Programmatically forcing T4 to stop streaming CCTV video and return to Home or prior screen

[cnicholson]

I have some programming that plays a sound and switches all my T4s to stream video from the appropriate camera on motion event.  I use the built-in timeout feature set to 30 seconds.  If a single motion event happens, all works as expected and touchpads revert to their prior state/display.  But if I get ANOTHER motion event before the first one times-out, the screen gets "stuck" on streaming CCTV video.

Is there a way to force, programmatically, T4's to stop streaming and/or revert to prior state?  I don't see anything that allows that.

What I've tried so far is to set my own timers for 35 seconds to prevent a subsequent "show camera video" commands being sent before the first command times out. That seems to work.  But I have lots of doors and cameras and I would need to check all the timers on all the doors to avoid an "overlapping" show camera command.  This seems possible, but a bit tedious--- and I'd prefer subsequent motion events to "pre-empt" the prior camera selection so I'm always shown video from most recent event (if that makes sense).  I'm wondering if there is another way or maybe someone knows how to address the root cause of the time-out failures with overlapping commands.  Is it a known bug?

Thanks.

[Cyknight]

2 hours ago, cnicholson said:

 I'm wondering if there is another way or maybe someone knows how to address the root cause of the time-out failures with overlapping commands.  Is it a known bug?

It's not a bug as such - the issue is that the 'snapshot' that is taken from the second trigger is that the state is watching the camera, so now it 'reverts' back to the camera instead.

 

But yes a 'go to home' programming option would be rather nice, and no it doesn't exists as such.

The easiest way to manage this that I can think of is to use the motion event to trigger a Macro, then built into the macro this line at the top.

IF macro timer {check macro running} is running
	STOP
START timer {check macro running}
[insert your programming]

Now depending on how you've set this up, and what function you want, you could have a single macro and a single timer, and bury all the camera feed programming into a single macro (Main point, only the first motion trigger would cause a camera pop-up, so if you have different cams showing for different motions AND want to 'follow' the motions around if you will, this wouldn't work)

 

 

 

[cnicholson]

3 minutes ago, Cyknight said:

(Main point, only the first motion trigger would cause a camera pop-up, so if you have different cams showing for different motions AND want to 'follow' the motions around if you will, this wouldn't work)

Makes sense.  Thanks.  That's along the lines of what I was planning as workaround.  As you note, the tough part is to have the feeds follow most current motion (i.e., someone approaching several doors sequentially).  Would be nice to have explicit "switch to camera X [until further notice]" and "go home" commands and I can manage the timeouts with timers.

 

 

[cnicholson]

On 3/2/2023 at 9:41 AM, Cyknight said:

if you have different cams showing for different motions AND want to 'follow' the motions around if you will, this wouldn't work

Wanted to thank you again for this info.  I just implemented it and works great.   When a camera is being displayed and I get another motion event, I still play a distinctive chime, then I note (in a variable) which zone it is and start a different timer.  When primary timer expires, if the "contention" timer is still running, I switch to that other camera.  So kinda sorta follows the motion.   Would be nice if the camera pop-up internal timer could be set to shorter than 30 seconds especially if when you send C4 a duplicate camera Navigation command it simply reset its internal timer and didn't do anything else.  That would let me be more nimble-- but still works pretty well.

[Cyknight]

That's a neat implementation!

Honestly, I would just like to see the navigation agent have an option to send screens to 'home' - that could then simply be invoked after a set time to 'clear' any such issue. In fact I'll add that to the feature request right away...