I’m looking into adding a video doorbell and some security cameras and want to integrate with HA. I have some cameras that came with the house, but I don’t think they will work. The system has been discontinued and I don’t have the “base unit” that connects them. If there is a way to use them, I’d be happy to find out if they are operational and use them. Web search has not helped.
My first priority is a video doorbell. I don’t really understand much about how it works, and there is a lot of conflicting information out there. I have a wired doorbell, and I could probably manage to figure out how to run a data line if needed.
I want it to play nicely with any future system. The current camera system is wired, and I’m happy to run new wires if needed. I have plenty of storage on my home PC server, and I’d prefer to use it.
Any guides out there that really cover the overall process?
I’ve been using a Reolink Wi-Fi doorbell connected to my own Frigate server over RTSP. Frigate talks to HA via MQTT and everything works from there.
I’m also using Reolink without an SD card, WiFi, hooked up to FTP, and streaming directly to HA. Old doorbell wires for power.
Reolink didn’t seem to have the type of stream ideal for Frigate? I don’t remember the protocol offhand.
I also use mine with Frigate, it works great!
How hard is it to really set up frigate? Having never done much, aside from router tweaks and basic networking. My self hosts have been through tailscale. But finding a good DVR is tough without cloud service BS.
Frigate can run as Home-Assistant addon easily. Then one does not have to manage / update the docker container.
Have you used docker before? That’s probably the most straightforward way to host Frigate. Frigate itself can have a learning curve, especially if you want to do fancy things. However, I think it’s well worth the setup because it’s so good. They do have pretty decent docs, it’s how I figured out my dozen or so camera setup: https://docs.frigate.video/
Frigate can either be very basic (just recording) or it can do things like object detection, facial and license plate recognition, and auto tracking, just to name some examples.
I have not used docker but over my time of using Linux in general, reading, and understanding I think I can figure it all out I was just worried I didnt want to jump in over my head then pay say 10 a month or something for a local service. I love FOSS and do what I can but there’s a win/ lose if the time gets too demanding. I think I’ll check it out. What would you say you spent total time I have about a dozen cameras or more myself. Like start to finish time frame to setup? Where do you store data PC hard drives? HDDs?
It really depends on how many features you want. If you’re just doing recording, then it would probably only take an hour or two to get fully configured and set up. What takes a lot of time, in my opinion, is if you want to set up object detection along with object masking. Getting the object masks just right took me a few hours.
I store all of my data on my NAS, so HDDs.
Does that mean that you have two devices, one running frigate, and one with HA? Or is it all on one server? Is there any beginner’s guide for setting up the hardware and software needed?
I’m not running Frigate, but I can offer some advice on this question: I use a NUC to run HAOS in Proxmox, which also can also run a Docker VM. That, in turn, can run any Docker container/stack.
You’d just need to make sure the appropriate devices are passed through in Proxmox between Docker/Frigate and HAOS. (Can’t offer much advice there, though…)
You can do it either way. I personally have HA running on a Pi4 while frigate runs on my server, but this is just because HA is running well and I don’t want to mess with it and move my zigbee/zwave radios.