Home Assistant Configuration

Security Camera Stuff

I have the following camera related components installed in my configuration.

Component	Description	Notes
rtsp-simple-server	"rtsp-simple-server is a ready-to-use and zero-dependency RTSP / RTMP / HLS server and proxy, a software that allows users to publish, read and proxy live video and audio streams."	This proxy is used so that multiple streams do not overwhelm less capable (cheap) cameras. It runs in Docker independently of Home Assistant, in fact it is running on an old Raspberry Pi.
Frigate NVR Add-on	"A complete and local NVR designed for Home Assistant with AI object detection. Uses OpenCV and Tensorflow to perform realtime object detection locally for IP cameras."	This adds object detection for even cheap cameras (without running it in the cloud), so that events can be triggered based on a person moving rather than leaves and shadows moving. The Google Coral USB Accellerator gives enough performance to run this on a Raspberry Pi.
Frigate Integration	Integrates Frigate with Home Assistant.	Configures all entities to control Frigate and receive updates. Frigate publishes event information in the form of a change feed via MQTT.
Wyse Cam V2	A cheap indoor camera with audio.	Using the alternate Wyse RTSP firmware to access the camera stream locally. I experimented with the Xiaomi Dafang Hack, which was interesting, but could not get any more reliability than the Wyze firmware.
Amcrest AD110 Video Doorbell	Good quality video doorbell with local RTSP communication and two-way audio.	Have not had any problems with it.
amcrest2mqtt	A simple app to expose all events generated by an Amcrest device to MQTT using the python-amcrest library.	Has entities for things like amount of storage used on the SD card, but there is nothing essential that it provides that I have used so far.
packages/security_camera.yaml	Configuration and automations
www/camera_video.html	This webpage displays the video from a security camera. It uses a variety of technologies to find one that will work in a particular browser and keeps it running.	Can be used in a Lovelace Webpage (iframe) card or panel, as an iframe-fullscreen custom panel, or stand-alone in a browser.

Lovelace HomeSeer WD200+/WX300 Card

This card shows the status of the seven LEDs on the HS-WD200+ or HS-WX300-R2 dimmer switch connected using zwave_js. The color and blinking of the LEDs are set as configuration parameters of the Z-Wave device and the current zwave_js integration does not reveal them in attributes of a sensor (yet?), so this was kind of a challenge for me.

The code is at: www/homeseer-wd200-status-card.js

With a very basic configuration it looks like this:

    cards:
      - type: "custom:homeseer-wd200-status-card"
        entity_id: light.node_20

Adding a few configuration options makes it look like this:

    cards:
      - type: "custom:homeseer-wd200-status-card"
        entity_id: light.node_20
        title: Status Panel
        labels:
          - "Garage Side Door"
          - "Garage House Door"
          - "Garage Car Door"
          - "Front Door"
          - "Basement Door"
          - "Back Door"
          - "Alarm"

FYI, this is what my installed dimmer switch looks like:

Manual Installation Hints

Click for Details

I wish there were an easy way to explain how to add a custom card. Some of it depends on whether you are configuring Lovelace in YAML or in the dashboard. It would be easy if I restructure my repositories for installation using HACS, which I will probably do one of these days.

Manually:

1. Create a www subfolder under your config folder if there isn't one there already.
2. Copy homeseer-wd200-status-card.js to the config/www folder.
3. Add a resource entry. This is where it gets complicated depending on how you are set up.
4. Reload Resources in the dashboard.
5. Add a card configuration.

Resource entry example in configuration.yaml if using YAML mode:

lovelace:
  mode: yaml
  resources:
    - url: /local/homeseer-wd200-status-card.js
      type: module

For UI (non-YAML) mode:

1. Click your name in the lower-left corner to get your profile.
2. Turn on Advanced Mode.
3. Go to Settings > Dashboards > click the three dots menu and pick Resources.
4. Click Add Resource and add the resource. If you get "You are using your dashboard in YAML mode...", then do it like the YAML mode example.

Set State

Python Script to set the state or other attributes for the specified entity.

Excellent documentation and HACS installation available from (https://github.com/xannor/hass_py_set_state) readme.

Manual Installation Hints

1. Create <config>/python_scripts folder if you haven't already.

2. Copy set_state.py into the <config>/python_scripts folder.

3. Add python_script: to <config>/configuration.yaml if you haven't already.

4. Restart Home Assistant.

Person Location Custom Integration

This custom integration has been moved to its own HACS-compatible repository.

Combine the status of multiple device trackers

This custom integration will look at all device trackers for a particular person and combine them into a single person location sensor, sensor.<name>_location. Device tracker state change events are monitored rather than being polled, making a composite, averaging the states, or calculating a probability.

Make presence detection not so binary

When a person is detected as moving between Home and Away, instead of going straight to Home or Away, this will temporarily set the person's location state to Just Arrived or Just Left so that automations can be triggered appropriately.

Reverse geocode the location and make distance calculations

When the person location sensor changes it can be reverse geocoded using Open Street Maps, Google Maps, or Open Street Map and the distance from home (miles and minutes) calculated with WazeRouteCalculator.

Open repository README for all available installation and configuration details.