Vera3 Bridging and MIMO (Ubiquiti NanoBridge M2) Project

Community Playground General Discussions
1

I am planning a new project. I built a “new” home next door to my “old” home (approx. 300’ distance) and I want to connect the two homes together using a wireless bridge, looking at the Ubitquiti NanoBridge M2 (?) Has anyone done anything similar.

My thought is that I can extend the LAN between the two properties and provide a high(er) speed network for all the Zwave devices I have/will have and possibly bridge multiple Vera3’s. I also have a Barn (approx 175’) that I may extend this network to at a later time. I ran across a special purchase of Vera 3’s and bought 5 for such a project. I might also add a Vera 3 in my Garage, I have Zwave locks and also experienced the communication “events” others had defined ( eventually they configured and are running fine), plus I will be adding more cameras, sensors and outlets “out there”.

Any thoughts would be appreciated…let them begin.

MWP

2

@MWP

I have a similar situation with two buildings, each with their own Z-Wave network, and linked over ethernet. Even though the distance is not large, I’ve had problems with WiFi (both 5GHz and 2.4Ghz, Apple Time Capsule/Extreme with MIMO) between the buildings. In the end, resorted to ethernet-over-power which has worked quite well until recently when I’ve been having problem with powerline noise. One main offender was, in fact, a cheap power supply for a security camera connected to Vera!

Rather than bridging each of the two Veras to each other, I actually have a third one which has no Z-Wave network at all (makes it VERY fast to reset/reload!) to which the other two are linked, and on here I have all my scenes, virtual devices, etc. Only problem I currently find is that although all the services on the remote Veras are correctly reflected at an API level for the linked devices, the UI5 panels are incomplete for anything other than basic switches. I’ve noted this in the following post

[url=http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,13521.msg100865.html#msg100865]http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,13521.msg100865.html#msg100865[/url]

…but no helpful responses yet. It’s not really a problem, though, since I regard the Vera UI5 as just a configuration interface and do all my real HI stuff through remote apps, such as the excellent HomeWave one.

Anyway, hope some of this is food for thought.

3

@akbooer

Thanks for the reply. I just spoke to a distributor of the Ubiquiti product line and he pointed me in the direction of the NanoStation M5. He said the NanoBridge was possibly overkill. But the price is attractive for what you get. Anyways, I will be ordering (2) Nanostation M5’s and setting them up in the next few weeks. I will pickup my Vera 3’s tomorrow so I will start “playing” with some of bridging functionality and integrating some devices in the “old” house for testing…more to come.

I’ll also be curious how the Almond + that I signed up for might integrate into this type of scheme…of course way too earlier to tell.

MWP

4

I can vouch for the Ubiquiti stuff. We use the Nano and Pico stations all the time. With some links several miles away. (with the correct antenna setups of course) Their support and documentation is great; as is the Air OS that runs on all of their devices.

5

I was looking at the M5 since you pointed out Ubiquiti and that seemed perfect.

REALLY interested in how you get on - good luck!

6

Thanks @radiationcowboy for the endorsement. Always nice to hear from pro’s when something works “well” (or not so well).

I am looking at including the “airVision airCam” and the “airVision Mini” to the test project. I have used and reviewed “POE IP Cameras” and if these cameras can provide “Good Quality” at their “Price-Point”, for POE Cameras which include the POE injector, that is an awesome solution. I saw someone else posted a reference to the Ubiquiti cameras over the past couple of days, so if anyone has additional information or experience please post. I am ordering one of each camera to see if/how they work with the Vera 3.

@akbooer

I’ll try to post updates as I learn more.

MWP

7

Well, received the NanoStaiton M5’s yesterday and with watching the online videos a couple of times, I now have the Bridge working between my two homes. Running about 95% quality with low traffic. I connected my airCam up to the second port on the “Station” bridge, mounted on the outside of the Garage, turned on POE pass-through and now I have coverage of the “new house” from the “old house”. Received the 5 Vera 3’s this week and will install and hopefully bridge the two over the next week.

I was not able to get the airCam to work with Vera 3 UI5 yet, but I have coverage both WebView and Android IP Camview for the time being.

Nice set-up so far. I was going to purchase the Ubiquiti products from an in-state dealer but never received a quote from them. Contacted Baltic Networks they gave me a quote, I ordered Wednesday, received Thursday and installed Friday.

+1 for Baltic Networks.

Total Ubiquiti system so far…$264.00 with shipping…Not Too Bad.

More to come.

MWP

8

@MWP - Excellent news!

I’ve just checked on a UK website and they’re about the same in GB pounds, so 60% more expensive than over there… situation normal. Anyway, if they work, that’s great.

