Turn an old iPhone into a local ONVIF/RTSP camera for Home Assistant / Frigate (no cloud) — beta

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Hi all — I’m the developer of Guardian Eye WebCamera, a native iOS app that turns an old iPhone into a standalone ONVIF/RTSP IP camera on your local network. Sharing it here because it’s a natural fit for Home Assistant / Frigate, and I’d love feedback.

What it does

  • Embedded ONVIF (Profile S/T/M) + RTSP server running directly on the phone.
  • Streams H.264 and H.265 over your LAN — no cloud, no account, no subscription. Video never leaves your network.
  • Auto-discovers via WS-Discovery, so ONVIF clients find it without a manual URL.
  • On-device motion/person detection (Apple Vision) published as standard ONVIF analytics events — or just let Frigate do detection and use the phone as a clean RTSP source.

Adding it to HA / Frigate

  1. In the app: Connection → Camera Access, set a username + password (no anonymous access).
  2. Use the ONVIF integration, or add the RTSP URL it shows: rtsp://user:pass@<phone-ip>:8554/live (H.264-compat at /live/media1). For Frigate/go2rtc, point a stream at that URL.
  3. Quick test in a browser: http://<phone-ip>:8080/snapshot.jpg

Early build, iOS only for now (full disclosure — I made it). TestFlight beta:

Feedback I’m after: RTSP stability into go2rtc/Frigate, ONVIF discovery/interop, and long-run reliability. iPhone model + iOS version in your report helps a lot. Thanks!

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Is there a similar approach for android phones?

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Yes — there’s an Android version too, same idea (old Android phone → ONVIF/RTSP camera). It’s in closed testing on Google Play right now and opening up more widely later this month — I’ll post a join link here once it’s open.