CCTV Hik Vision camera model proven to work with Loxone

[Adam monkhouse]

Hello,

We have been asked to spec a Loxone system for a developer and I need help with specifying and exact model of CCTV camera. I have heard Hik vision work but which specific camera model and NVR?

If any body has a specific camera that has been tried and tested?

Also does it have to be an NVR or a DVR with IP cameras?

I’m testing the HIKVISION DS-2CD2365G1-I but struggling to get the stream to play through the door controller. I can get the stream on the web browser using the URL path for Mjpeg stream but it won’t play in VLC or Door controller. Therefore I’m reluctant to specify this specific model until I can get it working.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

😁

[RSinn]

We've not integrated with loxone yet but one issue I had was despite the hikvision NVR supposedly able to support 8 cameras I had issues with it not finding cameras in the software despite them being there individually in the ie brower. I therefore have connected them direct to the Poe switch and the NVR to the switch and it works better. I think the reliability issues are down to the power supply. So perhaps fiddle with those sort of ideas.

[Aaron]

I went with doorbird for the door controller and have hikvision cameras linked to an nvr separately. The nvr can see the doorbird through onvif.

Interesting that you have the cameras linked back through loxone on their mpeg stream. I'll give that a go!

I'd like to use the camera's 'trigger' as a motion sensor but haven't got the time to fiddle at the moment. Anyone else achieved this?

[Seb]

Hi, I have 2 DS-2CD2042WD and can access them through loxone. I have posted perviously how to do it, have fun!

[Adam monkhouse]

Thanks Seb!! did you use a normal DVR with those or an NVR? At the moment I have my cameras into a switch and patch lead into the NVR. I’ve read your previous posts and they did help me but still struggling with getting the stream to appear in Loxone.

I have all cameras on separate IP addresses and have port forwarded all the relevant ports 80,443,8000 and I can’t remember that last one think it was 557.

Loxone say I need to get it working in VLC player and once i can do that it should play via the door controller.

[Adam monkhouse]

Hi Aaron thanks for your reply. I am sure I’ve seen a thread on here on how to do that. Would be interested to see how that works.

[Seb]

Hi,

I have mine on an NVR and plugged into the NVR as it does PoE, so they all exist on their own subnet. I think I mentioned on my last post I bridged the two networks with a lead, this is not needed as the NVR makes the cameras accessible via its IP and a port for each camera.

Anyway, as you have your cameras on the main network, can you connect to them with VLC with a machine on your network?

On each camera you need to log onto and change the substream to mjpeg and create a user on the camera that has live view permissions.

To test the feed you should be able to put the below URL in a web bowser (or VLC player, but prefix the ipaddress with username:password@)

You then add a User Defined Intecom with a URL for that mjepg feed. On my camera, that was http://ipaddress/Streaming/channels/102/httppreview, you then add the username/password as defined.

NOTE: the camera can only support one connection like this. Therefore, if you have the stream open in VLC and try to connect to it via Loxone, it will not work.

To get the streams to work from the Internet you need to add firewall rules for each camera (a different port for each) and add that URL:port to the external url setting in loxone for the intercom.

On the ports, I think that is the webport, but you can trial that.

[daniel lopez]

also, you can add http://ipaddress/Streaming/channels/1/picture for the picture so it will record the pictures in the las visitors section based on certain trigers you can use like motion sensor or the doorbell etc. 

[Rydens]

Hi Aaron,

I use HIK cameras via an NVR to both record and trigger actions. 

I also use Loxone for most of the house lighting and heating, but use Home Assistant (HASSIO) which is free software running on a raspberry Pi to interact with cameras, curtains, tp link plugs etc. 

The reason for this is Home Assistant has built in functions to interact with HIK (and many other things) which makes it very simple to use.

I can communicate between Home Assistant and Loxone using virtual inputs and outputs, which are simple and work very well. 

Re using the cameras as motion detection - yes but.....to do so  in the linkage method, tick "Notify surveillance Centre" this puts out an IP message when motion is detected.

I have found that the smart events such as line crossing and intrusion detections are much better if your camera supports these, as you get a lot less false triggers. 

I don't know how to read the messages in Loxone, but it is a standard in Home Assistant which can then send a message to Loxone using a virtual input. 

