Devices like HE don't have enough horsepower to really get the best out of cameras.
If you have RTSP based cameras (pretty much a necessity these days for always on capability) then options include Blue Iris (paid/windows), motioneye (free/linux), frigate (free/linux) etc. These will also provide mjpeg streams that you can send to your HE dashbooard.
Also with frigate (soon to be my software of choice when my google coral turns up) there is accelerated object detection when you have a coral tpu attached.
Another option for those of you who are utilizing the Apple ecosystem and Homekit. I created a docker container on my NAS for a Scrypted server and added my Reolink cameras in Scrypted. I then added the cameras directly to homekit which adds them as homekit secure video. You can then use Homekit as your dashboard for all your cameras for both snapshot refresh as well as live video feed including audio if the camera supports audio. I have them setup to record on motion and it records to my iCloud space. It's by far the easiest and most reliable camera setup I've done for my home cameras to date. It's also not very expensive. The downside is video is recorded to cloud instead of local.
I've been considering Reolink cameras for a new home build but only downside was I couldn't find a driver here. I'd be fine without a video feed on the dashboard, but can you use basic rules with the driver you wrote? I'd probably only use things like lights on/off with motion detection on the camera, etc....
Got it, you want to use the Reolink camera as a virtual motion sensor device in the hubitat. I would like that and we could probably get that to work. the most frictionless path would be to use node.js on a raspberry pi to process a Reolink 'alert' with which node.js would then let Hubitat know that a motion event took place. intercepting a push notification from the Reolink would be quickest end to end response. But Ive never done any node.js
Personally, I use three different outdoor camera systems integrated on some level with Hubitat; SmartThings, Ring, and Reolink. Mostly they are set up so their notifications mirror Hubitat safety monitor as a second layer of security monitoring. So those proprietary apps will start to send me any motion alerts & picture because a Hubitat rule turns their notifications on when HSM goes Away. Then, when i come home and turn off the security system, hubitat also tells THEM to turn off notifications.
HOWEVER, I DO use IFTTT with Ring to turn on a light when motion is detected by my doorbell during night time hours. Ring/Hubitat have native integration with IFTTT and very easy to use. That works pretty well for me, and has maybe 2 sec delay at most. But of course with ring you pay a premium.
I know I sound like a broken record over here and I promise I'm not a shill for HA. Half of that stuff you wrote above me about all those workarounds I don't even understand. Honestly I don't even know what you're talking about.
I'm dumb with this stuff and home assistant is running perfect for me. No BS refresh automation or anything like that. I have a LIVE feed on my dashboard that took a few clicks on a tablet. I didn't even have to add the camera, HA found it for me.
Open new dashboard > add new card > add entity (device)
Done. That's it. That's how easy it should be.
Edit: I want to state again that I'm not trying to bash Hubitat. I'm honestly saying this out of love and frustration. I've learned so much trying to figure out this platform that I'm sure it's helped me leap to HA. This platform has basically been stagnant while HA is putting out monthly updates that just put it out of the grasp of anything Hubitat can even come close to.
Sorry about that. @iusc12 and @user7106 were hoping to get a trigger working, based on an object/motion showing up in the camera feed, to update something in Hubitat automatically. HomeAssistant dashboards look great - next level stuff. But I believe requires a human to watch and tell something has walked into the screen and cause a trigger, no? Thats a great solution for monitoring one or more image feeds to see whats going on. Agreed that Hubitat Dashboards are not ideal as a camera feed. What you have on Homeassistant would be a way better dashboard for my personal kiosk tbh.
Reolink cameras do have built in recognition of changes in picture and trigger a notice to a. Email b. Reolink App Notification or c. FTP local file recording. But it would be cool if Reolink would trigger a rule or change a Hubitat device state automatically after recognizing an object in motion. Like a motion sensor for intrusion detection. The best solutions for this sound like Camect or Scypted, NVRs that do this. I believe NVRs work by constantly monotoring the picture to check for changes. Ring cameras do the same but they use Amazons cloud.
However if we could detect the reolink notice and use that to update hubitat - hey there is motion, then we could trigger automations in Hubitat based on a 'motion' event.
The device driver I put together basically a packaged up version the same as @josh208 post. I'll share the package on that in a different post when i have the chance. It allows Hubitat to control Reolink notification preferences like an on/off switch, but it doesnt send motion detection events back to hubitat - they still come on the Reolink app on your phone. So i will get Reolink notifications if someone walks into my backyard when HSM is armed away, just not when I'm home trimming bushes.
Much appreciated, I've been looking into Camect a bit since seeing folks on here using it. Hadn't heard of it before. The subscription service is a major downside for me, but looks like buying their top package is a lifetime deal, but $1k is a lot upfront. It feels like this is pretty much paying 1k to integrate Reolink cams into Hubitat...but maybe the Camect software is just that worth it? Any user scenario where you'd say Camect isn't a great fit for?
