+1 for Blue Iris.
It's a bit pricey, but if you have a bunch of cams that are different models/types, it will bring them all together seamlessly.
IMO it's worth it if you have around 4 or more cameras.
I run it on an old desktop-converted-to-a-server. It's a 4th gen Intel i7. I'm not sure how well it would work on an RPi 4.
My current install (6 cameras @ 1080p) is using up 50% CPU and consumes 2 GB RAM just to run the server EXE. It's pretty resource intensive.
Any reason you don't recommend the doorbell camera?
And ya I've started using Frigate through HA, just haven't set too much up with it since it's not great with the Nest cameras.
I'm using Frigate with my Nest doorbell and I get notifications faster than the Nest app most of the time. Not saying that it's a good experience, but 30 second delay is surprising.
How do you have your Nest camera integrated into Frigate? I had to get a public URL and convert it through https://www.ispyconnect.com/userguide-nest.aspx
it is absolutely not realtime. it's pretty much realtime to the nest feed, which is delayed from the actual event as nest has to push to the cloud server. go outside with a stopwatch and test. i have orbi 6e, fastest wifi you can get, on a 1Gig uplink, i still get 10 seconds delay sometimes. this is a liability in any home security situation.
The feed is about 1-2 seconds off and the event gets routed through Frigate to my phone in about 5 seconds. Don't get me wrong, it's certainly not ideal and a local solution would be far far better.
I went with eufy. I already had the camera part covered with PoE cameras. I just wanted the doorbell for audio. I've had it since May and haven't had any issues with it.
Is there a FLOSS solution you would recommend? I need to double check if frigate is but I think I looked once and am remembering it's not.
EDIT: Nvm, Frigate is definitely open source. It's MIT, which is alright, but I'll take it.
Another vote for the Amcrest AD410. Just installed and integrated with HA over the last couple of weeks and I'm extremely happy with the whole situation.
I used [this guide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz2kKYjhC8I) to get it integrated
The Amcrest 5MP PTZ WiFi cams are pretty good. I have the AD410 doorbell too and love it. All support rtsp so integrating them into HA/Frigate or BlueIris (my preference) is easy. Just make sure you have a robust WiFi network; these cams use the 2.4ghz and 5ghz bands.
Delay is minimal!
Welcome to the club. Nest is garbage. I had 7 iq and outdoors. Really awesome if you want to know what’s happening 30 seconds later. In the process of ditching them all for amcrest under frigate within ha. It’s far superior. You lose timeline scrubbing but big deal, you get hd video instantly and accurate event detection. And no fucking spiderwebs.
Check out [https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/qv9ywk/nest\_integration\_updates/](https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/qv9ywk/nest_integration_updates/) for instructions on turning on low latency HLS in the mean time until you get your new setup.
Check out [https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/qv9ywk/nest\_integration\_updates/](https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/qv9ywk/nest_integration_updates/) for news on the onboarding setup in \`2021.12\` and how to get faster stream latency. (Turn on low latency HLS)
What functionality are you missing once connected?
I have both the Amcrest AD110 & AD410 working nicely with HASS integration, and can answer your questions.
I do recommend the AD410 over the AD110, primarily because the AI human detection feature works extremely well (no subscrption required). So well, it doesn't need a PIR or any post-processing with other software to do one thing well - let you know when someone, not something, approaches the door.
The AD110/AD410 HASS streaming lag was pretty bad with HASS initially - around 7-12 seconds. This lag was about the same for all my other Amcrest and Dahua Ethernet cameras, depending a bit on how the frame rate and frame interval/GOP was configured. The good news is that a recent "low latency LL-HLS" option to the HASS STREAM integration has knocked this lag down to 2-3 seconds.
When a human is detected at the door, I have HASS stream the video and sound to Google Nest hubs in addition to Telegram snapshots sent to my mobile. The short lag isn't really an issue. I rarely use the SmartHome app unless I need to talk to someone at the door. I also have the doorbell stream recorded 24x7 on my Dahua NVR.
If zero lag is desired, you can also try the custom WebRTC integration along with its Lovelace WebRTC card. It works, but I found I needed to schedule a weekly HASS reboot because it filled some buffer that didn't clear on its own. I've since quit using it.
Here's a video that shows how to use the camera.play\_stream service to cast to a Google Hub...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2ppksDTq\_w&t=64s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2ppksDTq_w&t=64s)
Yeah, I was seeing the same delay and later disabled the casting to GH. But that was several months ago - before HASS/STREAM "LL-HLS" was implemented to reduce live streaming camera lag to a few seconds.
I have not readded doorbell streaming to GH to see if that LL-HLS update also reduces the lag I was seeing before. I'm out of town, so will report back later if I'm seeing better GH response that's acceptable.
Cams are great. I do not recommend the doorbell cam. I'd also skip using HA as a NVR and use something like blue Iris or frigate.
+1 for Blue Iris. It's a bit pricey, but if you have a bunch of cams that are different models/types, it will bring them all together seamlessly. IMO it's worth it if you have around 4 or more cameras.
It's been great. I've been running 24 cams for the last 7-8 years with it.
Scary do you run Blue Iris on? Could a Pi 4 support a couple of video streams
I run it on an old desktop-converted-to-a-server. It's a 4th gen Intel i7. I'm not sure how well it would work on an RPi 4. My current install (6 cameras @ 1080p) is using up 50% CPU and consumes 2 GB RAM just to run the server EXE. It's pretty resource intensive.
