Display live camera image in fullscreen from the dashboard

[pierre-gilles]

Hello everyone !

I worked on the various feedback I received during the private alpha.

Thanks to @lmilcent @AlexTrovato @guim31 for this valuable feedback

UX Improvement

In general, I improved the UX of the feature, with more explanations and clear error messages in the right places :

If the stream is not a video stream :

Mobile responsiveness has been improved :

Automatic streaming start

@guim31 requested a mode to automatically start the stream when opening the dashboard.

This is now possible for those who want it :

However, this option is disabled by default because depending on the number of cameras and your configuration, it may be too heavy for your instance ( if you have 4 cameras on the dashboard, it may be useful for 1 camera but not all )

On Gladys Plus, depending on usage I might add some safeguards because video streaming is very resource-intensive, especially in bandwidth, which is costly !

[guim31]

I’m a fan!

[Mastho]

Darn! I missed this thread! Can you add me if you still need testers?

[pierre-gilles]

@Mastho it’s done

[pierre-gilles]

Bad news discovered during the alpha: Safari on iPhone is not supported by this development

This development uses the « MediaSource » API, which is not supported by iPhone Safari:

Safari on iPadOS 13 supports it, as does Safari on macOS, so we can hope it will come to iOS in upcoming releases

iOS users will therefore see this message for now:

No trolling intended, this API has been available on Android since 2014 and on many other browsers for quite some time (I’m saying this even though I’m full Apple )

I don’t think it’s a technical blocker, but more of a « competitive » block to prevent competitors from creating custom video players on mobile. Let’s hope that changes!

Edit: My research on Twitter shows a reply from an Apple engineer who works on WebKit and who says that it is indeed a technical limitation; the implementation on macOS and iPadOS is not satisfactory according to them and they want to do better on iOS:

[guim31]

Launching Android / Apple trolls in 3…2…1…

[pierre-gilles]

Let’s talk a bit about the limits of this integration on the Gladys Plus side!

Bandwidth and storage aren’t free, so it’s naturally not possible to offer unlimited camera streaming on the Gladys Plus side.

If someone shows up with 100 4K cameras running 24/7, by the end of the month the project is bankrupt

So for now I’ve put a monthly limit in terms of bandwidth, which includes the « incoming » and « outgoing » bandwidth of the Gladys Plus infrastructure.

I’m not committed to this limit which may change depending on usage (either up or down)

In the long run, depending on usage we can consider different Gladys Plus plans / or paid add-ons for those who want to manage a larger camera fleet.

I know some camera companies charge per camera; I don’t yet know if that’s what I would do, but it could be an option

If anyone has feedback or experience with practices they’ve seen on the market regarding this, I’m all ears!

At Reolink, for example:

At Eviz:

[lmilcent]

I like the idea of a bandwidth limit via Gladys Plus, with a warning message at 80% and a « direct » button disabled if the limit is exceeded (or depending on cloud load, on a best-effort basis).

[spenceur]

Hello !

At Ezviz they only charge for video history but the live videos are indeed free and accessible remotely and at home.

That’s what I have, and for the history I use my personal NAS

[pierre-gilles]

@spenceur

the live videos are indeed free and accessible remotely and at home.

Several points about that:

• Ezviz sells cameras, so in their case they consider that when you pay for your camera, part of the camera’s price is used to pay for cloud costs during the camera’s lifetime. If the camera lasts on average 7 years, the price of the camera is thus « marked up » by 7 years of cloud costs
• They have to bet that a percentage of their users « upgrade » to the paid plan, which pays for the servers of the users who don’t upgrade (paying users pay for the free users)
• Free « lifetime » cloud access doesn’t last long, especially for products where the variable cost per user is high. An infrastructure/dev team costs money every year; if the user only pays in year 1, the company loses money each subsequent year. I’ve seen quite a few companies do this at first to acquire users, but it rarely lasts long. We’ll see in Ezviz’s case!
• It’s not explicit on their site, but I doubt there are no limits. There must be a « fair use » policy; it’s like mobile plans back in the day marketed as « unlimited » but actually with only 3GB of data..

In the case of Gladys Plus, we neither sell cameras nor use a freemium model, so such a strategy isn’t viable

[spenceur]

Completely agree — I was just giving you some feedback based on my limited knowledge .

[pierre-gilles]

This feature is available in Gladys Assistant 4.23 !

Streaming de caméra live dans Gladys Assistant 4.23 | Gladys Assistant

I’m closing this thread; if you have any feedback or feature requests, don’t hesitate to create another thread on the forum to discuss them

Thanks to the testers!