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NovaVMS Manual

Relocate a camera to a different site

Use this when a camera is being moved to a new physical location under a different site. The camera UUID is preserved, so all past events stay linked — but motion zones, prompt packs, and alert rules are scene-specific and almost always need to be redone.

Procedure

  1. Cut PoE at the old switch port. Confirm LED extinguishes.

  2. Unmount camera. Retain screws, gland, and arm if compatible with the new location.

  3. Pull out the Cat6 from the old run. Coil with a minimum 100 mm bend radius for transport.

  4. At the new site, re-mount. Fasteners: 4 × M4 × 30 mm into rated anchors. Torque 0.6 N·m.

  5. Run Cat6 through the new arm. Leave 150 mm service loop inside the housing; 40 mm drip loop at the gland.

  6. Terminate T568B. Test with cable meter end-to-end.

  7. Re-apply PoE at the new switch. Verify 802.3af link-up in 10 s.

  8. In NovaVMS, open the camera → Settings → Site assignment. Change to the destination site. Click Save.

  9. Camera transitions through pending to online as the new gateway picks up the RTSP stream (US-CAM-16). Allow up to 30 seconds.

  10. Open Live tab and confirm first frame from the new scene.

  11. Re-draw motion zones to the new scene (Camera → Settings → Motion zones). Zones are polygons normalized 0.0–1.0 to the frame. [Not yet active in v1] — zones are validated and persisted (max 8 per camera, 3–20 vertices each, ≥1% frame area) but software motion detection is unimplemented per decision D12-REV. The zones are stored for future use; they do not currently gate recording or alerts in v1.

  12. Review the AI configuration for the camera. Per-camera yolo_confidence is the only v5 per-camera AI override; tune from the camera detail page if the new scene has different motion characteristics. See Configure AI for your organization.

  13. Update any alert rules that referenced the camera at the old site. If the rule was site-scoped, add the new site.

Common variations

  • Same site, different room — no site change needed. Just re-draw motion zones and (if needed) re-tune the camera’s AI confidence.
  • Cross-site but same model of camera — keep the existing name; no rename needed.
  • Cross-site and different gateway — camera is automatically re-bound to the destination gateway on next connect_camera (US-GW-9). No manual gateway change required.

If this didn’t work

  • Camera stays pending after site change → Camera stuck in pending.
  • Motion zones render off-scene → clear and redraw; the old coordinates do not map.