I am just in the process to decide wether to use motioneyeos ort Zoneminder as my camera central and did a lot of Google research but the outcome is… unclear.
So I want to make the decision dependant on what integrates better with Home Assistant and as far as I can see there is an integration existing for Zoneminder but not for Motioneye, is that correct?
What I primarily want to do is to include camera pictures in the dashboard (shouldnt be a problem with either one) and user motion detection of the cameras in HA. And here I think if it would be better to use Zoneminder with its integration as it seems to provide me with sensors.
It’s easy to add a “motion detection” report with MotionEye - I have.
I think it’s largely a matter of personal preference, and what hardware you have. With MotionEye for instance I can have motion detection done on my camera’s low resolution stream, while recording the high resolution stream. This significantly reduces resource requirements.
This isn’t exactly what you asked, but the past week, I have been going back and forth between Blue Iris and MotionEye lately to decide which I like most. With 10 cameras in MotionEye, a 4 gig RasPi 4 seemed to lag, although CPU utilization rarely exceeded 50%. Using the Blue Iris integration in HACS doesn’t have any obvious impact on HA performance, which is to be expected, of course, the Windows server running B.I. is doing all of the heavy lifting. I was just hoping MotionEye would absorb it to lower the carbon footprint associated with running a Windows box 24/7, and it did handle the load with some effort, but I missed the Blue Iris features and alerts, and disliked the drag.
I think MotionEye is likely ideal for a smaller number of cameras, but for doing motion detection on 8+ you might want a more potent machine than a Pi.
Thank you guys that was valiable input. I am going to use a 4gig Pi 4. The ability to do the motion detection on low res streams seems cool to me so I will gove motioneye a try as it also has an easy to install Pi image available. I am going to install between 3 to 6 cams.
Regarding Blue Iris: I am a huge fan and own a license, however you need a Windows machine. Had an old PC of my brother but it died. To run it on a VM on my NAS it consumes to much CPU. Therefore I was looking for a lightweight (Pi) solution.
I found the fps on a Pi 4 totally unacceptable with motioneye and tried out Shinobi.
It has a modern interface, thousand of options to configure streams an codec, a REST API and gives me smooth video streams with very little delay. Will test more today but so far I think its years ahead from other Linux Surveillance solutions.
I agree. But I found the UI lacking the simplicity Motioneye offers. The settings are (just like zoneminder) all over the place. Try to set a simple mask and use it for triggered recording is nowhere near user friendly.
Haha okay, will try that stuff tomorrow and see what happens.
However motioneye performance is completely inacceptable to me on a PI 4 and from what I found out when asking Dr. Google is that there is no chance to make it better. And if I go for a bigger, power consuming box or server, I could also install Windows and use my license for the very comfortable Blue Iris…
Just added a second camera and it is not working like a charm any more.
I am really disappointed that it seems to be impossible to get a performant video surveillance solution for 3 - 4 cameras running on a Pi 4. Maybe I will take a laptop to run Blue Iris again. Tired of tweaking options for days just to come to no result.
What I honestly don’t understand is that none of these projects tells in advance on what systems you can expect a reasonable performance on and that there are so many tutorials setting up this stuff in Pis. Many people might find it ok to have 10 frames for their surveillance as it is not intended to be a tv show but I expect a clear and fluent picture and if thats not possible it should be mentioned I think, could save people a lot of time
Just thinking if I first tr to get some support in the Shinobi forums or just screw the whole thing and setup Blue Iris.
It is true that video streaming has an indefinite amount of variables and it is very hard to predict whats possible and whats not.
But it should be possible to determine what a specific software / hardware combination will NOT be able to do, where the hard limits are. I found for example nobody on the internet who is able to use his Full HD cameras with a framerate between 20 and 30 on a Pi. If somebody knows such an example I am happy to learn.
They are far from being cheap and I am not willing to spend that money with all the hardware lying around. I just found the Pi solution very charming because its small and does not consume a lot of power, however if thats not possible I will go with a Windows PC. Blue Iris is working really good.
I just got one for roughly AUD$500 plus another AUD$100 for a NAS grade HDD. I was sick of MotionEye causing my i7 NUC with 16Gb RAM to run close to 100 degrees Celsius for no detectable reason (I even had a thread on this forum asking for help, but found no solution). The good thing about the NVR is that I don’t have to worry about software crashing or anything and it keeps doing it’s thing while I restart HA to implement changes etc…
Thats far away from what I am willing to invest. In the end I only want to centralize functions that the cameras offer themselves already.
However I have a nice Dell i7 Laptop here I am not using much as I have a newer one. Gave it to my wife but since I bought here an iPad Pro as graphic tablet she is using it for almost everything. So I will acquire the Dell back and give it a new job And with Blue Iris I have good experience and a license already.
I also have a QNAP NAS that got some extra RAM and decided for it because they advertised their NVR stuff really good. But both solutions they offer are a total hassle.
Blue Iris is so far the most convenient, comfortable and best performing solution for a reasonable price. Only sad thing is that it needs a full blown Windows PC to run smooth with a few more Cams.
And with Blue Iris I have good experience and a license already.
