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SpotBot camera analytics setup

SpotBot is a camera analytics platform. Cameras detect on site, and every detection reaches CleverCam as an alarm signal with a photo of what triggered it. One SpotBot receiver serves many installations: each installation reports a unique serial, and that serial is what tells CleverCam which site a detection belongs to.

Setup is in two parts:

  1. The receiver — created once in Settings → Alarm Receivers for your control room.
  2. Each site's installation — added to the site by its serial, from the site's Add hub flow.
One-way, always

SpotBot never accepts commands — CleverCam receives detections and arm/disarm, but cannot arm, disarm or configure anything on the SpotBot side. That is true in both modes described below.

Once an installation is added you can run it in one of two modes:

  • Monitor only (the default) — detections raise alarm zone events, and the customer arms and disarms in the SpotBot app. This is what every SpotBot hub does until you change it.
  • Run as cameras — detections become CleverCam cameras, so the site can arm, schedule, snooze and bypass them like any other camera. See Run as cameras below.

The receiver​

Create it in Settings → Alarm Receivers (click Add, pick SpotBot, label it e.g. SpotBot Receiver). CleverCam generates an API key and shows the webhook URL:

https://webhook.clevercam.co.za/spotbot/<your key>

Give that URL to SpotBot. Every installation on the account uses the same URL — each one reports its own serial, so there is nothing per-device to configure on our side.

Treat the URL as a password

The token in that URL is the entire credential — there is no separate API key or signature. Anyone who has the URL can post signals to your control room. Send it to the vendor over something private.

Finding the URL and key again​

Click the receiver row and then View Configuration. The webhook URL and the API key on its own are both there, each with a copy button — you do not need to open Edit to read them. Anyone who can open a receiver's configuration is already entitled to its credentials, so nothing is masked on that screen.

Changing the key​

Rotating the key changes the URL, and every SpotBot installation still holding the old one starts being rejected the moment you save. Each device keeps that URL in its own firmware, so there is nothing to push — somebody has to reach every installation before its signals resume. The form treats it accordingly: Edit → Rotate API Key is a red button that first shows how many panels it will cut off, then asks you to type the receiver's name exactly before it will generate anything. Even then the new key is only local until you press Save Changes, and an Undo button puts the old one back until you do.

Rotate it if the URL has leaked. It will not fix a receiver that has stopped receiving — it can only stop the ones that still are.

Adding a site's installation​

  1. Open the site (Sites → View Site) and find Hubs & cameras on the Hardware tab.
  2. Click Add hub.
  3. Choose the SpotBot receiver tile.
  4. The Serial step opens for that line. Type the box's serial (e.g. 0111207876315) — CleverOps checks every receiver line on the control room for it, so an installation already reporting comes up to pick. Click Continue with <serial>, or Continue without a serial to pick from the list on the next step.
  5. The next step opens with the serial already filled. Either keep it, or pick the installation from the "Already reporting to this receiver" list. Optionally add a friendly name.
  6. Click Add Panel.

Because SpotBot starts sending as soon as the URL is configured, the installation is usually already in the list — pick it rather than typing the serial.

One installation, one site

The serial identifies the SpotBot box, not a camera. If one box is wired to cameras at two different sites, all of them land on whichever site you link it to. Check with the installer before linking a box that covers more than one property.

Zones are cameras​

SpotBot reports the camera number as the zone, and it also sends the camera name — so zones arrive already labelled (Midas 2, midas 1) rather than as bare numbers. You can rename them afterwards and your name will stick.

The Add Panel dialog does not ask you how many zones and partitions to pre-create. Each camera is created on its first detection, carrying the name SpotBot gave it — which is a better starting point than anything you could type in advance, and it means the list only ever holds cameras that are really there. A count picked up front would fill the gaps below your highest camera number with bare Zone N placeholders for cameras that do not exist.

Arm and disarm​

SpotBot sends arm and disarm for a group of cameras — the group's cameras are listed in the signal, e.g. "midas 1, Midas 2".

CleverCam records these against partition 1, using that camera list as the partition's label. SpotBot does not number its groups, so every group shares partition 1 and the label shows which group last armed or disarmed.

