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Tony
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Howen Video solution Integration

With Howen VSS, you can display live and historical video from your assets directly in GpsGate. Keep all your tracking in one place — no scripting required.

Previously, Howen video was only available through a scripting integration (see Howen: How to display live-streaming video and Howen: How to display and play back historical streaming video). From the August 2026 release, the Howen video solution is built into the product. You no longer need custom panels, right-click scripts, or a hosted HTML page.

Overview

Once your Howen device is added to GpsGate, right-click the asset and choose Video. From there you can:

  • Live — watch a real-time stream from the device's cameras
  • Playback — play back historical video, either from the device or from the Howen VSS Cloud
  • Evidence Search — find, play, and download alarm evidence clips
  • Event Evidence playback through event panel - If you have a Howen event rule configured, you can also right-click an event in the Events panel and play its evidence video directly.

Before you start

  • The Howen device must be added as an asset in GpsGate.
  • You need your Howen VSS credentials — hostname, username, and password.
  • The device must be online for live video and for playback from the device.
  • Playback from Howen VSS Cloud requires the device to be uploading video to the cloud.
  • Evidence video from the Events panel requires a configured Howen event rule.

Sign in to Howen VSS

The first time you open any Howen video window, you're asked to sign in to Howen VSS.

  1. In Hostname, enter the address of your Howen VSS server. The default is https://vss.howentech.com.
  2. Enter your Howen VSS Username and Password.

  3. Select Sign in.

Note: This is a one-time step. Once you've signed in, GpsGate remembers your credentials and takes you straight to the video window.

Display live video

  1. Right-click the Howen asset in the asset list.

  2. Choose Video → Live.

  3. The live view window opens. Each pane is labelled with the device ID and channel number, for example DeviceID-1.

  4. Select Play on a channel to start its stream.

Note: Audio is muted by default. Switch a channel to SD when viewing several channels at once, or when the device is on a limited mobile data connection.

Play back historical video

  1. Right-click the Howen asset and choose Video → Playback.
  2. Choose your source:
    • Playback from device — reads the recording from the DVR's own storage. The device must be online.
    • Playback from Howen VSS Cloud — reads the recording from the cloud.
  3. Select the date and time range you want to review.

  4. Select Play.

Channels are labelled <device>.ch1 to <device>.ch4. The video is overlaid with the data recorded by the device: GPS position, speed, ACC status, driver ID, timestamp, and channel.

Note: Channels with no footage for the selected period appear black. If playback from the device returns nothing, the recording may have been overwritten — try Playback from Howen VSS Cloud instead.

Search for event evidence

  1. Right-click the Howen asset and choose Video → Evidence Search.
  2. Select a date and time range.
  3. Choose an alarm type, or leave All alarm types selected.

  4. Select Search.

Each result shows the alarm type, its Howen alarm code, and the start and end time of the clip. Select Play to view the clip, or Download to save it.

Play back evidence from an event

If you have a Howen event rule configured, the resulting events appear in the Events panel.

  1. Open the Events panel.
  2. Right-click the event.

  3. Choose Alarm Evidence Video.

The evidence clip for that event opens for playback. This is the quickest route when you're working from an alert rather than from the asset.

Note: If Alarm Evidence Video doesn't appear, the event wasn't generated by a Howen event rule, or the asset isn't a Howen device.

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