Cameras and lookouts

A project can watch a room through a webcam or a computer's built-in camera. Gezel notices when something moves, can ask an on-device vision model what it sees, and keeps the moments worth keeping. A lookout tells it what to watch for and what to do: when the mud room camera sees the cat squatting on the floor, play the alarm and tell me.

The pictures never leave your computer unless you say so.

Add a camera

1. Open the project, then About → Connections → Add connection, and choose Webcam.

2. Pick the camera and press Take a test picture to check the view.

3. Choose what to keep:

   • Moments: only what the camera found worth noting (the default),

   • While moving: a picture every few seconds while something moves,

   • On a schedule: a picture every few seconds, from once a second to once a minute,

   • Nothing: just the live view.

4. Leave Recognize what's happening on if you want the vision model to look at what moves. Lookouts that ask a question need it.

Gezel reads cameras through ffmpeg. If it's missing, the setup shows how to install it.

While any camera is watching, the titlebar says so, and the camera's light is on. Click the indicator to pause a camera from anywhere. The emergency stop pauses every camera until you resume each one.

What it keeps

Every time something happens in view (a person walks through, the cat comes in and sits down), gezel treats it as one moment. A moment is saved as a short note in the project with up to three pictures and what the vision model saw, so you and your gezellen can find it later: "when was the cat last in the mud room?"

Saved pictures from While moving and On a schedule stay in a private folder on this computer, never in a synced folder. They're kept for as many days as you choose, up to a size limit, and the oldest go first. Moments are kept for 90 days.

Lookouts

Under Lookouts, press Add a lookout and finish the sentence:

• When the camera sees anything moving, a person, a pet, or something specific. For something specific, write a yes-or-no question like Is a cat squatting or pooping on the floor? Tick Only when it is clearly happening to wait for a second picture before acting.

• Then tell you, play a sound, say something out loud, send it to your phone, email you, ask a gezel to follow up, or run a craftbook.

Each lookout acts at most once per moment, rests after it acts (10 minutes by default), and stops for the day at its limit. You can limit it to certain hours, snooze it for an hour, or press Test to hear and see exactly what it does.

The Recently list shows every time a lookout acted, the picture it acted on, and what happened to each action. If something was held, it says why, in plain words. Press Not this on a false alarm.

What needs what

• Sounds, spoken alerts and notifications work at every security level.

• Phone alerts use the phone channel from Settings.

• Email needs a mail account connected to the project and the Free security level. A lookout only ever emails the addresses you typed on it.

• Asking a gezel and running a craftbook need Gezel to be set to run tasks. A gezel on a cloud model can't see the pictures unless you turn on Let cloud AI see these pictures for that camera; otherwise the action is held and the list says so.

A gezel can propose a lookout, but it stays off until you approve it. Gezellen can never turn on, change, or widen a lookout themselves.

Privacy

• Pictures, motion detection and the vision model all run on this computer.

• Only gezellen on an on-device model see a camera's pictures. Others get a description made here, unless you allow cloud AI for that camera.

• What the vision model writes is treated as untrusted: a sign held up to the camera can't send an email or start work, because lookouts act only on yes-or-no answers and your own instructions.

• Removing a camera deletes the pictures it saved. The moments it recorded stay in the project until you delete them.