Schedules and profiles allow you to change the behavior of the software based on the time of
day, week, in response to an event, or arbitrarily. The shield icon and camera “pause”
functionality are closely related, so all of these topics will be covered in this chapter.
THE SHIELD
This icon represents the global “armed” or “disarmed” state of the software. When it’s
green, the software is “armed” and all functionality is enabled (unless otherwise
overridden by something described below). When it’s red, the software is disarmed.
A yellow state represents an automated transition from red to green, perhaps allowing
you time to exit the building. The amount of time spent in the yellow state is
determined by a setting on the Startup page in Settings. By default, the software starts up
with the shield in the yellow state.
The specific functions which are disarmed may be adjusted on the Other page in Settings:
By default, recording, trigger alerts (actions), alert images (trigger database entries),
image posting (camera Post page settings) and webcast “push” (as to YouTube or
UStream) are disabled when the shield is red.
CAMERA PAUSE
When a camera is “paused” it is equivalent to using the shield icon, but on an individual
camera rather than globally. When paused, the camera window’s border will be drawn in
light blue and a pause icon will appear in its header.
Unless the pause is indefinite, a countdown timer in minutes:seconds appears near the
camera name in the header.
A camera may be paused or un-paused via a right-click menu:
It is also possible to change the camera’s pause state via the client phone apps.
PROFILES
A profile defines a mode of operation or a configuration. Only one global profile is active at
any given time (although it may be overridden on a per-camera basis as described below).
The simplest use for profiles can be “day” vs “night” or “work hours” vs “after hours.”
For example, using camera settings pages for Record, Trigger, and Alerts, you may configure
profile 1 for recording and alerting on all motion, and profile 2 for recording only without
alerts.
The original use for profiles in Blue Iris version 1 was to allow you to configure the motion
detection differently based on the time of day. Generally at night, cameras operate in black
and white, and trigger much differently than they do during the day. So in another example,
you might use profile 1 for the night and profile 2 for the day.
Profiles may also be used arbitrarily—configure profile 7 perhaps to provide a sensitive
trigger and to provide one specific type of alert. For example, you may be acutely or
temporarily interested in someone entering through the garage and would like to receive a
push notification for this, but then return to normal operation afterward.
There are 8 profiles, 0-7. Profile 1 is the default profile that will be used unless you
otherwise change it with a schedule or override.
Profile 0 (the symbol ~ was used previously) has a special function, and is always called the
“inactive” profile. When a camera’s effective profile is profile 0, it is considered inactive and
this is very similar to using the camera pause function or the shield icon globally. When
inactive however, the camera does nothing but display live video—and even that can be
disabled with a setting found on the Schedule page in camera settings.
You may title the remaining profiles 1-7 on the Profiles page in Settings:
Each profile may be assigned a time to remain temporarily active before returning to the
normally active profile (as defined by a schedule, see below). You may select that the
temporary state is immediately cancelled when a camera is triggered.
A Beta Amazon Echo integration may be able to change the active profile, and you may be
able to select a temporary or indefinite (hold) state.
Use the On change button to define an action set for execution whenever the active profile
is changed.
SCHEDULES
A schedule is used to automate the active profile based on the time of day and/or week. If
there is no active schedule, profile 1 is considered to be the active profile 24/7.
You may define a number of schedules. Common uses for schedules are for differing times
of the year, such as vacation, summer, winter, etc.
A schedule is created by drawing it. You may pick any color (profile) to draw, and then click
and drag anywhere in the schedule window to draw a filled rectangle in the selected color
(profile). You can do this over and over again as required, but it’s not necessary to be
precise in your drawing, as you can easily adjust the start/stop times in other ways.
It’s important to note that the “select a profile to draw” box is not a setting itself. It will not
remain on your selection when you return to this screen. It is merely used to select the
color that you currently drawing.
The blue dot represents the current day and time.
Editing the start/stop times
Use the Days button to toggle between selection of all days, week days, or weekend days.
Instead, you may click on an individual day label, or hold the control key to select multiple
days arbitrarily.
You will see “bubble location” icons appear at the top of the schedule showing times when
the active profile changes. You may drag these icons to align these to 5 minute increments.
If you bring two icons close enough together, they will merge together to eliminate one of
the profile changes they represented. For even finer tuning, you may “select” an individual
bubble icon by clicking on it, and then use the time edit box to enter a time directly.
A single level of “un-do” is possible by using the Undo button.
Setting times relative to sunrise or sunset
By setting your latitude and longitude at least approximately, you may take advantage of a
feature to automatically move the preset transition bubbles along with the change in sunrise
or sunset each day. First move a time bubble icon within proximity of either sunrise or
sunset, and then select the “relative to sunrise/sunset” checkbox.
The “civil twilight” selection provides a larger period between sunset and sunrise (night).
The Magic button
The Magic button exists to quickly generate common schedule layouts. These are
inactive during work hours, inactive during work hours but only during weekdays, or
multiple profiles for those same times. Click the magic button repeatedly to rotate
between these. Once selected, you may customize the schedule as required.
RUN, HOLD AND TEMPORARY PROFILES
When a schedule is running normally and the active profile is set automatically, this is
called the “run” state and a green play icon is shown.
When the active profile is overridden in some way, this is considered a temporary or
transient state and a yellow pause icon is shown. The active profile will automatically
revert and the schedule will return to the run state after an amount of time specified on the
Profiles page in Settings. A value of ‘0’ for this setting will hold the profile indefinitely in
the temporary state. You may click the pause icon to immediately return to the run state.
The profile and schedule may also be in a “hold” state where a red stop icon is shown.
The active profile will remain until you act, regardless of the timeout setting on the
Profiles page. You may hold down either the run or pause icons to force the hold state.
Click the stop icon to return to the run state.
CAMERA PROFILE AND SCHEDULE OVERRIDE
It’s possible for any camera to be configured with its own profile schedule. This is done on
the Schedule page in camera settings.
By default, a change to the global schedule will override all camera schedules and set all
cameras to the same active profile. This however can be overridden on the camera’s
Schedule page. You may also choose for a camera to use the global schedule and active
profile whenever the camera’s schedule selects the “inactive” profile (clear).
And just like it’s possible to temporarily override the global schedule by selecting it in a
number ways, it’s also possible to change an individual camera’s profile temporarily.
However, this is only possible via the client apps for iOS and Android at the time of this
writing.
When a camera’s effective active profile differs from the global profile, the active profile
number will be shown in the camera’s header.