where in the house fire has been detected. If nobody is home, the home owner will get notified via email, text or phone call from the service provider and from the smart home and having the doors unlocked will allow easy entry into the home for the firemen.
In summary, there is nothing wrong with having a “connected home”. As a matter of fact a connected home is the first step towards a smart home. Yes, it requires some adjustment and logic to be put in place, before a connected home becomes a smart home. The time is worthwhile investing, as the return of the investment will be worth it.
The additional cost of making a connected home to become a smart is much lower compared to making a regular home to become a connected home or smart home. The only challenge with this transformation from connected home to smart home will be the interoperability between the smart devices and the hub/controller/gateway, as not all vendors will support all smart devices.
In some cases workarounds are available and yes, you could use something like IFTTT (If this then that) to create logic for your connected home. IFTTT has a wide variety of supported devices (channels), but you should consider always the worst case, which is when your home might not have any internet connection. Some home automation hub/controller/gateway vendors require an internet connection to be available to conduct any actions in your home, which might not be a good thing in some of the use cases and examples outlined above including IFTTT.
The smart home adoption is at an all-time high and I encourage everybody to invest the time to find the most suitable technology for their homes and families and aim for a true “smart home”.
Internet of Things World 2016 was the 3rd annual event hosted at the Convention Center in Santa Clara CA. With over 10.000 attendees and over 200 exhibitors you were able to attend a total of 15 dedicated tracks around IoT ranging from manufacturing to smart cities, connected cars, the smart home, healthcare, energy & agriculture, supply chain & logistics plus much more. This is the second and final post of a two part report focusing on “The Smart Home” track from this event.
This report will cover new upcoming technologies, expert opinions shared at panels from various industry experts and interesting startups to look out for in the coming near future. This second part will focus on new innovations and enhancements of smart home devices.
One of the most innovative products at this IoT event relevant to smart homes is the Sevenhugs “Smart Remote Control”. This touch remote adjusts to the device you are pointing at. In other words, you point at your Nest thermostat it will offer you a slider to adjust temperature up and down but when you point at your Philips Hue bulb it will change the menu to turn on/off and dim the light bulbs.
Talking to the Sevenhugs crew gave me some very good ideas as this remote is able to run HTTP/HTTPs commands. This could make the integration into Vera a breeze but I don’t want to judge until I can get one of those devices into my hands.
This device is not available today and they are aiming towards the end of this year to release that product to consumers. More information about this device can be found under http://remote.sevenhugs.com/
Another very interesting product called “Chui” got my attention. There are a variety of smart door bells out there already and more coming out. You can buy today Skybell, Ring, etc and soon you can buy a product called Remobell. They are almost the same in terms of features and functions while their designs might differ.
However, Chui is different. Chui is face recognition combined with your door bell. It will be able to perform certain tasks mapped to each user profile. As I outlined in my part 1 of my report Role Based Access Control (RBAC) is something which is desperately needed in conjunction with voice control and voice authentication but in this case RBAC is part of the product by mapping scene or tasks to a specific user e.g. Dad comes home and the door unlocks, the temperature goes to 74 degrees, the lights go on and dim to 50%.
Another benefit of Chui applies to the use case of dog walkers, cleaning lady or babysitters who need temporary access to your home at certain times. With smart locks using a key, you have to give them a key which defeats the purpose of having a smart lock. With smart locks using a code, you give them a code which can be used by anybody if they get their hands or eyes on that code. With face recognition user pictures will be stored and authenticated and then mapped to their user profile.
Very interesting concept and sounds very promising. Talking to their CEO he confirmed that they have taken a different approach and that they are taking security very serious. More details and pre-orders can be placed under https://www.getchui.com/
Changing from security to the lighting world. This product showcased in the startup arena of the IoT event got my attention. The sleek look and simple functionality while offering a wide variety of functions and compatibility made me take a deeper look at their product. The EnHuv light switch replaces single, two or 4 gang switches.
They are targeting $99 for the single and $179 for the 2-4 gang switch as their end consumer price. This is double the price of e.g. a Z-wave switch. However, a Z-wave switch is able to power on/off your lights or dim those lights. If you are using smart bulbs you have to use your cell phone app to start a specific scene or change the color of the lights.
This switch is a sleek looking and powerful device allowing you to control your lights from Philips, Wemo, etc and power on/off, dim, change colors in a simple interface which everybody understands. Talking to the team it became obvious that they have experience in that space from previous jobs and they are using that knowledge for this product development. I did ask what protocols they are or will support with that light switch and their answer was Z-wave, ZigBee, WiFi and Bluetooth.