Integration works well - good luck - shout if you need more.

Cheers David

[Rydens]

With the later software or maybe different camera types the call is  http://userid:password@IPaddress/ISAPI/Streaming/channels/101/picture?videoResolutionWidth=1920&videoResolutionHeight=1080 with the bit after the ? as optional.

Cheers David

[Aaron]

@Adam - doorbird have instructions for loxone on their website which make it very easy if you go down that route. On the hikvision nvr, I just used the ip, user details and selected onvif and it was there.

@David - much appreciate your detailed response. I had openhab on an old pi but perhaps its time to upgrade the pi and use home assistant to provide the interactions loxone doesn't. I did consider using camera triggers instead of a pir but doubt they'll be as reliable. It's crazy that cameras are cheaper than pirs!

Cheers all

[Francisco Reche]

Hikvision model ds-2cd2432f-I works well

[Adam monkhouse]

Am I right in saying that your camera's aren't IP cameras but you use the NVR to access via internet and Loxone? At the moment I can't access mine via VLC only the web browser. If I use the URL path you have suggest with the username and password I can get a direct feed to the individual camera's however if I type the exact same URL path into network stream in VLC it won't work. Sometimes I get a window prompt asking for username and password from Hikvision even though I have entered them in the URL.

Do you have the link to the camera and NVR you use Seb? I tried clicking on the link in a previous thread but in didn't exist anymore. 

Do you have an example for the port in the back of the NVR you use? is it 1,2,3,4 for a 4 port NVR and do I have to change this in HIK vision? For example if you wanted to access camera 1 what url would you use and what is different to camera 2?

Thanks for your time appreciate it.

[Seb]

Hi, my system are IP cameras that are PoE. Each camera connects into the NVR and it runs its own network (ie I don’t have direct IP access to the camera on the IP the NVR is assigning it).

The NVR portal has a page that exposes each camera on the same IP (I think that of the NVR box from memory) but a different port for each camera. I believe they are all in succession to match the camera port number, eg ports 8081 to 8088 map to the cameras 1-8 plugged into the back of the NVR.

I then setup my router for port mapping, so selecting a public port for each camera and mapping it to the NVR port, eg public port 40001 maps to the NVR on port 8081, therefore exposing camera 1, and so on.

In loxone I can then address each camera as:
http://my.dyn.dns.hostname:40001/Streaming/channels/httppreview

Loxone then has fields for the username / password.

[Seb]

Correction, the URL is:

http://my.dyn.dns.hostname:40001/Streaming/channels/102/httppreview

[Peter Vasey]

Hi Seb, don't know if you are still on this forum, which I have just found. I have done a self build with Loxone, which I installed myself, not using a Loxone partner. Just done the HikVision NVR and cameras as per your instructions. Externally from the house, it works well on my iPhone, but does not on the Mac Air app, either on the "Mac side" or Windows in parallels on the same machine. Any idea why this may be? I have not been home yet, as I am working away, to test the cameras on my phone whilst on the home network, but have copied your rules for that too, so hopefully will be good

[Arnaud]

Hello,

some details: 

- in Loxone you will only be able to display MJPEG, so you need to configure the cameras' sub-stream in MJPEG, and call the sub-stream of them in Loxone.

- The function that allows you to connect directly to the camera via the NVR through : IP OF NVR: PORT of Camera is called Virtual Host, is not activated by default, is not present on all models.

- If your NVR has alarm inputs and outputs, it's a good idea to connect them to Loxone so they can work together.

In terms of connection methods, there are :

- the http portal, very capricious, almost never works under Mac Os whatever the browser except to tinker, works rather well under Windows EDGE.

- the HIK CONNECT application, indispensable from my point of view, this one has evolved a lot, from now on, if your camera is registered on your HikConnect account, you can access it very easily, including alerts and alert clips, and you can find it in all the applications where you authenticate yourself with your HIK Connect account, including IVMS.

- IVMS : the heaviest and most complete application, it's a real control center, unlike HikConnect which is more of a visualization application.

To summarize, in terms of configuration I recommend : 

- make the initial configuration of your NVR on the screen or Web portal, configure access to the HikConnect platform.

- Configure your HikConnect account

configure IVMS and set up your recorder & detection modes from IVMS

- configure your Hik connect on your phone.