Hikvision IP Camera Snapshot - Need to Improve

Configuration
1

OK so I have the Hikvision integration set up and sensors for my motion alerts.

At the minute I have a very simple automation that sends me a message via Telegram and attaches the image from the camera’s URL. This works very reliably but the time it takes to retrieve the image is too long and it always misses the object or person triggering the event, so the image itself it pretty useless.

My thoughts are as follows:

  • Drop the Hik integration
  • Set up an FTP server on my HA machine
  • Set up the NVR to dump images from events on the FTP server
  • Folder watcher addon to pick up the new file in the FTP dir and trigger automation
  • Automation to send the Telegram message and attach the file detected by Folder watcher
  • Automation then to delete the detected file

I’m OK with the first four steps (I think) but I’m at a bit of a loss with the last two (particularly the file management bit). I understand that I’ll need to get and use the detected file path/name to retrieve/attach and then delete, but I’m not sure how to do that.

Any tips?

Thanks!

1 Like
2

Hi could you please post the steps to configure ftp server on HA and connect it with hikvision server

3

I did actually manage this. I used the HA addon ‘FTP Server’ and set my cameras to upload to it. I then used folder watcher to trigger the image to send across Telegram to my phone and used a shell command in the same automation to clear out the images after sending. I set all this up before HA companion was up to scratch and it’s run great since, the only hiccup being that the shell command sometimes deleted the image before it had properly sent resulting in half-images being received.

Really struggling for time lately due to refurb but will try and post YAML when I get chance. Hope this helps.

4

@mrrodge are you still using FTP with watchdog or did you find more direct way to retrieve camera image without delay?

5

Nope, not found a better way, still using it!