What's your preferred way to connect cameras with Home Assistant?

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1

I've been experimenting with different camera integrations recently and was curious how others are doing it.

There seem to be a lot of options:

  • Native integrations

  • ONVIF

  • RTSP

  • MQTT

  • Vendor APIs

My main goals are:

  • Live view in dashboards

  • Motion detection notifications

  • Automation triggers

  • Reliable remote access

For those running multiple cameras:

  • Which approach has been the most stable?

  • Are you processing motion events locally or through the camera itself?

I'd love to see examples of how people have structured their camera setups.

Always interesting to learn from real-world deployments.

2

Frigate. Only issue is the hardware needed.

I have 9 1080p cameras, with detection on 6 of them, all running on a second hand i5 mini PC with Google coral. Never missed a beat in the 3 or 4 years its been running. Does face detection, number plate recognition and a few other things. It integrates with HA perfectly.

3

I'd agree with that, been running my setup for the last 12/18 months. Loads of new features in the pipeline to come.

4

What brand are your cameras?

5

Frigate is your best bet like others mentioned. For me I've got 2 dahua panoramic camera , 2 imou wifi cameras, and 2 generic ip cams. Works great on frigate. I have an N150 nuc coralt tpu m.2.

6

+1 for Frigate and a coral TPU. If you're going to have more than a few cameras consider running it on it's own mini PC.

7

I run cheap aliexpress 1080p cameras outside (iegeek), 3 of them. I then have 3 indoor cameras by Sricam that I have had for more years than I care to remember, and lastly I have 3 cheap Aliexpress bird box cameras. This is all run on an HP elitedesk i5 mini PC, in docker with a few other things.

8

thanks， i will take your advice

9

I have a number of Annke C500 and a couple of Reolink doorbell cameras.