I thought this would be a feature already, but I didn't find it in the documentation. My capture card is on order from BlueCherry (PV-183), so I haven't played with Zoneminder too much yet. I have just installed it on my server, so I will start exploring it soon.
I would like to configure some cameras to only detect motion at certain times of the day (or to only alarm at certain times). Does ZoneMinder currently do this? If so, how do you configure it, as I also didn't see an option in the screenshot for the motion configuration screen.
An example of using this is for my camera looking at my back yard. I will not want snapshots stored anytime the kids are out back playing, but at night I want a snapshot if anyone or any animal is in my fenced backyard.
If it is not a feature now, could it be added?
Motion Time of Day Limitation
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This is fine if you have a rather "static" schedule, but if you need to change the schedule every week or couple of days its cumbersome at best.
I think he is really asking for a better user interface.
The GeoVision system I hope to replace with zoneminder had a 7 day 24 hr "calender" where you set a list of on off time pairs per day and at each on period choose which cameras were "record" "Email" "audio" during the event with "events" only generated during the active time intervals. Could be better, but it was quick and easy to adjust for the holidays, vacations, sick days, etc. once you got used to its rather clunky UI. (So far zoneminder is way better at avoiding "false" events than the GeoVision ever was).
The cron method you link is really only a global on/off for your entire setup unless you create a "run state" for every permutation of camera settings you require -- a major PITA for a setup like mine.
Doing this with perl scripts is only useful if you know perl, now if there was a C API I'd be in business.
Really it seems to me this is best done at the "event" level where its only an event if its at a time I want scheduled on a per camera basis. It'd be nice to also be able to enable Email, sounds, etc. on the per active time interval schedule.
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Re: Motion Time of Day Limitation
@wkulecz: Yes, you are getting more at what I am thinking about.
I think in zoneminder this would be best implemented as associated with individual zones. This way you could have zones with different sensitivities which activate at different times. It would need a new table to manage day of the week/time slots and an interface as a sub to the zone configuration page as described to set on/off settings for each slot. A time slot table could have rows of 2-3 hour intervals through the day, and columns of the days of the week, each cell would just be clicked to toggle on/off.
What I am not sure of is the method for self updating the settings. Right now this is triggered when you make a change to the zone settings. The system could be set up to run a check at the top of each hour, and if any zone's time settings toggled from the last hour, then the active settings get changed, and after all are changed, the function which activates settings due to changes in the current zone window would be triggered.
I think in zoneminder this would be best implemented as associated with individual zones. This way you could have zones with different sensitivities which activate at different times. It would need a new table to manage day of the week/time slots and an interface as a sub to the zone configuration page as described to set on/off settings for each slot. A time slot table could have rows of 2-3 hour intervals through the day, and columns of the days of the week, each cell would just be clicked to toggle on/off.
What I am not sure of is the method for self updating the settings. Right now this is triggered when you make a change to the zone settings. The system could be set up to run a check at the top of each hour, and if any zone's time settings toggled from the last hour, then the active settings get changed, and after all are changed, the function which activates settings due to changes in the current zone window would be triggered.
Re: Motion Time of Day Limitation
That's pretty much how most embedded linux standalone DVR's work. Generally with a matrix of one square per hour. You can even configure the recording quality and what kind of alarm is set of or not according to day of week and hour.
Zoneminder could be even better like having a special schedule for user input holidays and days before/after holidays for example.
Zoneminder could be even better like having a special schedule for user input holidays and days before/after holidays for example.