Is there an easier way?

Community Playground General Discussions
#1

I finally figued out how to autmatically play my security cams on my TV, But it is really convoluted and messy. I was hoping someone might be able to suggest an easier way. What I’m doing now is:

  1. Tell Alexa to “Turn on security cameras”.
  2. Alexa turns on a Virtual Switch on my Vera.
  3. My Vera uses a Harmony Hub to turn on the TV and set the correct HDMI input for my Chromecast.
  4. My Andoid tablet uses Autovera and Tasker to sense the virtual switch.
  5. Tasker starts my Blue Iris app, and Autoinput for Tasker tells the app to select the camera group I want, and start casting.
  6. When I’m done I tell Alexa to turn off the virtual switch and everything kind of goes in reverse to reset.

Any input would be appreciated.

#2

I tried very hard to get something setup where I could use my chromecast and stream the output from blueiris, but was unable to do so on a reliable basis. I tried stream2chromecast and PyChromecast.

I did manage to get some limited success, but the feed would drop out after a second or two of streaming, and I wasn’t able to figure out why.

I considered setting up ffmpeg to stream it to youtube and then pull it back using the above tools, but that was a little too roundabout for me.

I ultimately just used a roku IP camera viewer and access the feed that way.

I’d be happy to share my notes file with you if you wanted to keep trying based on what I’ve done.

#3

+1 for the Roku app. Had a little troubling getting it to connect to Blue Iris. Maybe will play with it this weekend.

#4

I use Emby for my home media management and distribution, it has a security plugin (to view live cam streams) and a Vera plugin to action scenes when you start a movie or tv episode etc (I use it for movies to dim the lights to a light blue when press play then lights off after 5min and bright blue when pause move and dim then off again when in pause/stop movie)