Would love some feedback on this - was going to install Frigate, but see that it needs Zigbee2MQTT. I have HA on a Linux Pc, Sonoff 3.0 USB and ZHA all running well. Seems like i need to remove ZHA then add Z2MQTT and maybe reflash my Sonoff etc. So, I researched alternative ways to see all my cameras in HA - ZoneMinder, Webrtc and other solutions out there. Any suggestion on what to use? I have Eufy, Arlo and google cams, plus older POE Lorex cameras with Lorex NVR. Thought Frigate would be a good option to play with but sounds like lots of reconfiguring just to play wiht my cameras in HA. So thoughts on other software/integrations to use that have minimal lag issues and ideally good motion detection. Thanks in advance!
I read this part and stopped reading so if I miss something don’t judge.
No. Just no.
Frigate needs nothing but itself and Z2M has absolutely no place in this conversation.
At best you mean a MQTT broker like mosquito. I’m not even sure if this is needed since v15 changed a few things
EDIT
Did you actually read the frigate docs or just a bunch of stuff in the forum?
Actually I did read the docs, and watched multiple Youtube videos trying to figure it out. Docs DO say a MQTT broker IS required and this video says to install Z2MQTT as a prerequisite.
This is what sent me down the rabbit hole of how to move from ZHA to Z2MQTT however if you are saying its not really needed, then thats great. So just install Mosquito and this should work with my ip cameras and no changes needed to zigbee stuff? thx in advance
This!!
is not the same as this
Also, Z2MQTT is for zigbee. Mosquitto is better if you do go that route.
Im just giving you a hard time. 
In reality you should not follow guides or videos cuz they tend to be wrong, outdated or just bad.
I tried every NVR solution and Frigate was/is the best.
The yaml is a bit of a pain but it works very smoothly and I added to HA side panel and it works beautifully.
Ok so I will add Mosquito and see if can get Frigate working, thanks. (by the way i know Z2MQTT is for zigbee, zigbee (ZHA) is what im running. And the youtube video is 90 days old - i did try to find a recent one!). Thanks
The HA integration for frigate not native and available in HACS. Again not sure if it’s needed anymore. If events come through mqtt the integration has no real purpose. As a matter of fact imma look into this again and remove from my install today if not needed.
If you already tried to run frigate and were unsuccessful, the MQTT broker will not be the cause
I understand. In last 90 days frigate 15 beta was released and brought a lot of changes. Recency is not a problem so much as the people claiming to know what they are talking about. That said, I speak on personal experience and really advise carefully reading the docs. I understand they are confusing but truly are best source.
To be clear MQTT is only needed if you want to integrate Frigate with HomeAssistant, this has been the case since 0.13
Agree the docs are not the best. Docs should have a Prerequisites section. Wasted way too much time tinkering with this. To use Frigate, you need MQTT broker, ok so not hard to set up. To add cameras, only supports RTSP type cameras, spent time figuring out if mine are or arent. Few do, so they I have to confifure RTSP stream, oh now I need a NAS! OK I have a NAS but now i need to install Surveillance Station. OK set that up too but cant get cameras to be visible there. Mess around with firewall but that doesnt seem to be issue CONCLUSION: I have old Lorex POE cameras and NVR, new Eufy S3 Pro cameras, few old Arols and Nest cam…continue to use native apps and don;t mess up HA with them. In other words…FRIGGIT… stop wastng time cuz this is too complicated and unnecessary.
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What? why?
Ok. Let’s be clear about What an NVR is.
There is no need for NVR.
Frigate has nothing to do with HA
NVR stores video recorded from surveillance cameras. Network Video Recorder
Many cameras store video locally on SD and do object detection
Many NVR by amcrest or cloud service like ring do this as well
Frigate simply brings that locally to central location on server with web interface. No needed but for done useful.
It also can bring several camera types into
Unified interface
RTSP is almost standard. Like HDMI on a laptop. For that matter rtsp isn’t required so much as video from any source since go2rtc accepts almost anything.
Docs are fine, it’s just a lot for non technical person to understand and requires willingness to learn if you don’t know. All the info is there which is the best you can ask for
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I been using zoneminder (ZM) with HA for at least 4 years. I’ve been pretty satisfied with it until I got a new 180% dual lens camera. I was having issues tuning out false positives. Zoneminder linkage with HA is pretty light. I used FTP to push images over to HA, you can also use MQTT. This was ok for augmenting the security alarm features I have set up in HA.
Since I was having the tuning issue with the new camera I figured I’d give Frigate a try. I have a sperate system that runs ZM and DVR software. I also run the 3 docker containers for HA voice processing thread on this machine. My main HA is on an odroid N2+. The N2+ gives better performance than a RPI, but still not alot of processing power to handle these extra features. The frigate instructions have an example docker composer configuration, so it took all of about 10 minutes to get the software going. After a short period of time, I had the new camera going. I spent a few days playing with it, without using a GPU, processing my new camera. It’s an 8MP video stream and was good for testing out the frigate interface.
Frigate is designed to use object detection from the ground up. With zoneminder object detection is an addon. The object detection approach used with Frigate made tuning out false positives a lot easier than in ZM. For a standalone NVR system ZM has a little bit better interface for looking at the camera streams. I stated out using Frigate version 0.14, and then upgraded to the beta version 0.15. One big addition in 0.15 is an interface to look at detected objects details to help with tuning. ZM has nothing like this. So, while general looking at camera streams might be better in ZM, overall, I’m starting to prefer the Frigate package.
After tuning, the next big difference between the two is the capabilities to integrate with HA. Frigate pitches itself as being focused on integration with HA. Without adding anything additional to HA you can connect to the Frigate camera streams if you want. If you add the frigate integration to HA you get full access to both the video streams and all the snapshots and video clips record on frigate. Add in the frigate notification blueprint and now you’re talking some automation magic.
Now that I have frigate up and running, connected to my HA MQTT broker, I don’t really have to look at the frigate interface unless I feel like it’s generating junk detections. Frigate is very good a detecting people and cars, which is great if you’re really using your NVR as a part of your security system. By connecting to HA, when people are detected in areas they shouldn’t be, HA send a notification to my phone with the attached video clip.
The paid for object model for frigate can detect all the main delivery services. I haven’t finished the automation yet, but now by detecting a delivery truck followed by someone by the porch I should be able to send a notification indicating a package has been delivered. As the USPS is also identified, I should be able to know when there’s something in the mailbox. And as previously stated, if someone is in an area they shouldn’t be, HA see’s the frigate event and sends out a notification.
Getting Frigate up and running with HA is worth the effort if you have cameras in your home automation architecture.
Frigate also recommends you use a Coral GPU. If you have an M.2 interface it’s around $25 and if not the USB version is a little more that $50. Both are pretty cheap for adding GPU processing. The device will off load all the object detection from your CPU. It works great and integrating it with Frigate is pretty easy.
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Just for clarity here the coral is a TPU, it has no ability to process graphics like a GPU
Frigate also supports many different detectors including GPUs
Sorry, you are correct it is a TPU.