Frigate smart home integration, free and open source
Frigate NVR cameras: snapshots, motion, objects, reviews and scene triggers.
Published by LM1LC3N7
- Devices
- Version 0.3.1
- Requires Gladys >=5.1.0
- ★ 0
Bring the cameras of your Frigate NVR into Gladys Assistant: snapshots, motion, detected objects, review alerts, camera switches, and scene triggers to react when a person, a car or an animal shows up.
Requirements
- Gladys Assistant 5.1 or later.
- Frigate 0.16, 0.17 or 0.18. The integration reads the Frigate version and configuration and only exposes what your Frigate actually enables.
- Recommended: the MQTT broker Frigate publishes to. Without a broker, the integration falls back to the Frigate WebSocket.
Quick start
- In Frigate, create a dedicated account: Settings → Users → Add user,
role
viewer(enough when an MQTT broker is used, see below). - In Gladys, install Frigate from the integration store, then open its
Configuration tab: Frigate URL
https://<frigate-ip>:8971, the account, and the MQTT broker Frigate publishes to. Save. - The status at the top says "Connected to Frigate …, Real-time feed: MQTT broker connected". Test the connection gives the details.
- In the Discover tab, press Add to Gladys on your cameras.
- Create scenes with the Frigate triggers (see Scenes).
Frigate connection
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Frigate URL | https://<frigate-ip>:8971 (authenticated port, recommended). Port 5000 works but has no authentication at all: a warning is shown in the connection status. |
| Username / password | A dedicated Frigate account. The viewer role (or a custom role limited to your cameras) is enough: camera commands go through MQTT, not through the Frigate API. |
Certificate: trusted on first connection
Frigate's port 8971 serves a self-signed certificate by default. You do not have to do anything:
- a certificate signed by an authority (Let's Encrypt, your company CA installed in the system…) is verified normally, and renewals keep working, as long as the Frigate URL uses a name the certificate covers (reached by its IP address instead, it is handled like a self-signed one, and each renewal asks you to trust it again);
- a self-signed certificate is trusted on the first connection, then pinned: if it changes later (Frigate reinstalled, certificate regenerated… or someone impersonating Frigate), the connection is refused and the status explains why.
When you know the certificate changed for a legitimate reason, press Trust the new certificate in the Configuration tab: the next connection trusts and pins the new certificate. The same applies to the MQTT broker when TLS is enabled.
The first connection is the only moment the certificate is not checked: run it on your local network, not through an untrusted network.
Expert settings (optional)
At the bottom of the Configuration tab, fill in one of these fields to replace the trust on first use:
-
Pinned certificate SHA-256 fingerprint: only this exact certificate is accepted. To read it, from the Frigate host itself or a trusted machine:
openssl s_client -connect <frigate-ip>:8971 </dev/null 2>/dev/null \| openssl x509 -noout -fingerprint -sha256 -
Certificate authority (PEM): your own authority; the certificate must be signed by it and match the host name.
Real-time feed (MQTT)
Enter the broker host, port, credentials and the Frigate topic prefix
(frigate by default). Give the integration its own broker account with this
ACL (Mosquitto syntax):
user gladys-frigate
topic read frigate/#
topic write frigate/+/+/set
Leave the broker host empty to use the Frigate WebSocket instead. Camera commands (the switches) then need an admin Frigate account: since Frigate 0.17, the WebSocket refuses them from other roles.
The connection status shows the state of the feed ("Real-time feed: MQTT broker connected", or why not). A network failure is retried on its own; a refused certificate or account stops the feed until you fix it and press Test the connection (or save the configuration). When Frigate announces it is offline (restart), the status says so, and its configuration is read again when it comes back.
Each incident is also written to the integration logs (View logs):
front: person detected, 87 %, front: person entered porch, 87 %,
front: review alert, person, car in porch.
Cameras in Gladys
Open the Discover tab of the integration: every Frigate camera is listed (press Scan to read Frigate again). Press Add to Gladys on the ones you want. Each camera device carries what its Frigate configuration enables:
| Feature | What it does |
|---|---|
| Image | Refreshed every minute, taken fresh when Gladys asks (chat, scenes). Frigate resizes it to fit the 150 KB Gladys accepts. |
| Camera enabled | Turns the camera on or off in Frigate (no detection, no recording while off); Gladys then shows no image of it either. |
| Object detection, Snapshots | Frigate's switches. |
| Recordings, Audio detection | Only when enabled in the Frigate configuration file: Frigate refuses to turn them on otherwise. |
| Motion | Motion seen by Frigate. |
| One sensor per tracked object (Person…) | Present / absent, and its count. Plus the total of objects. |
| Review status | none, detection or alert. |
| Zone sensors | With the "Zone occupancy sensors" option: one presence sensor per zone and object. |
A switch is only shown as changed once Frigate confirms it. Without an MQTT broker, the Frigate WebSocket only accepts commands from an admin account (Frigate 0.17 and later): with another role, the command fails with that explanation.
The badge of each camera says when it is not nominal: unreachable when Frigate does not answer, announces it is offline, or the camera stream has been lost for 30 seconds; degraded when its recording stream is interrupted or the real-time feed is down (the states may then be outdated).
A camera added with an older version of the integration shows Update in the Discover tab: press it to add the new features.
Scenes
Three triggers, fired once per incident (never once per frame), above the minimum confidence and outside the cooldown (see Options). False positives and objects standing still never fire.
| Trigger | Fires when | Filters |
|---|---|---|
| Frigate: new review | Frigate opens a review item (alert or detection); once more when a detection becomes an alert | camera, severity, object, zone |
| Frigate: object detected | Frigate starts tracking an object (person, car…) | camera, object, zone |
| Frigate: object enters a zone | A tracked object enters a zone defined in Frigate | camera, zone, object |
Object and zone are the names used in Frigate, in lowercase (person,
car, dog, cat, bicycle… for objects, those of objects.track;
porch… for zones); an empty field accepts any value. The objects a camera
tracks are also its presence sensors (Person, Car…). "Object detected" only
fires on an object confirmed by Frigate's detection, above the minimum
confidence: plain motion never fires it (motion is the camera's "Motion"
sensor).