This product is not available today and no exact date was given to me but when I pushed they said that they should launch this year. That product can be compared with the Aeotec Touch Panel light switch which requires a Z-wave module behind it. This EnHuv light switch product has A) more functionality in terms of functions to apply B) more protocols Wifi, ZigBee, Z-wave, etc and C) a much higher price.
Time will tell if people are willing to invest double the price of a Z-wave switch/dimmer to obtain better and more functionality with a sleek design or if they will stick to their cell phone apps or pre-saved scenes of their home automation controller.
I also verified if their product requires an e.g. Philips Hue Bridge to work and their answer was that they don’t but if you do use the Philips Hue bridge, you would have much more functionality to choose from so they recommend using that bridge.
Having the ability to utilize existing scenes stored on the Philips Hue bridge would allow everybody to have consistent scenes on their cell phone app, their home automation controller and the EnHuv light switch. Their website is still in development but more detail can be found under https://enhuv.com/
Being on the subject of scenes I visited the booth of Greenwave systems. That company received one CES award in 2015 and I was curious about their product offerings and their portfolio. I have to say that I was amazed about their concept and their implementation.
Greenwave systems has taken scenes to a whole different level. Their product allows interaction with Amazon Echo aka Alexa and use natural language like speaking to a person instead of predefined commands. But this is not the only thing they can do. They allow the end user to create “tags” and map smart devices to those tags.
Example would be to create a tag called “Living room” and add devices like Sonos, Lights, Motion sensors, etc to that tag. The end user can then trigger that tag. On top of that the end user can create scenes on the fly e.g. he tells Alexa to create a scene called “Movie” and then record in order certain tasks e.g. 1) dim lights to 50% by using the earlier created tag, turn on TV, set thermostat to 76 degrees and then save this scene called “Movie”. The user can then run that scene by triggering it via Alexa. Modification of any scene is a breeze as the end user can simply add kitchen lights to the tag “Living Room” by adding e.g. a table lamp to the tag “Living Room”.
In a nutshell the Greenwave system solution enables scene management via voice control. I would classify this as dynamic scenes of Greenwave Systems vs static scenes from your home automation controller. Unfortunately Greenwave systems only works business to business and not business to consumer. More company details can be found under http://www.greenwavesystems.com/
A different approach has been taken by the company Kuna. Kuna released last year an outdoor light with a camera and two way audio communication. People have been asking for an open API to integrate that product into their home automation controller systems. Talking to a Kuna representative he explained that they are consider their product a security system which is why they embedded a siren into their product and cloud features to enable recording and historical view for the end user and other features to support their endeavor.
Sounds like a video doorbell system but it isn’t. They are considering their product a secure ecosystem and opening that up could weaken that security concept. They didn’t say no to an open API but given the latest news on e.g. Smarthings hub security vulnerabilities from 2 weeks ago and the gmail exploit on the Samsung fridge from Aug 2015 feeds the argument not to open up their product to other ecosystems.
I also want to raise awareness of a new initiative between Pirch and Innit. They are launching on May 19th a showroom just like the Target smart home demo location in San Francisco ( http://openhouse.target.com/ ) but the main difference here will be that they will be showcasing smart appliances combined with the Pirch concept of having famous cooks working and demoing those appliances and their value add.
I am looking forward to some more details on this as Kitchen Home Automation use cases are limited today and more education is needed.
Last but not least I would like to share some data points shared by industry experts during panel discussions. One interesting study was performed last year where a test was conducted on 10.000 people where some articles were labelled with “Connected” to see if this would change their buying behavior.
The results were very interesting. Only 5% of the 10.000 people actually looked at the higher priced product. Of those 5% only 5% actually looked and read the “Connected” spending more time with the product.
My personal opinion is that most people didn’t even understand what “Connected” means. If I would see e.g. a crockpot saying “Connected” I would not assume that this product has WiFi or other connectivity. On the other hand the word “Smart” has already been used so many times over so many years that putting the word “Smart” into the list of features wouldn’t help either to identify a “smart product” which integrates into a smart home. Calling any product “IoT enabled” would make things worse as no average consumer would even understand what IoT means.
Overall a very interesting and educational event and I am looking forward to the Smart Home Summit in Nov 2016 in Palo Alto CA.
After trying a variety of doorbell systems on the market ranging from Doorbot now Ring, Skybell, etc. I decided to create my own intercom system which integrates into my home automation system. The reasoning for that was based on not having the ability to integrate any of those Out-of-box doorbell solutions into any existing home automation system without major hassle.
For example almost all of those vendors promised for over 1 year now that they will release an API to 3rd party vendors can integrate to. They never provided any date and as a matter of fact they all changed their hardware and didn’t release any APIs.