It used to be possible to buy just the box, since the AI processing is done locally. Their subscription service was optional when I bought my Camect; I don’t even remember what was in it, but I didn’t really need anything it offered.
I am pretty active with HA and the monthly update doesn't apply to me 95% of the time. It's a great platform but you are comparing apple to banana. I am happy using both platforms actually.
HomeAssistant has nothing to do with motion detection. That's going to fall on the camera. The camera's going to tell home assistant there's something going on and that's your trigger. The camera is going to have a 'motion' entity that you will use as your trigger to do energize a siren, blink a light or start your coffee maker, whatever you want. Do you think somebody's watching everybody's camera feed and then hitting a button when there's motion?
Thanks, I thought I had read that Reolink didn't support webhooks, and didn't realize you were getting motion events on HA. Your dashboards do look pretty cool - so no, I wasn't sure you were sitting there watching your cams all day or not. . .
Guys please, before we drop money that could otherwise go towards a couple bottles of really good vintages of Lafite on hardware - here is the source code for the app on HA:
Admittedly, while there are more people like our aforementioned starkiller sith lord coding in Python than in Groovy - kindly take note that this is NOT official HomeAssistant software - its just a bloke like any of us writing code from the community. I have nothing against HA - except that I am sorry I'm not using it - I'm just not usually stocking a pantry with multiple varieties of apples.
I was reading through their source code briefly, looks like while half of his code is just the same API like we've been using, the other half is where I was looking to get our desired motion events - it appears our OG Kylo Ren just uses the ONVIF port and puts in his own webaddress to Reolink and uses that like a webhook to receive motion events, which just come through as a boolean? This could be quite a bit easier to bring into Hubitat then I initially thought. My concern is the port and protocol. I'll play around with the device driver, try to parse through it some more and see what I can get.
I'm not sure how it's been stagnant. Features keep getting added all the time. (Yes we all know the interface isn't the greatest but their rules engine I think is much better than HA). I have HA running on an instance and honestly, outside of the pretty interface, it doesn't do much for me. Yes, they have a lot of integrations. Why? Because they do ALOT of cloud integration. For hubitat that's a no go for the most part (there are a few exceptions but by and large, hubitat is about 100% local control, not cloud control). Hubitat leaves cloud stuff up to the community. Also so many versions of HA on one platform. As I said I run an instance on a container, but if I want to add zigbee or z-wave I need to load it on a server or always on pc and then use the admin version. That's annoying. There are other things I could nitpick about HA (as well as Hubitat). But honestly, for me hubitat controls over 200 devices for me and just works. Outside of updates, I hardly touch it. And comparatively speaking power consumption is far less. (I have not evaluated their yellow)
Couldn't disagree more. HA isn't about local control? You must be kidding.
ZHA and ZIgbee2mqtt for zigbee, Z-Wave JS, Bluetooth LE, ESPhome, Tasmota, HomeKit, Hue, Matter and Casetta all native off the top of my head.
So your saying because they have almost every integration you could possibly think of that's bad?
Sometimes you have no choice but to control a non essential device via wifi.
Let's not ballwash here. HA has some issues just as Hubitat does but you cant compare them as equals either. In my experience, running on a Pi w/ssd HA is far more stable when it comes to device interaction, connectivity and speed.
Those stupid new Sonoff extreme non-nuetral switches battled me for weeks on Hubitat. A month or 2 ago I put them both on HA in 2 minutes and havent thought about them since.
Yea I'm still using Hubitat. I have 2 C-7's in mesh mode and still pay for remote access. Not a troll.
I get this is Hubitat valley but don't spread nonsense.
[quote="user359, post:38, topic:127361"]
ZHA and ZIgbee2mqtt for zigbee, Z-Wave JS, Bluetooth LE, ESPhome, Tasmota, HomeKit, Hue, Matter and Casetta all native off the top of my head.
[/quote
As it is in Hubitat...
By and large I and a lot here do not like cloud based integrations. Some opt for them. I try to avoid it when possible. The only thing I have that is cloud at the moment is my Weatherflow which at some point I expect to change. As to wifi, I have a few wifi devices that are 100% local. If hubitat wanted to they could also do a crapload of cloud integrations but they leave it to the community to do that. I went with Hubitat because it's lean and it's local. If someone's servers go down I don't worry about it because it doesn't affect those of us that want 100% local control over everything and tend to shun cloud based stuff.
Meh I use a vpn...
Didn't spread any nonsense at all... Everything I stated was fact. Yes HA has some 100%local stuff, but the majority isn't.
I feel like you were inferring that HomeAssistant isn't about local control. By chance I went to my mailbox and look what came in.
HA It's developing a LOCAL language model so we won't have to worry about Alexa or Google cloud services for voice control. Hubitat have anything like that going on? Who's really dedicated to local control?
