Arlo Support (Sponsorship)

Hello, I have an Arlo camera system and while it has several great features it would be much better with Home Assistant integration!

For example, something as simple as disabling motion detection when a user is detected via presence, etc.

I understand there are competing priorities and I’d be willing to sponsor this work as I don’t have the time or the skills to undertake such a task.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks and has to say!

I also have an Arlo system and would like support.

Arlo recently added IFTTT support so I don’t know if this means there is an accessible API now or not.

Arlo can be controlled through ifttt. Set up the ifttt recipe for arm/disarm, and put your maker key in your configuration file. Here’s an excerpt from my scripts.yaml:

arlo_disarm:
  sequence:
    - service: ifttt.trigger
      data: {"event":"arlo_disarm"}
    - service: notify.notify_push_android
      data:
        message: Disarmed!

arlo_arm:
  sequence:
    - service: ifttt.trigger
      data: {"event":"arlo_arm"}
    - service: notify.notify_push_android
      data:
        message: Armed!

I can post more detailed instruction if needed!

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I would also be in for sponsoring a component for this.

IFTTT works but I don’t like the idea of external dependencies.

It’s pretty hard to work on a hardware platform you don’t own. My guess is that it’s only a matter of time till an Arlo component/platform will become available.

Hello guys,

I’m working on a developing a plugin to the Arlo cameras. I’ve already initiate some work and I’ll post here the beta code for testing prior submitting the PR.

I’ll keep you posted.
mmello

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Hello @krisk, @zakharm, @ChadMoran, @aneisch

I just wanted to share that I created a very first module version that for now just display the latest snapshot capture by your Arlo camera.

I didn’t have much time to test (since I just finished the first version) but would be great if you could test.

To test it, all you have to do is on your HA root configuration directory, in my case: is /home/homeassistant/.homeassistant:

$ cd /home/homeassistant/.homeassistant
$ mkdir -p custom_components/camera
$ wget https://goo.gl/Gmk21b -O custom_components/camera/arlo.py

Then configure it as follows:

#configuration.yaml
camera:
    - platform: arlo
      username: foor@bar
      password: secret

note: the username/password are the same credentials used to login on Arlo portal.

You should be able to a snapshot from your cameras displayed on the frontend. The idea is to expand it for binary_sensors when a motion is detected and allow live streaming when clicking on the image, but of course, we can keep updating it. Any ideas are very welcome too.

Please let me know if worked for you or what else should we implement. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you!

3 Likes

@tchellomello - Looks great so far! Thanks for the quick instructions to get up and running. It logs into my account and displays the last captured images.

What are your plans from here? I like the binary_sensors idea. Of course getting and setting the active mode (armed/disarmed/custom/etc) would be great as well!

Thanks again, I’m very excited to see where we go from here. Please let me know what I can do to help!

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Wow! This is awesome. Working great with my Arlo cams and updating with latest image but ArloQ isn’t showing up. Looking into pyarlo to see if there is something I can do there to gain support.

My wishlist would probably include:

  • Some trigger mechanism i can use in HASS for when the cameras are triggered
  • Ability to toggle arm/disarm (current functionality through IFTTT)
  • Check armed/disarmed status

EDIT: Just submitted a pull request to the dev branch of pyarlo.

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@aneisch awesome!! Thanks for your contribution. I don’t have an ArloQ and it is awesome to have your contribution.

I liked your ideas. I’m going to create a binary sensor now to report its status. I’ll keep you posted.

Thank you all guys.

mmello

@krisk thank you testing it. I’m glad it worked for you.

I’m very open to any suggestion and we can work together to this. I like the idea of arm/disarm/custom alarms. It is good idea for sure to bypass the IFTTT trigger.

I’ll keep you all posted.

mmello

Looks like Arlo starts up (and provides a link to) an rtmps stream when you tell the camera to play…

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Another request:

Until we (you) can get on-demand streaming working, a button to take a snapshot (to update the static image) would be nice. Looks like it’s a simple endpoint of /devices/takeSnapshot. I would work on it and submit a pull request but I do not know enough to understand your structure.

I have some Arlo Q’s on order, can’t wait to try this out, and maybe see if I can help extend it for motion sensors!

I’m also getting a Smartthings hub, I see that Arlo now integrates there, I wonder if its possible to use the MQTT bridge to pass over binary sensor signals?

I am currently using the SmartThings MQTT Bridge:


Since Arlo now works with SmartThings, I can confirm that you can receive the following data from them in Home Assistant via MQTT:

  • Motion
  • Switch - Turn the camera on/off
  • Battery
  • Signal Strength
  • Alarm - Turn on/off (Arlo Pro hub)

I currently have a control set up in Home Assistant to turn all of my cameras on/off, I display all of the battery readings in a report group, and I have created an “Alarm” state that will run automation to flash the lights in the house if motion is detected by certain Arlo cameras while “Alarm” is switched on. I’ll eventually integrate the alarm, but that’s going to need some finer condition logic.

The bridge has worked great so far, but it would be nice to access Arlo directly!

Have you looked at this?

There’s a short discussion on Live Streaming in the Issues.

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Wow! (and yes, was said before), but this works flawlessly. Up and running just doing the simple steps. Ability to refresh the snapshot and motion triggers and everything would be perfect…

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Guys, I think we are almost ready with the 3rd library for Arlo.

Please could you test the library https://github.com/tchellomello/python-arlo to see if that works for guys?

Then I think next steps is to adjust it on HA and I think we will be good for the first official PR.

Please let me know if you can test it.

Thank you!

3 Likes

I have just ordered some Arlo Pro cameras to my system and will test this when I get them!