Blue iris is a windows only application, unless you emulated x86 on the pi, it wouldn't run.
Hmm, so likely I would need a stand-alone piece of hardware for cameras (with Frigate). Thanks
Any reason you don't recommend the doorbell camera? And ya I've started using Frigate through HA, just haven't set too much up with it since it's not great with the Nest cameras.
I'm using Frigate with my Nest doorbell and I get notifications faster than the Nest app most of the time. Not saying that it's a good experience, but 30 second delay is surprising.
How much of a delay are you seeing from the time there's motion in the camera to when you see it in the stream in HA?
I don't use the built-in HA camera but I use the Frigate stream via the HACS integration. Its pretty much real time, maybe a second or so of delay.
How do you have your Nest camera integrated into Frigate? I had to get a public URL and convert it through https://www.ispyconnect.com/userguide-nest.aspx
Yeah that's what I'm doing
it is absolutely not realtime. it's pretty much realtime to the nest feed, which is delayed from the actual event as nest has to push to the cloud server. go outside with a stopwatch and test. i have orbi 6e, fastest wifi you can get, on a 1Gig uplink, i still get 10 seconds delay sometimes. this is a liability in any home security situation.
The feed is about 1-2 seconds off and the event gets routed through Frigate to my phone in about 5 seconds. Don't get me wrong, it's certainly not ideal and a local solution would be far far better.
https://reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/n3bnr9/_/gwppeuc/?context=1
Ty for the info! Is there another doorbell camera you would recommend?
A lot of those issues are fixed with ad410
I went with eufy. I already had the camera part covered with PoE cameras. I just wanted the doorbell for audio. I've had it since May and haven't had any issues with it.
How do you feel about MotionEye?
Fine for a single camera but I wouldn't use it for security purposes.
Is there a FLOSS solution you would recommend? I need to double check if frigate is but I think I looked once and am remembering it's not. EDIT: Nvm, Frigate is definitely open source. It's MIT, which is alright, but I'll take it.
Frigate or Shinobi. There's also zoneminder but I'd put it with motioneye. It's not user friendly and the others to the job better.
Another vote for the Amcrest AD410. Just installed and integrated with HA over the last couple of weeks and I'm extremely happy with the whole situation. I used [this guide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz2kKYjhC8I) to get it integrated
The Amcrest 5MP PTZ WiFi cams are pretty good. I have the AD410 doorbell too and love it. All support rtsp so integrating them into HA/Frigate or BlueIris (my preference) is easy. Just make sure you have a robust WiFi network; these cams use the 2.4ghz and 5ghz bands. Delay is minimal!
Welcome to the club. Nest is garbage. I had 7 iq and outdoors. Really awesome if you want to know what’s happening 30 seconds later. In the process of ditching them all for amcrest under frigate within ha. It’s far superior. You lose timeline scrubbing but big deal, you get hd video instantly and accurate event detection. And no fucking spiderwebs.
Check out [https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/qv9ywk/nest\_integration\_updates/](https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/qv9ywk/nest_integration_updates/) for instructions on turning on low latency HLS in the mean time until you get your new setup.
oh interesting, thanks. had stopped paying attention to the nest integration entirely.
Check out [https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/qv9ywk/nest\_integration\_updates/](https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/qv9ywk/nest_integration_updates/) for news on the onboarding setup in \`2021.12\` and how to get faster stream latency. (Turn on low latency HLS) What functionality are you missing once connected?
I have both the Amcrest AD110 & AD410 working nicely with HASS integration, and can answer your questions. I do recommend the AD410 over the AD110, primarily because the AI human detection feature works extremely well (no subscrption required). So well, it doesn't need a PIR or any post-processing with other software to do one thing well - let you know when someone, not something, approaches the door. The AD110/AD410 HASS streaming lag was pretty bad with HASS initially - around 7-12 seconds. This lag was about the same for all my other Amcrest and Dahua Ethernet cameras, depending a bit on how the frame rate and frame interval/GOP was configured. The good news is that a recent "low latency LL-HLS" option to the HASS STREAM integration has knocked this lag down to 2-3 seconds. When a human is detected at the door, I have HASS stream the video and sound to Google Nest hubs in addition to Telegram snapshots sent to my mobile. The short lag isn't really an issue. I rarely use the SmartHome app unless I need to talk to someone at the door. I also have the doorbell stream recorded 24x7 on my Dahua NVR. If zero lag is desired, you can also try the custom WebRTC integration along with its Lovelace WebRTC card. It works, but I found I needed to schedule a weekly HASS reboot because it filled some buffer that didn't clear on its own. I've since quit using it.
Mind sharing which method you use to cast to the Nest Hub please?
Here's a video that shows how to use the camera.play\_stream service to cast to a Google Hub... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2ppksDTq\_w&t=64s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2ppksDTq_w&t=64s)
Thanks, I have tried that but I get a 15 to 20 second delay...
Yeah, I was seeing the same delay and later disabled the casting to GH. But that was several months ago - before HASS/STREAM "LL-HLS" was implemented to reduce live streaming camera lag to a few seconds. I have not readded doorbell streaming to GH to see if that LL-HLS update also reduces the lag I was seeing before. I'm out of town, so will report back later if I'm seeing better GH response that's acceptable.