Beta: PowerCams, Files, HTML Logs.

[TechnoCat]

I've been scarce for a while. Hope I didn't miss too much. But for some of you it will be worth the wait!

PowerTrigger has been significantly enhanced, but is still in need of testing. It's free; I still don't envision that changing. Pushing it to the finish line is just becoming a chore.

So here's what's new.

• Internet Camera support
  • Up to 9 cameras supported
  • Interfaces via HomeSeer Actions, so Jon00 interfaces work with it; see attached image. Yes, those direction and refresh buttons work.
  • Can retrieve images and put them into a HomeSeer accessible location, so you don't need to open more ports to the outside world
  • Supports Up/Down/Left/Right on Toshiba and Panasonic cams (others may come)
  • Configurable security levels, so you can force all to go offline or just "inside" ones for privacy.
  • Archiving functions to make creating lists of images easier.
• File Operations
  • Deletes by file pattern or mask
  • Can limit it by age - Only delete files more than X hours or days
  • Can limit by count - Keep the X newest matching files, delete the older ones.
  • Can limit by size - Keep the newest X MB of files matching this pattern, delete the rest.
  • Has a "log only" feature so you can test it thoroughly before risking data.
• Complex File Logging
  • Insert the string into a file, newest at the top of the "log" section
  • Allows the log to be, for example, in a table in the middle of a file
  • Multiple strings can be concatenated, including HTML delimiting tags
  • Device Value, String and Last Changed
  • All from drop-down menues
  • To any file.
  • Prevents duplicates automatically (due to HSM100 multiple-fires)
  • And it can automatically limit the number of entries, aging off old ones.
• And a few fixes/tweaks, such as the Average function and adding /100 to the CSV device logging.

I wrote the camera extension because I have several such cameras and was using PySoft's ActiveWeb Cam. It's a processor and bandwidth hog, always grabbing images even when nobody is watching, and recompressing every image all the time. It also doesn't play super-well with HomeSeer. It has one advantage - full-motion video. But I found I seldom can use that, for bandwidth reasons, when not home anyhow. Certainly not from my cellphone. So I wrote a replacement.

If you are a skilled power-user of HomeSeer who wants to play with this new version of PowerTrigger before it's fully baked, please send me a PM. The camera features currently require editing an ini file by hand, so it's not yet for novices.

Thanks!

[Chak]

WOW
there have been lot changed since the first version...
I will be happy to test the new version.
Chak

[Rotech]

Tehcno, is this a video camera aplication that can be used w/Jon00 touch screen program?

[TechnoCat]

Yes, that's what the screen shot and reference to Jon00 interfaces mean. I use it with his new package.

[jon00]

Yes, that's what the screen shot and reference to Jon00 interfaces mean. I use it with his new package.

Techno,

Would it be possible to give me a more detailed explanation as to what the new version of PT does in relation to camera integration (and anything else) with my Control interface? I keen to support/reference other interfaces and would like to put this in my documentation.

[TrOjAn]

Techno, sent a PM 2 days ago.. any luck sending??

TrOjAn

[TechnoCat]

Sorry, haven't been online at home much. Will send out a burst in a few days when back home for enough hours to process.

Jon00, yes, will do. Basically I had written a camera server but realized that your interfaces work better with Events than with URL actions, and that HomeSeer's authentication combined with mine really confused I.E., so I designed for everything to be a configurable event action. The HomeSeer NetCAM plug-in doesn't expose much to the Actions, and can't point, while this can.