Setting up e-mail notifications for the SecurityProbe camera
Security cameras made the news in a big way last weekend, when a security breach at the Newark Liberty International Airport led to the discovery that one of the TSA surveillance cameras had been broken for six days leading up to the incident. Six days! Now that gives a real sense of security in these uncertain times, doesn’t it? The breach, which authorities were notified of by an alert passerby, caused a 6-hour lock-down and possibly cost the airport over $100,000, according to a report in The Star Ledger. Thankfully, this breach apparently was caused by a man walking his girlfriend to her flight and not a potential terrorist, however, it certainly exposed the gaping holes in the security protocol at one of the busiest airports in the US.
I have no idea what sort of back-up notification system for camera failure the TSA has set-up, but after reading about the Newark incident, I wanted to find out what kind of notifications are available for cameras connected to the Ravica SecurityProbe. Read more
~JessicaFollow Me on Twitter
Ravica SecurityProbe Picture Log
Filed under: Intelligent Sensors, Security Monitoring, SensorProbes, motion detector
Today, I started working with a software company who wanted to keep track of their employees that work very early or very late hours. In
general, it wasn’t a bad thing. They just wanted to make sure that the people coming into the building to work, were the people that should be. This company had already purchased monitoring and security equipment from us in the past.
This company just added a new international sales department. The work hours for the new employee were going to be 4:00am to 1:00pm. They wanted to know if they could utilize the picture log to record when people go in and out of the front door. They also wanted to limit the time frame for these pictures.
I did a bit of research and found out the answer was yes! You can set a time frame on the camera motion sensor and you can have the picture emailed or stored on the FTP server. Now, they would get an alert and a picture when someone came through the door.
At this point, they could figure out who came through the door. They then wanted to know if too many people were going through the door during the early morning hours. To do this, we used a Syslog/Eventlog application that allows you to set a threshold. Each time an image was taken with the camera, an alert would be sent to the Syslog/Eventlog manager. If a threshold was met, let say five, then an email would be sent to the security office.
The customer was excited and wanted to implement this in the coming weeks. I can’t wait to see how it comes out.
-Jimmy D
Sometimes it’s fun to brainstorm about SensorProbes
Yesterday, Jon came over to me and said, “Jim you are going to like this one!” Jon knows that I am a geek at heart and love to find new and exciting ways to integrate technology into the real world. I was intrigued.
A customer called Jon and had an interesting idea. His goal was to detect traffic coming in and out of a hall way with our motion detection probes. The server room was in the middle of the two entrances. This means you could have two points of entry. He wanted to use our motion sensors to feed his soon to be written application.
At this point my mind started to race. I was amazed at what I thought was a simple, yet practical, application of these probes. I was dazed by the logic in the condition statements that would have to be created to eliminate false positives. Yes, in those few minutes, I felt that I was part of that project.
Sadly, this Nirvanic state did not last long. I needed to attend to a few of my other customer’s issues. When the day settled down, I started to think more about this request.
The first question I had was, “Why would you want to do this?” Jon gave a few reasons, but I forgot what they were. So I came up with my own theory. He wanted to see when someone came in and when someone came out of a room. In this case, the two data points would be needed.
The second question would be, “Can we detect this?” Sure, that wouldn’t be an issue. We would be able to detect when a person goes past a motion sensor. We would then wait until that sensor is triggered again, meaning they went back the same way. Or until the other sensor was triggered, meaning they went back via the other hall. 
The third question’s answer is still in progress, “What logic will be used?” We have to have logic that will eliminate false positives, people just walking down the hall and failing to detect an entry.
I suggested adding a dry contact to the door. This would add a third data point and make detection a lot easier. When the door opens or closes, we would know when some one has passed through it’s threshold.
I don’t know what the outcome will be for this project, but I did see the purchase order come in. I will update the blog when we get the final results!
- JimmyD
Mount Wilson Observatory In Danger From L.A. Fire
I just read this post on Slashdot:
“Mount Wilson is in danger from the Station fire burning near L.A. Their servers have gone offline, but there’s a temporary mirror cam. It doesn’t look good. Picture twenty-four on the L.A. Times photo gallery shows the observatory from the air. If anyone has any inside news on the condition of the facility, I’m sure there are lots of people on Slashdot that would love to hear it.”
It got me wondering about what type of SensorProbes they have. Most companies will never see this size of fire, but even a tiny fire can put a server room out of commission. That is why it is so important to use sensor probe technology to monitor our environment and alert us when something is wrong.
Anyway, I don’t want to use this as a sales pitch. So, let’s use the fire in California to remind us to check our home and office fire detection systems.
My prayers go out to all of the fire fighters, the people who have lost their homes and the people who’s homes are in danger.
- JimmyD
Help desk: How sensitive is your motion detector sensor?
Recently, I blogged about using the motion detector sensor to increase the security presence of your data center. Well, expanding on the topic, I thought I would answer one of those frequently asked questions I get from customers using the motion detector to beef up security. “How do I keep the motion sensor from being set off by very small movements?” The answer – you can adjust the sensitivity of the motion detector using the sensor status filter.
The sensor status filter allows you to enter a time delay that must occur before the sensor changes status, thus filtering out noise in the signal. This avoids unnecessary sending of notifications, as fluctuations can occur during normal working conditions.
To find this setting, go to the Motion Sensor Settings page of the web interface, and click on the sensor status filters button. Change the “Continuous time (secs) sensor is to report” field to some value other than zero. 1 second is a good place to start, but it all depends on your specific working conditions.
At any rate, increasing the continuous time to report field a bit can help keep you from getting false positives and give a little extra room for normal environmental shifts.
Stay tuned to the Ravica blog for more helpful environmental monitoring tips.
~ Jon Mills
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Smoke detector configuration settings for your SensorProbe
Filed under: Data Center, SensorProbes, environmental monitoring, smoke detector
Because of the similarities in how the smoke detector and dry contact sensors work, when a smoke detector sensor is connected to any of the Ravica SensorProbe models it will be recognized as dry contact sensor. The real differences lie in how the user configures and labels the sensor.
Therefore, when connecting a new smoke detector sensor, change the description to “Smoke Detector” or something similar, then update the web interface settings for the smoke detector to reflect the options below.
Direction: Input
Normal State: Open/+5 Volts
Output Level: Low/GND
Congratulations! You now have a properly configured smoke detector sensor watching over you.
Other valuable tips for configuring your Ravica environmental monitoring systems can be found on our support FAQ.
~ Jon Mills
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