Camera AutoNotify¶
Notifications for what your security cameras see in Home Assistant, sent through Supernotify, with no blueprint, automations or YAML.
It starts with Frigate: every camera is found and set up by itself, and each Frigate review is sent as a notification with its snapshot, tapped to play the clip. Other camera integrations are to follow.
Pre-release - this is a first release for feedback. Please say how it goes, or report anything wrong, in the issues.
What You Need¶
- Home Assistant 2026.4 or later
- The Frigate integration, with MQTT set up in Home Assistant, using the same broker as Frigate
- Home Assistant's external URL, or its internal one, set in Settings, System, Network, for the snapshot and clip links
- Supernotify, installed from HACS, for anything beyond a plain notification
- Optional, however without Supernotify there is only a plain text notification, with no snapshot or links, sent to every phone with the Home Assistant app unless you choose other notify entities
Install¶
- Use the button above, or in HACS add
https://github.com/rhizomatics/camera_autonotifyas a custom repository of type Integration, then install Camera AutoNotify and restart Home Assistant - In Settings, Devices & services, choose Add integration and pick Camera AutoNotify
- Leave Set up cameras automatically on, and submit
That's all. Every Frigate camera is set up straight away, and so is any you add to Frigate later. Each is listed on the integration's page, alongside Automatic discovery, and notifies Frigate's alerts with no further settings.
To stop the notifications for a camera, disable it rather than delete it, since a deleted camera is found and set up again.
Choosing Cameras Yourself¶
Turn Set up cameras automatically off, on the first screen or later from the settings of Automatic discovery, and cameras are instead offered as Discovered on the Devices & services page, beside Frigate's own. Choose Add to set one up, or Ignore on any you don't want.
Zones¶
Frigate gives each of its zones a device too. Turn on Find zones too in the settings of Automatic discovery and each zone is found like a camera, for notifications about that zone alone. A zone in the view of more than one camera, such as a drive seen from the gate and from the house, notifies for reviews from any of them. It's off by default, since a zone is mostly covered by its camera's own notifications, and a camera's settings can already limit it to some of its zones.
The Camera's Device¶
Each camera or zone gets a device of its own, sharing the identifiers of the device Frigate gave it, so each shows the other under Linked devices, and Camera AutoNotify shows as one more integration on that device.
Settings¶
Nothing needs changing for notifications to work. Each camera or zone on the integration's page has settings, all of them optional.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Severity | Alerts | Which of Frigate's reviews to notify. Alerts are what Frigate is set to treat as important, detections are everything else it tracks |
| Objects | Any | Only notify when one of these is seen or heard, chosen from the objects, audio and review labels in the camera's Frigate config, or typed in |
| Zones | Anywhere | Only notify when one of these zones is entered. Cameras only |
| Every zone | Off | Only notify once every zone chosen has been entered, rather than any of them |
| Zones in order | Off | Only notify when the zones chosen are entered in the order listed, such as from the gate to the door |
| Section | What it does |
|---|---|
| Timing | Cooldown, 30 seconds, is the time after a notification before another is sent for something new, though updates of one already sent aren't held back. Initial delay, none, holds back the first notification for a better snapshot. Notify when over, off, sends one more once Frigate has finished, after Delay when over. Stop updates after, 10 minutes, ends the updates however long a review goes on. Sound only the first, on, has updates replace the first notification silently. Notify recognised faces and plates, on, sends an update when Frigate recognises a face or number plate |
| Notification targets | With Supernotify, Targets is the same choice of entities, devices, areas, floors and labels as any Supernotify notification, Custom targets is for those outside Home Assistant, such as e-mail addresses or phone numbers, and Deliveries limits notifications to those chosen. Leave them empty for Supernotify to choose. Without Supernotify, Targets is a choice of notify entities, and left empty means every phone with the Home Assistant app |
What Gets Sent¶
The title is the camera's or zone's name, and the message what was seen and where, such as "Person detected in Barn Door" for a camera, or "Car detected on Driveway" for a zone.
