Problem with Motion Detection alerts on Hikvision NVR

Hi. I’ve got a Hikvision NVR (DS-7608NI-E28P) with 5 cameras attached using POE. I can’t for the life of me get it to send an email when it detects motion.

The problem is I can’t tell if it is a problem with the motion detection or sending the email. Should these alerts show up in the log? What it really needs is a “Send Test Email” button in the software. I’ve tried it with the SMTP settings for Gmail and Outlook.com and nothing happens

I’ve got “Send Email” and “Notify Surveillance Centre” options checked – but don’t really know what these mean? Is it the NVR or the cameras themselves which send the email? If it’s the cameras, how can they cause they’re on their own internal LAN with the NVR?

Any advice would be welcome

Cheers

Which cameras do you have Daz ?

I've got Hikvision Mini Bullets (DS-2CD2132F-IS) and Domes (DS-2CD2032-I)

I have the same mini dome and I setup email within the camera. Working fine with gmail. In the camera menu go to Advanced Configuration, Network, and click the Email tab. Remember it's SMTP port 465. There is a test button to check the email is working on that setup page.

I have the same mini dome and I setup email within the camera. Working fine with gmail. In the camera menu go to Advanced Configuration, Network, and click the Email tab. Remember it's SMTP port 465. There is a test button to check the email is working on that setup page.

Thanks for your reply. Are you using a NVR though? My cameras are plugged into the NVR, so accessing them directly isn't straightforward. I can't see how the cameras themselves can send an email cause they are on a separate LAN and don't have internet access

I'm not using an NVR but am using the ivms 4200 software which can also be configured to send emails, I imagine much an NVR. I've had that working but in the end I disabled it and went with the on-camera settings. To be honest I don't know whether the NVR will pass through emails from the cameras - I guess not.

I'd rather not have to leave a PC on all the time running the iVMS software - that's kind of the reason why I bought an NVR.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has been able to get email alerts working with a Hikvision NVR?

Right – after many hours I finally got email notifications for motion detection working. I’m going to share my notes on how to get this working because it’s not obvious, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot online on setting this up using a Hikvision NVR.

If you can’t get the browser plugin working then you’re not going to be able to get motion detection working in the NVR’s Web UI. The reason for this is you HAVE to draw/define an area on the screen to get motion detection to work. If you just click “Enable Motion Detection” it does nothing. I incorrectly presumed that if you didn’t define an area, it would use the whole screen by default – it doesn’t.

So, the problem I had was I could not get the plugin to work either on Chrome or IE11. From what I’ve read online, I think this may be a downfall of the Hikvision plugin itself.

To get Motion Detection working, I had to set this up on the cameras directly. You can do this by using the I-VMS software. Right-click the camera feed and select “Remote Configuration”. You should then be able to setup motion detection and if you set the alert linkage to “Audio” or “Display on Monitor” then you should be able to confirm it is working (i.e. your NVR will beep, or it display green boxes around any motion it detects)

Now you’ve confirmed motion detection is working, you can configure the email notification. There isn’t a “Test Email” option on the NVR UI, but there is if you use “Remote Configuration” again. When I tried the “Test Email” option I got a network/settings error. This is because it can’t resolve the smtp.gmail.com server. You therefore have 2 options :

1) Instead of using smtp.gmail.com, use the IP Address (ping smtp.gmail.com to get the IP)

2) Set the Preferred DNS setting (under Network) to 8.8.8.8. Note – I was using DHCP which meant this DNS box was disabled, however I was able to switch it off, enter the value and then switch it back on again and it still seems to work

If anyone else has issues getting motion detection working on their Hikvision NVR, I hope this helps!