Integrating Blue Iris into Home Assistant

I have been able to leave the streams running 24/7 on my kitchen tablet. No issues.

Lots of pieces to this puzzle, but thanks for replying to let me know it works for someone.

What type of system are you running Home Assistant on?

I’m running the generic linux install of hassio on an old laptop and it seems pretty snappy compared with the rasp pi 3 I started on, but that doesn’t mean much for video I guess.

@nickdaria
When using Nginx Proxy Manager do you still use DuckDns Addon?
For the the base_url do you still put https://my-domain.duckdns.org:8123

I have the DuckdDns addon also and I keep getting invalid logins from my network and I am wondering if this is what is causing it.

If you want, you can fully migrate to a URL like ha.yourdomain.duckdns.org. Just make sure NGINX and DuckDNS are enabled, so NGINX can handle the domain cert, and the DuckDNS addon will keep the certs updated in HA for your addons and such.

Nickdaria.

Thank you for taking the time to document this process. I have been having non-stop issues with Stunnel and have been trying to figure out how to use the NGINX Proxy Manger instead, but was never able to get it to work. Your step-by-step processed worked great and I am now able to connect to my BI server remotely without any issues. Thanks again for sharing.

The next thing I would like to get working is to use Tensorflow AI Addon to help filter out false motion triggers. I have read this can work, but have not found any detailed documentation on how to set this up to work with the BlueIris feed. I am currently paying $5/month for the sentry smart alerts AI, but would prefer to setup my own internal solution. If anyone has additional information on how to get the TensorFlow Addon working with BI I would appreciate the info or link.

Thanks again.

Andrew J

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Tensor Flow setup can be found here. I haven’t had time to try it out yet, myself.

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Sorry for the message after almost 6 months.
I just installed blueiris on a nuc in Windows 10. The only thing on it.
My hassio setup is on an unRAID VM Server (on a separate machine then the nuc). Also using NABU CASA.

How might I use your functionality in my environment.

Thanks
carltonb

I have followed this tutorial carefully, in hopes of correcting an existing issue, but, alas, I am still having the problem. When opening the android app for example … if it is left open, and I come back to it, my home assistant instance will briefly loose connection, and when the connection comes back, my previews of my cameras show up as grey boxes with a missing link logo. I usually just refresh the screen, and it fixes the problem, however, the new Android app doesn’t have a refresh option. I have lived with this for quite some time, but I am becoming more and more annoyed and I am not certain what the problem is. Anyone else with a similar issue?

I think we all have this issue. I always have with any type of camera.
See this thread for a little bit more:

I have no clue on how to troubleshoot the issue, but I’d like to see it fixed so if anyone knows how we can help let us know!

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I am not able to get Home Assistant (Lovelace front-end) to load my Blue Iris streams.

- platform: generic
  name: Front Door Stream
  username: !secret blueiris_username
  password: !secret blueiris_password
  authentication: basic
  still_image_url: "http://***.***.*.***:**/image/front_door"
  stream_source: "http://***.***.*.***:**/h264/front_door/temp.m3u8"

The stream opens locally on the Blue Iris host machine, and Home Assistant appears to be refreshing the still images, but, clicking the image in my front-end just results in a spinning wheel, and never loads the stream. I have double, and triple checked the links, and the username & password, and all is correct. The system is set up using this tutorial. I am on Hass.io, v. 0.105.5, and show no errors in the log related to this. For what it’s worth, the mjpeg set-up as indicated in the original post works fine, just not the stream version. I am wondering if the correct link should be something like: http://my.domain.duckdns/h264/front_door/temp.m3u8. Any advice?

I use mjpeg, h264 does not render for me in either firefox or chrome:

- platform: mjpeg
  mjpeg_url: http://blueiris/mjpg/driveway
  name: Driveway
  username: !secret bi_username
  password: !secret bi_password
  authentication: basic

I just use a chrome shortcut on my phone… that way it works just like the app but has refresh and the rest of chrome’s features.

Also, I have to give it to the op… awesome write up on securing remote BI access. I would probably be trying this, but before I put cams on my house I already had a VPN setup on my asus router. That provides plenty of security and speed since I’m using self signed certs (4k aes) with the newer gcm ciphers.

At the end of the day I think a vpn is the way to go for my needs. It shotguns all of my remote access needs with one bullet… not just ha and bi, I can also rdp or samba to windows machines, nas, etc… anything in my lan.

I am having the same issue where I cannot use the Generic Camera integration for Blue Iris. I think I have narrowed it down to an BI authentication issue. If I set Blue Iris Authentication to anonymous or Non-LAN Only to test, it works just fine. I checked the Blue Iris messages when I set the Blue Iris Authentication to be required on ‘All Connections’ and I receive <my_HA_ip>:AuthFailed. The MJPEG camera setup works with my same secret username and password, so I know it is not that. Anyone solve for authentication problems with Generic Camera and BI?

  - platform: generic
    name: <Camera Name>
    still_image_url: "http://<my_BI_IP:Port>/image/<short_cam_name>"
    stream_source: "http://<my_BI_IP:Port>/h264/<short_cam_name>/temp.m3u8"
    verify_ssl: false
    username: !secret bi_username
    password: !secret bi_password
    authentication: basic

I should add the reason to use the Generic Camera is the new functionality to see your cameras on the Alexa Echo Show. You need to use the stream integration for this to work and as far as I am aware it doesn’t work with MJPEG Cameras.

I should also add, in order to see the AuthFailed message in BI, I had to turn on “Log ALL connections, not just logins” in Web Server > Advanced settings.

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Update:

Turning on BI Web Server > Advanced “Use Secure Session Keys and Login Page” allows Home Assistant to connect, but keeps repeating a login in BI connections but camera doesn’t stream in HA. It appears Basic Auth is not working with Generic Camera for BI like it does with MJPEG Camera.

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is it possible to cast the cameras with this setup? currently I use mqtt but can only cast if authentication is set to non-lan and the anonymous account has to be enables. With the anonymous account enabled the ui3 interface logs in without credentials. So trying to secure my setup but still have ability to cast.

I’ve got this mostly working but with 9 cameras, soon to be 10, it appears some of my cameras don’t show the stream in HA. If I limit the picture entities, these cameras can work, so it’s not an issue of any specific camera, but something to do with bandwidth maybe? Max simultaneous connections?

How do you display your cameras in lovelace?
I am currently using the custom surveillance-card but I looking for ideas for a better layout.

Were you ever able to get the BI stream working with the Echo Show? I’m able to add the generic camera to Alexa, and I can ask to see it, but after loading “… Home Assistant”, for a few seconds, it simply quits. Not sure what can be done at this point.

My Mistake. Fixed - nothing to learn here.

I know with my Hikvision camera, if I make it H265 it does not stream, but H264 does. I believe that this is a restriction in HA.