| When | With Supernotify | Without |
|---|---|---|
| A review starts that matches the settings | A notification with the snapshot, high priority for an alert and medium for a detection | A plain text notification |
| A review that didn't match, then does, such as a detection raised to an alert | The same, as a first notification | The same |
| Something new is seen in the review, or a new zone entered, or a face or plate recognised | An update, taking the place of the last notification for that review, silently unless Sound only the first is off | Nothing |
| The review ends, with Notify when over on | A last update, ending "now ended" | Nothing |
With Supernotify, each notification:
- shows the snapshot of the review, and opens the clip when tapped, played from Frigate as HLS
- has a View snapshot button
- is grouped with the others of the same camera
- passes the camera entity, so Supernotify's camera snooze works
Priority, critical alerts, sounds, who is told, snoozing, the archive and scenarios are all Supernotify's, so set them up there once rather than per camera.
Video on iPhones¶
The clip is never attached to the notification. Attached as clip.mp4, an iPhone shows the snapshot only some of the time, and a Frigate clip is often too large for it to play from the notification. Attached as the HLS playlist, it shows no image at all. So every notification has the snapshot as its image, and opening it plays the clip, on iPhones and Android phones alike. This replaces the Apple push fix, which isn't needed here.
Moving From the Frigate Blueprint¶
Camera AutoNotify replaces the Frigate Notifications blueprint for review notifications. Every camera is set up for you, so there's nothing to copy across camera by camera, though any filters changed from the blueprint's defaults need setting again. Disable the blueprint's automations once the cameras are set up, or you'll be told twice.
| Blueprint input | Where it is now |
|---|---|
camera | One entry per camera, found by itself |
base_url, client_id, mqtt_topic | Read from the Frigate integration and Home Assistant's URL, nothing to set |
review_severity | Severity |
labels | Objects |
zones, zone_multi, zone_order_enforced | Zones, Every zone and Zones in order |
cooldown, initial_delay, final_update, final_delay, timeout, alert_once | The Timing section |
update_sub_label | Notify recognised faces and plates, in Timing |
notify_device, notify_group | Targets, or Supernotify's recipients and mobile push delivery |
critical, interruption_level, sound, volume | Supernotify, from the priority of the notification |
group, tag | Set by camera and by review, nothing to set |
attachment, video, ios_live_view | The snapshot, always, see Video on iPhones |
tap_action, button_1 to button_3 | Tap for the clip, and a View snapshot button |
button_3 silence, silence_timer | Supernotify's camera snooze |
title, message, subtitle | Fixed wording, not editable |
color, icon, sticky, channel, android_auto | Supernotify's mobile push delivery, where it has them |
presence_filter, state_filter, disable_times, master_condition, custom_filter | Not offered yet. Supernotify's scenarios and snoozing cover some of these |
tts | A Supernotify TTS delivery |
custom_action_manual, custom_action_auto | Not offered |
telegram_*, tv_* | Not offered, though both can be Supernotify deliveries |
debug | Supernotify's archive, and the integration's diagnostics |
Known Limits¶
- Frigate only, so far, and English only
- GenAI review summaries, licence plate notifications of their own, Live Activities and editable message text aren't part of this release
- The snapshot and clip links need Frigate's notification proxy, which the Frigate integration has on unless switched off. With it off, notifications have no image and open nothing when tapped
- Links use Home Assistant's external URL, or its internal one if there's none, so away from home a phone only shows the snapshot where the external URL is reachable, such as through Home Assistant Cloud
- Without Supernotify, only the first notification of each review is sent, with no image, since there's nothing an update could take the place of
- Reviews are followed in memory, so one under way when Home Assistant restarts is treated as new if Frigate updates it afterwards
Development¶
uv sync
uv run pytest
uv run ruff check --fix && uv run ruff format
uv run mypy custom_components/camera_autonotify
See the implementation plan. This component is an implementation of RFC 0006 from Supernotify.