What this means in practice

If an installation has more than one camera group, the site's arm state reflects whichever group changed most recently. The signal history still shows each arm and disarm with its own group name, so nothing is lost — but don't read partition 1 as "the whole site is armed" when multiple groups exist.

Run as cameras​

SpotBot controls cameras individually and has a single arm state for the whole installation — which is how a camera system behaves, not an alarm panel. Run as cameras treats it that way.

Switch it on from the site: Sites → View Site → Hardware → Hubs & cameras, find the SpotBot hub's row and click Run as cameras. The button then reads Cameras: on.

From that point:

  • Each SpotBot camera becomes a camera in CleverCam, created automatically the first time it detects something. They appear in a camera group called SpotBot.
  • The site arms and disarms them like any other camera — camera groups, site-wide arm, arm schedules, and snooze all work, including on the customer's CleverAlert app.
  • A detection while the group is disarmed raises nothing. Disarm, snooze or a schedule genuinely silences these cameras, which is not possible in monitor-only mode.
  • Cameras are named from SpotBot's own camera name on first sight (Midas 2), and you can rename them afterwards — your name sticks, on both sides.
  • Detection photos are copied into CleverCam, so an event keeps its picture regardless of what SpotBot does with the original later.
  • Each camera gets a Reference photo — the "what this scene should look like" picture. SpotBot has no live stream, so the camera's first detection becomes the reference automatically, and the camera's Edit dialog has a Use latest detection button to replace it with a newer one.
  • The camera's Edit dialog shows only what applies to these cameras: privacy areas, onboard analytics, stream source (RTSP/IP) and video telemetry are hidden, because SpotBot runs the detection and there is no stream of ours behind the camera.
  • Each camera gets a Detection profile (open the camera's Edit dialog): People only or People and vehicles. SpotBot tells CleverCam what each detection was, and a camera set to People only silently drops its vehicle detections — useful for a camera watching a driveway where cars are normal and people are not. New cameras start on People and vehicles so nothing is filtered until you choose to.
  • The hub's alarm zones and its partition are retired. They stop being updated the moment detections start arriving as camera events, so leaving them on screen would mean a zone list frozen at whatever it last read — including a zone stuck showing an alarm whose restore now arrives as a camera event. They are hidden, not deleted.

CleverOps confirms the switch before making it and then tells you what it tidied up, for example "SpotBot now runs as cameras. Retired 8 alarm zones and 1 partition."

Vehicle detection is a SpotBot add-on

SpotBot only sends vehicle detections if the installation has the vehicle detection module, which the customer purchases directly from SpotBot or their service provider — it is not something CleverCam can switch on. The Detection profile above filters what CleverCam does with detections; whether vehicles are detected at all is decided on the SpotBot side.

Leave the SpotBot unit armed 24/7

Because SpotBot accepts no commands, CleverCam cannot switch its cameras on. Managed mode works by letting SpotBot detect continuously and deciding on our side whether a detection raises an alarm.

If the unit is disarmed in the SpotBot app it stops sending, and arming in CleverCam will not bring it back — only SpotBot can. When that happens the hub row shows an Unit disarmed flag, which means someone needs to re-arm it on the SpotBot side.

Switching back to monitor only​

Click Cameras: on again. The switch is reversible, and CleverCam puts the hub back the way it was rather than leaving both halves on screen at once:

  • The alarm zones and partition come back, with their labels and their links to the site's zone list intact.
  • The cameras are disabled, not deleted. They keep their names, their group and their event history, but they cannot raise an event while SpotBot's detections are being routed as alarm signals. Switch back to cameras and they come straight back on.
  • Anything you renamed, curated or bypassed by hand is left alone in both directions — the switch only restores what it retired itself.

What a SpotBot event looks like​

A detection arrives as a burglary alarm with a photo attached. The photo is SpotBot's own annotated frame — a reticle on the detected person, a confidence percentage, and the camera name burnt in — so an operator can judge it immediately.

Detections come in bursts: one person walking through view typically produces many signals over a minute, each with its own photo.