Installing Spot Appliances and Cameras

Table of Contents

 

Welcome to SPOT AI! This guide will give you a walk-through on how to install and set up all your Spot related equipment and tools.

Introduction and setup to Spot Dashboard

It is important to note the difference between "organization" and "location".

An organization is a logical container for SPOT locations. A dashboard "location" on other hand, is a logical container to set Spot appliances and IP cameras. Devices go into locations and locations go into organizations, and organizations are managed by user accounts added to SPOT dashboard.

You do not need to worry about creating organizations.  When you enter into Spot family, we will create your organization and send you an email invitation to set up the dashboard.  Follow the invitation to set up the dashboard password.

Installing Spot AI NVR

Step 1: Unbox the appliance which should contain the following items 

• Spot Appliance NVR 
• 2 x Ethernet Cables
• Power Cord 

Note: The serial number printed on the spot sticker will start with "sn".

Step 2: Finding and connecting to the network where your existing cameras are connected to

Find your cameras and follow the ethernet cord.  It should lead you to a network switch or back of your existing NVR. 

Once you have found the network switch where your camera is connected, use the ethernet cord provided with the appliance and connect it to the network switch. Plug the power cord into the back of the Spot AI NVR appliance and plug it into an appropriate outlet. 

Important: Please be sure to press the power button on the front of the Spot Appliance to power it on. 

Congratulations - you have powered on your Spot AI Appliance, found your camera network, and connected the Spot AI Appliance to the camera network.

Creating location and registering SPOT Appliance

Now you have access to a Spot dashboard account, it's time to create a location. Locations contain Spot appliances and IP cameras. You can create multiple locations under one organization. It is common practice to create different dashboard locations for each physical location. To create locations, please follow the steps below:

1. Login to dashboard.spotai.co with the user-email and password you set through the invitation. 
2. From the top menu click on “Configure” and then click on “Locations”. Create a location, add the name and the address of the location, and click on save as follows:
3. Now we will register the SPOT appliance. Unbox the SPOT appliance, take a note of serial number noted on white sticker.  It usually starts with snxx-xxxx as shown in example below:
4. Once you have the serial number of Spot appliance, go to Dashboard >>Configure>>Appliance, click on Add Appliance.  Type the serial number you noted from the sticker, and click on register appliance. You will see the appliance register but not connected since its not connected to internet

Device Setup and Topology

In order to set up Spot appliances and IP cameras there are few different topologies which can be used depending on your network set up:

a. If there is a flat network: Meaning everything (Internet and cameras) are connected to the same subnet, ensure the DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol ) is set on the firewall or switch for appliances and cameras to get an IP address (refer to the topology diagram below)

1. 1. Connect a power cable to the POE switch, power on the switch, and connect an ethernet cable from the switch to the router. (Connect to the port marked as the uplink port from the switch to the router.  If there is no port marked as the uplink port, connect to port 1 of the switch to the router).
   2. Now connect one of the switch ports to one of the appliance's ethernet/network ports. 
   3. Connect the cameras to rest of the available switch ports.

b. If the Internet and cameras are in a different subnet, then the connection should be as follows:

1. 1. In the example topology, the Spot appliance will have two network connections. Connect one ethernet port from the Spot appliance to the upstream switch (for internet access).
   2. Connect the other ethernet port on the appliance to an available port on the camera's switch. (Make sure that the camera's switch has DHCP configured)
   3. Connect all the cameras to available ports on the cameras switch.

c. Virtually Isolated Camera Network, using VLANS:

1. Sometimes the cameras can't be isolated to their own physical network. In these cases, isolating them to a VLAN is the next best option. A VLAN is a Virtual Network that is logically separate from other networks. An example of where VLANs are used is to keep a Guest network separate from the data network so guests can't see sensitive data.

2. In the example topology, the cameras are on VLAN 2, and the user computers are on VLAN 1. This allows the Spot Appliance to pull video from the cameras on the same switch as the user computers, without the user computers being able to see the Spot Appliance or the cameras.

3. The Spot Appliance can have multiple VLAN interfaces on one physical interface, meaning it can pull in video from cameras on VLAN 2, and access the internet through VLAN 1. Please contact Support if you need this configuration.

Adding cameras:

Once you have physically connected the appliances and the IP cameras as per above topology, go back to dashboard.spotai.co, You will see the status of the appliance connected since it have internet access as following example.

 

1. In order to add the cameras, click on Configure>>Location >>Edit>>Cameras you should see all the cameras, Spot AI dashboard will automatically search for your cameras and you'll see a listing of all available cameras to choose from. 
2. If the cameras are automatically authenticated, all you will need to do is click the Auto-Activate button on the camera listing. The appliance will immediately start ingesting video and you're done!
3. If Spot Genius is unable to auto-authenticate the camera, it will be listed with "Enter Credentials", in which case all you need to do is click on the listing and enter the credentials for the camera. Once authenticated, Spot Genius will use the same credentials to authenticate all cameras of the same vendor.
4.  For the best viewing experience, choose the streaming option which has a resolution closest to 2MP (i.e. 1920x1080p), H.264 video compression, and 15fps, this is the optimal resolution for low latency and seamless web viewing. 

NOTE : Spot Genius feature is auto-enabled you can check under Configure>>Settings >>Spot Genius toggle will be enabled. Spot genius uses API determines a set of likely default config/credentials

If you've been following along with this document - congratulations! You've successfully created your dashboard account and installed Spot appliance and IP cameras.

Troubleshooting :

With the above steps if you are NOT able to install the Spot appliance or camera please follow troubleshooting steps as follow:

A. Appliance is not connected to the internet

1. 1. Power Cycle the appliance 
   2. Verify the switch ports connected to the appliance have an activity light.  If there is no light, move the appliance to different switch port. 
   3. Verify the switch port activity light from the appliance to the router.  If no activity light, verify the cable connection by reconnecting the cables or move the cable on the router to a different port.
   4. Verify the cable connection from the router to the switch, appliance, and cameras.  Make sure there are no loose cable connections. 
   5. Power cycle the switch see if that helps bringing the appliance online. 
   6. If none of the above works out reach out to Support. 
   7. Refer this article for reference. 

B. If the appliance is connected but cameras are not detected under cameras tab 

1. Verify the camera's cables connection to the switch.  Make sure that the switch has POE capability, otherwise the cameras will not power up. 
2. Disconnect the cables from a few cameras and reconnect back to see if you can detect the cameras under the camera tab.  If yes, follow the same process for the rest of the cameras.
3. If you are using separate a camera switch, make sure the switch has a DHCP server connected, otherwise the cameras will not show up since they will not have any IP addresses. 
4. Go to appliance tab and click on the troubleshoot link to verify all the ports are allowed as follows.  If not, open up blocked ports from the upstream firewall or switch.
5. Refer this article for reference. 

If you are stuck at any of above steps, please reach out to Support for further assistance.

  

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