Doorbot is no longer available and Ring is completely redesigned. Skybell is now at revision two of their hardware due to issues and on top of that some of those vendors don’t comply with standards. A great example is Skybell where they are changing multiple times per day their MAC address. Although intended to be a permanent and globally unique identification, it is possible to change the MAC address on most modern hardware. Changing MAC addresses is necessary in network virtualization. It can also be used in the process of exploiting security vulnerabilities. This is called MAC spoofing.
MAC addresses are formed according to the rules of one of three numbering name spaces managed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE): MAC-48, EUI-48, and EUI-64. EUI is an abbreviation for Extended Unique Identifier.
The real issue with Skybell is that they change their fourth digit of their MAC address multiple times per day from 0 to F randomly which makes it impossible to add the Skybell into the DMZ of your firewall of your router which is THE recommended solution of that company to ensure you can see and hear visitors when you are not at home and you want to talk to those visitors on your phone app.
After all of this and more negative experiences I decided to use a combination of hardware and software to accomplish my goals.
Required hardware:
You can buy cheap no-name tablets off Amazon starting at $60 for 10.1″ inches unless you want to go with smaller tablets.
You will need a BlueIris server which is one of the best video surveillance NVR solutions out there but I am sure you can do the same with a DVR solution instead of a NVR solution.
At least one camera at the front door and this camera should support 2 way audio communication
Required software:
BlueIris software ($60)
Tasker app from the Play Store ($3)
AutoVera app from the Play Store ($2.78)
BlueIris App from the Play Store ($9.99)
(sorry, but I am not an Apple/iOS guy anymore)
High level concept:
The doorbell press triggers a scene in Vera which can do a variety of things.
In parallel to that trigger you configure AutoVera to toggle notification on the “Doorbell” device which is the SM-103 from my previous post.
This notification then triggers Tasker which then triggers the opening of the BlueIris App on the tablet.
Within BlueIris you can define groups of cameras which then allows you to configure the App on the Tablet to start the desired camera in full screen mode.
Challenges with this approach:
The 2 way audio communication is highly dependent on the camera hardware and its audio capabilities. Most cameras claim audio support which is great and their microphones pick up sound fairly decent in most cases but unless you really invest in an expensive camera, you will have echos coming your way. The more expensive cameras do have “AEC” which is Acoustic Echo Cancellation as a feature and some of them also have “VAD” which is “Voice Activity Detection”.
Without those features you will have Echo when you open the BlueIris App on the tablet and you enable the 2 way audio communication. So unless you spend more money for a more sophisticated surveillance camera, your only option is to use the speak button on the tablet for your speech and you disable it after each sentence. In other words use the app like you would use a walky talky.
You should also check which camera has a built-in speaker or how do you want to connect an outdoor speaker to that camera. Most indoor cameras have very low quality speakers while most outdoor cameras don’t have any speaker at all but they have connectors to third party speakers.
Here is a video showing the working solution and you can hear the sound from outside on one of the tablets ready for 2 way audio communication.
I wanted to share a quick tutorial on how to add Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 via BlueIris and stream live to AuthomationHD.
Assuming you configured BlueIris to have a working cam and use JPEG streaming over port 5000 which you can check via http://YOURIP:5000/ it should come up with http://YOURIP:5000/jpegpull.htm. If you don’t have that don’t continue and read the manual on how to get your camera working properly.
Once you have the above here are the steps to stream to your cell phone:
Step 1:
Apps –> Develop Apps –> Create Device
Enter the Following Info:
Device Type: urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:DigitalSecurityCamera:1
Internal ID: (Blank)
Descrition: <DeviceName>
Upnp Device Filename: (Blank)
Upnp Implementation Filename: (Blank)
IP Address: <Device IP:Port> (Ex. 192.168.1.200:5000)
MAC: (Blank)
Room: <Select/Associate if you already have the room created>
Parent Device: (Blank)
Select “Create Device”, “Device Created” message should appear with new Device ID
Step 2:
Device should now show up in “Devices –> All” (It won’t show correctly with no Cam Icon but we will add the rest of the settings to fix this)
Next, find this manually added device in the room you added…. Click Settings (Wrench Icon) and update the following fields:
Settings Tab:
URL: /image/Cam1?time=now (the name of your cam is important which you have to define in BlueIris. I chose “Cam1” see screenshot)
Username: <username> (optional)
Password: <password> (optional)
IP Address: (Should already be auto-populated)
To make the CAM visible in AuthomationHD you have to click “PIN to dashboard”.
Close out of settings and then click “Save”
Enjoy!
For the record:
Logitech Quickcam PRO 9000 with firmware 2.90.9018
UI5 VeraLite
AuthomationHD 3.2.1.5 ALPHA
