Nice - looking forward to incorporating them.
As i understood it full featured ONVIF cameras need a setup for working. It is normal that this i done by a camera app and regulation made the process easier.
But if it is full supported ONVIF i should be able to use a device Manager software and just do the steps manually - as least as long as i connect the camera with a cable during setup.
Is that right?
From a time long ago, something like four years, I had a really old Instar Outdoor camera collecting dust. They actually updated the firmware a while ago to enable ONVIF. In HA I just integrated ONVIF, entered the camera IP and that was it.
I have both a HikVision and TP-Link Tapo camera working with HA. One is wired and PoE (HikVision) the other plugs into a wall outlet and is WiFi (Tapo). Neither uses the cloud, and both were easy to set up with Frigate and HA camera integration.
Greg
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My Top Tip on cameras, is buy used quality camera such as the AXIS range with firmware 9.50.0 or higher. You get all the bells and whistles such as boundary fences, small or large object detection and tree swaying rejection as triggers. All of mine are sub 150 Euro and retailed new for up to 1000+ Euro. There is a good turnover of such devices in the UK and I save them from landfill. Axis are now a Canon company but design and ethos is Swedish.
Nathan @NathanCu, what you wrote was true for practical purposes when you wrote this. However, things in HA have changed for the better quite radically since. Iâm referring to Frigate Installation | Frigate . It installs easily via a HASS add-on or via docker, and handles motion detection, recording still and video snapshots, AI object detection, detection based on zones in the frame, and so on:
For the part Sten @sten001 may be interested in, I use Frigate with a variety of Revodata / Revotech ONVIF PoE cameras off Amazon, due to their very compact size, metal case, low cost, 0 cloud dependency, and, most important to me by far, availability with diverse lens options, such as models I706-3-P (comes with a 170°FOV fish-eye covering whole sensor) and I712-2-P (manual focus manual zoom telephoto).
Hereâs an installation of mine using the former camera on the upper-right (center of this pic; recessed with the lens through a cut-out of a decora-style blank wall plate insert). To its immediate left is a K-Array speaker, and a couple feet below them is a thermostat sensor:
The camerasâ web UI is pretty rough, slightly better if you use MS Edge in IE mode, but desktop Firefox or Chrome work fine. To eliminate the chance of their data collection or backdoors, youâll want to use an NTP (time) server on your local network (HA conveniently has a Chrony add-on thatâs perfect for that) and shut off the camerasâ internet access entirely. They come with a QR code to download the manual - which lists the RTSP URLs for Frigate, but for anyone reading this years later whoâd trashed the box and the little card with the QR code, hereâs the info:
For Revodata / Revotech 16EV2 camera version:
- HTTP Port: 80
- Onvif Port: 80
- RTSP Port: 8554
URLs for RTSP (Port 8554) - user and password precede IP as shown below:
- rtsp://IPAddress:8554/live0.265 (Main Stream)
- rtsp://IPAddress:8554/live1.265 (Second Stream)
- rtsp://IPAddress:8554/live2.265 (Internet Stream)
- rtsp://username:password@IPAddress:8554/live0.265
Snapshot URL (same username:password@ before the IP):
http://IPAddress/cgi-bin/getsnapshot.cgi
For Revodata / Revotech FHW camera version:
- HTTP Port: 80
- Onvif Port: 6688
- RTSP Port: 8554
URL for RTSP(Port 8554):
- rtsp://IPAddress:8554/profile0 (Main Stream)
- rtsp://IPAddress:8554/profile1 (Second Stream)
- rtsp://username:password@IPAddress:8554/profile0 (if password set)
Snapshot URL:
http://IPAddress:6688/snapshot/PROFILE_000
Notice: The HTTP port of FHW version should NOT be changed in the UI, or youâll have to reach out for a mini Philips screwdriver and to the support to guide you how to reset the camera.
Support email: [email protected]
Security & other tips:
- Be absolutely sure to set up a view-only user, and use that ID and password on all RTSP URLâs - not the cameraâs admin credentials.
- Even if you change the admin password, on some models admin/admin still works. So these cams should be shut off the internet at the router/firewall - or stay on a local-only, air-gapped network.
- Donât even think about firmware updates. They work on one or two models (with no perceptible improvements), but for the rest youâll be opening up the camera case to reset it per vendor instructions.
- Certain models donât support daylight savings time.
- View the privacy statement under Network->advance [sic] and how they collect info if you let them. They donât actually collect that much - I mean nowhere near as bad as Amazon or Ubiquiti. But still, our goal is 0.
- Anything with âcloudseeâ in the address in your connection logs or open sessions would be linked to these cameras, but Iâd just cut them off the internet completely. Oh, yeah, in case I didnât mention this before, cut them off the internet. And this reminds me, while weâre on the topics of the internet and cutting things off, cut them off the internet. I know youâre going to ask me, should I cut them off the internet, and my answer is YES.
Hope this helps,
Alex | Chef de IT
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Sten @sten001 , the short answer is âyes, butâ, and itâs ESP32 Camera Component â ESPHome
You wonât like the âbutâ though, as itâll be easier to configure firewall rules than to get the above going (ending up with a lesser quality stream).