Was the alignment an issue, or is it not that critical?

I’m having increasing problems with ethernet over power dropping out in the evenings (I expect when people switch on a few more appliances and lights). So this may be the solution. Keep us posted please!

PS: The Vera bridging problems I described in Reply #2 below, have been worked out through excellent support in this thread:
[url=http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,13521]http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,13521[/url]

9

Well here’s an update…

NanoStations running pretty solid…here are some speed tests between houses. AirMax Quality observed range is between 88% and 99%. Normally, I see AirMax Quality running about 94 - 96%. I’m not sure what all the numbers mean, but will learn as time goes on.

             Test #1               Test #2             Test #3

RX: 93.53Mbps 87.82Mbps 85.05Mbps
TX: 99.17Mbps 103.47Mbps 101.85Mbps
Total: 192.70Mbps 191.29Mbps 186.90Mbps

I have the Ubiquiti airCam (indoor/outdoor) mounted under a garage overhang about 2 feet from the attached secondary port of the second NanoStation M5. The POE Pass-through to the airCam saves me the POE injector that came with the airCam. Attached is a png file of the “new” house from the “old” house where the airCam is mounted, from approx 300’ (480 res not 720)

The Set-up is:

Second NanaStation M5
Network Mode: Bridge
Wireless Mode: Station WDS

First NanoStation M5
Network Mode: Bridge
Wireless Mode : Access Point WDS

I set-up (2) Vera 3’s and upgraded to 1.5.408, upgrade took about 4:24 minutes and 4:40 minutes to complete, added some devices to one Vera 3 and tested …works great.

I now have to set-up the Bridging between Vera’s. Have not bridged Vera’s before so I may ask for some help on best way. @Akbooer and others.

So far performance is great and I even tested the wireless on the Veras using my Galaxy Nexus across the “extended” LAN.

Well, will post more as I go along.

@Akbooer

The positioning of the NanoStations were purely by “sight” on a ladder…very easy for me. Installed by myself, install time under 3 hours. I do have the luxury of open area where I live.

MWP

10

Here’s an interesting example of the NanoStation M5.

I just read on the Ubiquiti forum, where two people living in a metropolitan area used two M5’s to connect their “High Rise” apartments (both North facing) by bouncing the signal off a “third building” while still achieving 40Mbps throughput…Isn’t technology and ingenuity “Great!”

FWIW

MWP

11

MWP,

Were you able to get the airCam to work with Vera yet? I looked at that camera and it’s a nice alternative to the Foscam outdoor camera since it’s POE, meaning only 1 wire to run to the camera.

12

@ufd108

No I have not yet. I can http://ipaddress/snapshot.cgi in Firefox and it gives me a snapshot and at the tab it defines it as a Jpeg, using the following URL.

  http://10.0.0.76/snapshot.cgi

The caveat here is that if I have not Logged into the airCam user interface, first and within the timeout period, instead of giving me the jpeg snapshot, it gives me the following and displays the login screen.

  http://10.0.0.76/login.cgi?uri=/snapshot.cgi

I have tried numerous variations like

 http://user:password@10.0.0.76/snapshot.cgi

I have tried with the secure server

https:///user:password@10.0.0.76:port/snapshot.cgi

as well as many other iterations. I have also tried variations within UI5 Device > Settings and Advanced.

When I use the basic examples from above with and without passwords, I do get the “Film reel screen” with the messages that flashes “trying to retrieve image from camera” but have never been able to get anything.

Could it be that the airCam is not recognizing the syntax (Lua script/syntax ?) that is created and passed to it by UI5. I don’t know as I am not familiar with the internals, I just read a thread on how ip camera commands were constructed and passed by UI5.

Other than that, airVision does allow for RTSP: commands. I don’t know if that is a possibility as it would allow for “Live Streaming”. I did notice a reference to rtsp in my Vistacams advanced setting that looks like:

VideoURLs [rtsp,0,mpeg4,m,640,480,qai:img/media.sav:http,0,mjpeg,m,640,480,w:img/video.mjpeg:]
^^^
here

I did “post” regarding a Vera —> Ubiquiti NVR development interest. I personally have been pleased with the way the system’s work and certainly the price performance. Ubiquiti has the airCam Pro coming and it looks to fill the missing piece on the “rugged- Zoom (3x) - IR” space.

I will keep searching and post if I come up with something.

Ubiquiti does provide an SDK.

MWP

13

I thought I could help since I am using Aircam in my Vera but I realized I feed Vera from Zoneminder and not directly. I guess you should be able to do the same if you are running Ubnt’s nvr since its a fork of ZM.

