Been thinking about this a while, it'd be good to be able to switch a light / TV on in the house when motion is detected in one of the outdoor cameras. Also sometimes my cameras 'hang' and require a reboot, which I can do remotely via a smart socket, but was wondering if BI could do that automatically after several timeouts?
I control all the sockets via the Tuya app on my phone, I see there are PC programs to do the same but look quite tricky to set up.
BI can be configured to send HTTP commands to network devices based on many conditions or as the result of an input to BI . I used Shelly Wi-Fi relays and wrote the article found at the bottom in August of 2024 explaining how. Be sure to download the attached PDF file at the bottom of that post.
Each camera setting in BI has a "watchdog" which can be set to "Fire" an action "on loss" (of video) and that action could be an HTTP command to power-cycle the camera using a smart plug. And motion can also be used to turn on a lamp, etc.
I mention Shelly because my understanding is that their newest "Shelly Plug US Gen4" works similarly to the Shelly 1 Wi-Fi relay regarding receiving HTTP comands to switch it on or off. Plus, you can connect using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or ZigBee.
Examples:
To switch it on: http://YOUR_DEVICE_IP/rpc/switch.set?id=0&on=true
To switch it off: http://YOUR_DEVICE_IP/rpc/switch.set?id=0&on=false
Note that the newest (Gen4) devices have differences in control protocol from the Gen1 devices I used in my post.
I spent hours assembling the info and the images but could not post, not sure why, maybe it was too lengthy. Anyway, I still wanted to share so below you find a PDF attached of the process to use Shelly Wi-Fi switches to send input to BI and to act on output from BI.
The long answer is "it depends on your smart plug". BI can definitely send out "commands" based on various triggered events. You just need to make sure your specific plugs can accept one of these forms of "commands" sent by BI.
The long answer is "it depends on your smart plug". BI can definitely send out "commands" based on various triggered events. You just need to make sure your specific plugs can accept one of these forms of "commands" sent by BI.
I tend to be verbose, likely a holdover from writing technical training materials between 1980 and 2000....I've tried but fail at being more to the point.
There may be other brands but I am sure regarding HTTP and HTTPS using the Shelly. Other brands as well as Shelly can also work with MQTT commands.
