As one project leads to another, I’m now pursuing how to get my Blink Doorbell Cameras and 3 Outdoor Cameras into HA and not have to rely on my Blink App to see video feeds or snapshots. I’ve also got a Sync Module 2 with a 64 GB USB Key in it, so I’m trying to see if I can leverage that storage space in addition to my HA device’s SSD.
Reading through the Blink page quickly, it seems that live video streaming isn’t possible, and quick Google searching shows that RTSP isn’t a thing here either as Blink uses it’s own proprietary protocol it seems. If that’s the case then I can deal with it as the Blink App only allowed me to view recorded clips on local storage and access the camera feed when I tap on it. So as long as I can replicate that within HA then I’m in the same spot I’d be but all within HA rather than disparate apps.
After adding my 5 devices (4 cameras and 1 sync module) to HA via the Blink integration, I then had to start searching what the best way to display these cameras would be, and it seems that Advanced Camera Card (fka Frigate Card) was the best option. The Config UI is a bit confusing to me, so futzing around with it got me to this card config below.
At first I just wanted to see if I can get it take a snapshot and update its thumbnail being displayed there, but it couldn’t really do that. Right now all I can see is an old thumbnail from the last time it was updated in the Blink app during the winter.
Any tips on how to navigate the UI or what YAML code to use to help achieve my goals above would be greatly appreciated!
type: custom:advanced-camera-card
cameras:
- camera_entity: camera.right_gate
menu:
buttons:
snapshots:
alignment: matching
icon: mdi:camera
enabled: true
permanent: true