14

@superpin

I would appreciate any assistance. I am running the AirVision NVR on a windows 7 system. If I can interface to that it would be great.

I can always run Zoneminder, if that is my only way. I don’t remember, but does Zoneminder only run under Linux? I haven’t looked at it in some time. However, I could set-up Ubuntu., I believe.

I like keeping my cameras accessible from Vera because it allows the interface to the devices (e.g. When I access a camera I can turn on lights). I have been looking at the Ganz IR POE lights and turning them ON in a scene including the airCam would be “cool”.

Home Security Cameras & Security Camera Systems
Amazon.com

Let me know how you would like to communicate. Under this thread would be beneficial to any other forum users, if appropriate.

Thanks

MWP

15

Haven’t used AirVision but here is my settings used with ZM:

URL: cgi-bin/nph-zms?mode=single&monitor=1&scale=100
IP address: my zm server

monitor=1 in the url controls which camera to use.

The problem is the authentication with the aircams, I havent found a way around it. My two other cameras, Vivotek 8132, are connected directly to both Vera and ZM without problems.

//Ola

16

@superpin

Thank-you for your assistance, I will try the information you provided and will post my results in this thread.

I will try with both a Windows 7 and a Ubuntu Desktop configuration for anyone that may be interested in what I find.

MWP

17

@superpin

“YOU MY FRIEND ARE – MY HERO!”

I just worked the last four hours setting up a Ubuntu PC running 12.04LTS

  1. Installed 12.04 LTS on an Intel I3 PC with a 1TB Seagate HD, 8GB Ram

Using the Install Guide defined on Zoneminder Wiki under #2:

  1. http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.php/Ubuntu_Server_12.04_64-bit_with_Zoneminder_1.25.0_the_easy_way note: I followed step by step including the “optional items”

  2. connected via FireFox to ZoneMinder on the Ubuntu PC

    https://ipaddress/zm

  3. Created a monitor-2 ( I created a “monitor-1”, then deleted, created a new camera so it defined it as “monitor-2”).

  4. On the ZoneMinder Console > source > General > Source Type = ffmpeg

                                                                  Source   > Source Path = rtsp://username:password@ipaddress/live/ch01_0                  note: ipaddress of the airCam camera
                                                                               Capture width  = 640
                                                                               Capture height = 368

                                                            * Note: Capture width and height  needs to be matched to the airCam resolution which is tied to ch1_0

  5. Save

  6. Refresh ZoneMinder Console - then the ch01_0 turned to yellow (ch01_0 appears red if it can’t connect to camera / yellow if it can)

Went into Vera under my Device > Camera > Settings

                                                                                    URL                  [cgi-bin/nph-zms?mode=single&monitor=2&scale=100]   note: monitor# = the monitor # from ZoneMinder Console
                                                                                    MAC                 [xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx]                                                            note: camera MAC address,  I did not change
                                                                                    IP address       [ip address]                                                                       note:  ip address of ZoneMinder Ubuntu PC

Save and after reload I have the attached pic from UI5

I’ll try to put more of a pictorial together so I can provide visual steps.

Once again collective technical resources = solutions.

Thanks Again @superpin.

MWP

18

Here’s an update on the Ubiquiti NanoBridge M5 project with 6 Cameras (4 Ubiquiti AirCams - 2-AirCams, 1-MiniCam and 1-AirCam Dome, 1-Axis M1054 and 1- VistaCam) integrated into my Vera3.

1st PIC - All Cameras in UI5
2nd PIC - NanoStation M5 with AirCam connected via POE Passthru
3rd PIC - 2 Ubiquiti Cameras Top Left - AirCam @ 300’ , Top Right - AirCam @ 200’,
4th PIC - 2 Ubiquiti Cameras Left - MiniCam, Right - AirCam Dome

Working very Solid.

MWP

19

looks pretty cool :slight_smile:
I am still looking for a cost-effective solution for running 4 POE IP-Cam and 1 POE PTZ IP-Dome-Cam with motion-detect and alarm on a vera.
without the need to have a extra pc running, just a harddrive connected to vera usb port for recording.

20

Just an update if someone finds this old topic:

The latest firmware for the Aircams (version 1.2) supports unauthenticated jpeg snapshots, it just needs to be enabled in the settings. Ubiquiti finally got it right…

[url=http://community.ubnt.com/t5/airVision-Frequently-Asked/How-to-View-an-Image-Snapshot-from-airCam-using-HTTP/ta-p/493431]http://community.ubnt.com/t5/airVision-Frequently-Asked/How-to-View-an-Image-Snapshot-from-airCam-using-HTTP/ta-p/493431[/url]