Alexa Camera requirements - "Live view not supported on this device"

Configuration
1

I’m trying to figure out how I can make cameras from my Home Assistant installation viewable on an Echo Show device. The documentation offers the following advice:

CAMERA

View a camera stream on an Amazon echo device.

  • “Alexa, show the front door camera.”

The stream integration is required to stream cameras to Amazon echo devices.

The Amazon echo device will request the camera stream from Home Assistant. The Home Assistant URL must be accessible from the network the Amazon echo device is connected to and must support HTTPS on port 443 with a certificate signed by an Amazon approved certificate authority. These requirements can be satisfied with Home Assistant Cloud, or LetsEncrypt/DuckDNS.

Enable preload stream option for cameras used with echo devices to reduce response time, and prevent timing out before the 6 second limit.

Here’s what I’ve done:

  • Confirmed stream component loaded under Configuration > Settings > Info
  • Configured “Nginx Proxy Manager” add-on from the store to proxy https://home.mydomain.com to :8123 with a Let’s Encrypt certificate, works as expected in a browser.
  • Configured “Internal URL” as https://home.mydomain.com under Configuration > Settings > General
  • Confirmed stream is viewable internally as https://home.mydomain.com/api/camera_proxy_stream/camera.entity_name?token=1234<long string>5678 and that certificate info is valid
  • Cameras are currently using MJPEG but I have other options available to me. Not sure if this matters as Home Assistant should be re-streaming but ???

The cameras configured show up in Alexa, but they are all listed with the subtext “Home Assistant - Live view not supported on this device”

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2

One of my cameras happens to be a FOSCAM device so I figured I’d try adding it that way. I configured the FOSCAM integration and can confirm that the new device is visible in the Home Assistant web UI.

Under “Configuration” > “Home Assistant Cloud” > “Alexa” > “Manage Entities” I find the new device has “CameraStream, Alexa” listed under it, where the MJPEG cameras do not have “CameraStream”. This seemed like a good sign so refresh devices in Alexa aaaand… same result, Live view not supported on this device.

Likewise, I setup one of my other cameras as an RTSP source like so:

  - platform: generic
    name: RTSP Camera
    stream_source: rtsp://user:[email protected]:554/profile5/media.smp

Results are similar to the FOSCAM test above, the stream is visible in the web UI and reports “CameraStream” when exposing it to Alexa, but once in Alexa it reports “Live view not supported on this device”.

3

OK so I was doing a dumb up there, “Live view not supported on this device” was showing on my phone because most devices don’t work for viewing on the phone. Checking from one of my Echo Show devices I see that those cameras which expose “CameraStream” are in fact eligible for viewing, and it attempts to do so.

It doesn’t work, but it tries.

Still working on the magic combo of how to get Alexa to display video that originates from Home Assistant (or from some other re-streaming solution).

5

The documentation and others here on the forum both believe that it’s possible, it just has some requirements that I don’t think are fully documented.

6

Hey! Facing the same issue, did you manage to get it working? I’ll let you know if I figure it out.

7

Still nothing here, but let me know if you find the magic combination!

8

Hey @luma, here are my findings:

I haven’t find any way of making Home Assistant’s streams work with Alexa. I experimented quite a lot and, not sure about the reason, but HLS streams didn’t work for me… even if Amazon says it works. HLS is the stream protocol that Home Assistant uses, so from my point of view I don’t see any way of making this work as of now. I tried pointing Alexa to many different HLS streams, even outside HA… all with the same negative results.

I took an alternative route then, by using the RTSP protocol. I don’t think there is any way of doing this through Home Assistant, so I setup a new Smart Home Skill with this code: https://github.com/goruck/alexa-ip-cam. This allows you to easily setup a RSTP camera to work with Alexa. Please keep in mind that the RSTP stream must have SSL and be on port 443 for this to work. Setting all this up is a bit cumbersome, as you have to get very creative when debugging, but at least it works.

Although this is not the best outcome, I hope it helps. I still don’t understand why HLS doesn’t work with Alexa, even if Amazon says it does. I don’t have experience with streaming protocols, so for me this is all new.

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9

Same here…
As I know, if You have Duckdns and NGINX proxy working on your HA, You can view your cameras on Echo Show and Amazon Fire Stick using the voice command “Alexa show me the -friendly camera name-” (tested and working in my home) All without any cloud subscription.

However, I can’t stream from HA to Echos (using scripts nor automations) I understand that, as Alexa require HTTPS for communications with our HA, don’t work.

I ask if a NGINX reconfiguration resolve this?

10

Not sure if anyone has this working directly with home assistant, but in the past i used Monocle for all my cameras in blue iris. The streams timeout unfortunately after 10 minutes or something like that, or at least that was my experience. https://monoclecam.com/.

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11

Over a year later still no update on this?

12

I have the same question? For me it just does nothing unfortunately… I can see the camera view if I ask alexa to show it, but I cannot trigger/send it via HA.

13

I found a workaround by sending a custom command “show me the camera xy”. It is annoying as alexa always says “ok”, but better then nothing for now

14

Interesting, can you share the workaround?

15

as mentioned, just a custom command e.g.:

service: media_player.play_media
data:
  media_content_id: Show Reolink Door Camera
  media_content_type: custom
target:
  device_id:
    - Your Echo Show
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16

Thanks it works perfectly

17

Hello!
I would like to open my camera on a tablet that I use on the wall when the doorbell rings. I think this is what I need.
I didn’t understand where used it. Was it an automation or a script?
Thanks!

18

Where do you elect the camera to display on Alexa show?

19

you say it in your custom prompt,
media_content_id: Show my camera what ever you call it
There you have to put the text what you normally would say to alexa if you want to show your camera

20

you could have a look in the integration “browser_mode”. should be quite easy to do that