Save Camera Image (when motion detected)

Feature Requests
21

I saw that this has just been merged to dev:

It contains snapshot but documentation also mention motion detection service.
Does this mean that HASS can handle motion detection from any camera?
Would be really nice in that case…

EDIT: seems not to be the case

EDIT2: tried the new snapshot service but I get:
2017-10-30 22:07:00 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.camera] Can’t write /tmp/, no access to path!
Tried home dir for HASS too, same error

Anyone succeeded?

22

DO you have the /tmp directory in the .homeassistant folder? Check permissions to make sure it has the right owner.

23

Yes, the folder is there and everything has owner pi. Chmod 777 too just to be sure

24

I think it should be owner homeassistant. Check the owner of the other files?

25

I run HASS with pi so it should be OK I guess, I´m not in virtual env either.

26

Well, it is not working, so something is not right :wink:

In my experience, HA does not behave well if permissions are not set properly.

27

I agree, I´ll wait for someone else to try it :slight_smile:

28

Appears that on my pi images are saved in the folder /home/pi/Desktop/hass-cam. However whenever I create a folder tmp and assign write permissions to it I still get the error:

2017-11-05 07:04:16 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.camera] Can't write /tmp/test.jpg, no access to path!

Have raised an issue

29

Try tmp/test.jpg

30

Here’s the solution:

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/issues/10356#issuecomment-341982006

31

The docs have also been updated.
cheers

32

for those who use newer versions from foscam my foscam app also has the option to take a snapshot and save it in a predefined directory.

33

I believe this could be closed now

34

Yes, it works great.

Is it possible to do this feature also for capture a movie for x seconds?

1 Like
35

If there isn’t a feature request for that then I would add one :slight_smile: For the raspberry pi camera this is feasible, not sure about all other cameras.
Cheers

36

I use an rtsp stream, with ffmpeg I could capture now, but full integration would be nicer

1 Like
37

I created my config according to @mikenolet’s answer: ffmpeg_motion binary sensor as trigger with automation taking 3 snapshots and then sending it via Telegram. This is using a Reolink IP cam.

binary_sensor:

- name: cam01
  platform: ffmpeg_motion
  input: rtsp://[user]:[password]@[ip]:554/h264Preview_01_sub
  reset: 120

shell_command (to take the snapshots):

camera_take_snapshot: >
  /usr/bin/wget http://[ip]/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cm[user]&channel=0&rs=1234567890&user=[user]&password=[password] -O {{filename}}

And finally
automation:

- alias: 'Motion Notify'
  hide_entity: True
  trigger:
    - platform: state
      entity_id: binary_sensor.cam01
      to: 'on'
  action:
    - service: shell_command.camera_take_snapshot
      data:
        filename: /home/user/.homeassistant/data/camera_snapshots/snap1.jpg
    - delay:
         seconds: 5
    - service: shell_command.camera_take_snapshot
      data:
        filename: /home/user/.homeassistant/data/camera_snapshots/snap2.jpg
    - delay:
         seconds: 5
    - service: shell_command.camera_take_snapshot
      data:
        filename: /home/user/.homeassistant/data/camera_snapshots/snap3.jpg
    - delay:
         seconds: 1
    - service: notify.telegram
      data:
        message: 'cam01 Motion!'
        data:
          photo:
            - file: /home/user/.homeassistant/data/camera_snapshots/snap1.jpg
              caption: cam01
            - file: /home/user/.homeassistant/data/camera_snapshots/snap2.jpg
            - file: /home/user/.homeassistant/data/camera_snapshots/snap3.jpg
1 Like
38

I create my own proyect, if you want ideas, and before notification, you can see all motions, not only three.

39

I do similar but rather than have a script to capture the cam image, I do it like this:

notifyalarm:
  alias: Notify Alarm Trip
  sequence:
    - service: telegram_bot.send_message
      data:
        message: "Alarm Tripped"
        target: [xxxxxxxxx, yyyyyyyyy]
#send cam
    - service: telegram_bot.send_photo
      data:
        url: 'http://<ip>:8123/api/camera_proxy/<entityname>?token=zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz'
        target: [xxxxxxxxxx, yyyyyyyyy]

You can grab the image url from the HASS interface, but you’ll need to change it to camera_proxy rather than the stream and then it’ll grab a still straight from HASS.

1 Like
40

I couldn’t get yours to work and gave up.