Meraki Camera Notification Example

Leverage Meraki new camera API and MQTT capability to create a notification service. When the camera detects a person consistently appears in a particular zone the service will send a Webex team message to a Webex team room with a video link which will directly go to the video footage when that even occurred. This is useful for alerting unexpected person movement in off-hours.

API and technology

API

Camera API: Returns video link for the specified camera. If a timestamp supplied, it links to that time.

MQTT and setting:

1. Go to Cameras > [Camera Name] > Settings > Sense page.
2. Click Add or edit MQTT Brokers > New MQTT Broker and add you broker information. For testing/trial you can find public broker at here.
3. You can install MQTT.fx to subscribe to MQTT broker. This is a very useful tool

Build locally

Config

Configurations in app.py

General API and MQTT configurations

Name	Description
MQTT_SERVER	MQTT Broker ip or domain
MQTT_PORT	MQTT Broker port
MQTT_TOPIC	Meraki Camera mqtt top, default is "/merakimv/#"
MERAKI_API_KEY	Meraki Api key
NETWORK_ID	Camera's network ID, will use this get video link with camera api
COLLECT_CAMERAS_SERIAL_NUMBERS	Array of cameras serial numbers, all is *.
COLLECT_ZONE_IDS	Array of zone id, all is *

Motion detected configurations, you can keep this as it.

Name	Description
MOTION_ALERT_PEOPLE_COUNT_THRESHOLD	The threshold of people count from the camera to start the detection mode
MOTION_ALERT_ITERATE_COUNT	The iterate count when in the detection mode
MOTION_ALERT_TRIGGER_PEOPLE_COUNT	After threshold of people count after iteration to trigger the alert or not
MOTION_ALERT_PAUSE_TIME	The pause time after alert is triggered

Configurations in Webexteam.py

Name	Description
WEBEXTEAMKEY	The Webex team API key
ROOM_ID	The Webex team room ID

Build

1. Run python3 install -r requirement.txt
2. Run python3 app.py

Docker

Build : docker build -t meraki-camera-notification .

Run : docker run -it meraki-camera-notification .