Alright, let’s talk about getting security cameras into Home Assistant. I’d been putting this off for a bit, but juggling different apps just to see my cameras was getting annoying. Figured it was time to get them playing nice with my Home Assistant setup.
Starting Point
I already had a couple of IP cameras watching the yard and the driveway. Different makes, of course, because why make things simple? My first thought was maybe Home Assistant would just magically find them on the network. So, I went into the integrations section and hit the add button, hoping for some auto-discovery magic. Naturally, nothing happened. It’s never quite that straightforward, is it?
Figuring Things Out
So, I had to do some digging. Read up a bit online, saw folks talking about ONVIF and RTSP streams. Basically, these are common ways cameras stream their video. I checked the specs for my cameras. Good news – one of them was ONVIF compatible. Home Assistant has built-in support for that, so that seemed like the easier path for camera number one.
The other camera… well, it didn’t explicitly mention ONVIF in an obvious way. More digging. I eventually found out I could get an RTSP stream URL directly from it. This usually involves logging into the camera’s own web settings page, which can be a pain, but I managed to find the address. It looks like a weird web link, specifically for the video feed.
Getting Camera One Connected
Armed with this info, I went back to Home Assistant.
- I added the ONVIF integration.
- It asked for the camera’s IP address on my home network. Easy enough to find.
- Then it needed the username and password I use to log into the camera itself.
Typed all that in, held my breath for a second, and success! The integration found the camera, and after a moment, a new camera entity popped up. Added it to my dashboard, and there was the live feed. Felt pretty good seeing that work.
Tackling Camera Two
Next up was the non-ONVIF camera using the RTSP stream. This needed a different approach. I used the generic camera integration within Home Assistant (or maybe it was RTSPtoWeb? I tried a couple before settling, memory’s a bit fuzzy). This one required me to manually enter that RTSP stream URL I’d hunted down earlier. Again, it also needed the username and password associated with the stream access.
This part was slightly more fiddly. Had to make sure I typed that long RTSP address correctly. But, after submitting the details, this camera also came online in Home Assistant. The feed showed up, maybe a tad slower to load initially compared to the ONVIF one, but it worked.
The Result
So, now I have both my security camera feeds showing up directly in my Home Assistant interface. I can quickly glance at them on my dashboard on my computer or phone, no need to open separate, clunky camera apps. It’s much more streamlined.
I haven’t gone much further yet, like setting up motion detection within Home Assistant to trigger automations, or messing with recording options. That’s a project for another day. But just getting the live views consolidated into one place? That was the main goal, and I got there. Took a bit of trial and error, finding the right addresses and credentials, but definitely worth the effort.