A review is filtered on its main object (the first of the camera's
tracked objects, in the order of the Frigate configuration) and its first
zone; all of them are in the objects and zones variables. Variables
available in the following actions: camera, camera_name, label,
sub_label (face or plate recognized by Frigate), zone, zones, score
(%), severity, objects, event_id, review_id.
On an alert, the integration pushes a fresh image of the camera before firing the trigger: the core action "Send a camera image" placed right after it sends the alert.
Action "Frigate: attach the event snapshot": publishes the snapshot
Frigate kept for an event (with or without its bounding box) as the image of
the camera (the event's camera by default). Use {{triggerEvent.data.event_id}}
as the event id, then "Send a camera image". For one minute, the snapshot is
also what Gladys gets when it asks for a live image of that camera ("Send a
camera image", the dashboard live view). When Frigate keeps no snapshot for
the camera, or keeps one too large for Gladys, its thumbnail is used. Once
the event is over, Frigate serves the snapshot it saved: the bounding box
then follows its own snapshots.bounding_box setting.
Example — a photo on your phone when someone comes to the door:
- Trigger Frigate: new review, camera Front door, severity Alert,
object
person. - Action Frigate: attach the event snapshot, event id
{{triggerEvent.data.event_id}}. - Action Send a camera image of Front door to yourself.
Options
- Minimum confidence (default 70 %): object triggers only fire above it (reviews carry no score: Frigate's own thresholds apply).
- Trigger cooldown (default 30 s): at most one trigger per camera and object type (and zone, for zone triggers; per camera and severity for reviews) and period, so an incident never floods your scenes. False positives and objects that stay still (a parked car) never trigger.
- Zone occupancy sensors (off by default): one presence sensor per zone and tracked object.
Live video
Live video is not carried by this integration. Use the built-in RTSP
camera service of Gladys pointed at the Frigate go2rtc restream:
rtsp://<frigate-ip>:8554/<camera_name>.
Configuration buttons
- Test the connection: Frigate's version and cameras, how its certificate is trusted, the account used, and a connection to the MQTT broker (or a reminder that the Frigate WebSocket is used without one).
- Refresh the cameras: reads the Frigate configuration again (for instance after adding a camera) and updates the list of the Discover tab.
- Trust the new certificate: forgets the pinned certificates of Frigate and of the broker, reconnects, and shows the fingerprint now pinned. Compare it with the one of your Frigate (command above) when in doubt.
When Frigate cannot be reached, the integration tries again every minute. A refused certificate or refused credentials wait for you instead: retrying would only lock the account out (Frigate limits failed logins).
Security
- The integration only talks to Frigate and to the broker, on your network; it runs in an isolated container (read-only, no privileges, its only writable folder holds the pinned certificates).
- A dedicated Frigate account with the
viewerrole (or a role limited to some cameras) cannot change Frigate's configuration. With MQTT, the broker account above can only read Frigate's topics and send the camera commands. - Certificates: verified by an authority, or pinned on first use (see above); the Frigate token and the broker password are only sent once the certificate is trusted.
- Passwords, tokens and cookies never appear in the logs or the status.
- Port 5000 and MQTT without TLS work, with a warning in the status: use them only on a network you trust.
Troubleshooting
The connection status at the top of the Configuration tab says what is wrong; Test the connection checks everything again. The integration logs (supervision controls, View logs) never contain passwords or tokens.
| Symptom | What to check |
|---|---|
| "The certificate of … changed" | Frigate reinstalled or certificate regenerated: press Trust the new certificate. Otherwise, someone may be impersonating Frigate. |
| "Frigate refused the username or the password" | The account of the Configuration tab. After several failures Frigate blocks logins for a while: the integration does not retry by itself. |
| The Discover tab is empty | The status: Frigate must be reachable. Then Scan. |
| No image on the dashboard | The camera is on in Frigate and in Gladys; wait one minute after adding it. |
| A switch fails ("did not confirm", "admin account") | Without a broker, Frigate 0.17+ only accepts commands from an admin account; with a broker, its ACL must allow frigate/+/+/set. |
| "Real-time feed stopped" | The broker refused the account or the certificate: fix it, then Test the connection. |
| Camera badge "unreachable" | Frigate is down or restarting, or the camera stream has been lost for 30 s (check the camera in Frigate). |
| A scene does not fire | The minimum confidence and the cooldown (Options); the object and zone names are Frigate's (person, not Person); the logs show each incident. |
| A camera added before an update misses features | The Discover tab shows Update on it. |
Configuration settings
These are the settings Frigate asks for in its configuration screen in Gladys.
| Setting | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frigate server | section | No | Frigate 0.16 or later. Use the authenticated port (https://<ip>:8971) with a dedicated Frigate account; the viewer role is enough, camera commands go through MQTT. Frigate's self-signed certificate is trusted on first connection, then pinned. Port 5000 has no authentication at all. |
| Frigate URL | string | Yes | |
| Frigate username | string | No | |
| Frigate password | secret | No | |
| Real-time feed | section | No | Enter the MQTT broker Frigate publishes to (recommended). Leave the host empty to use the Frigate WebSocket instead, without a broker. The broker account needs read access to <prefix>/# and write access to <prefix>/+/+/set. |
| MQTT broker host | string | No | |
| MQTT broker port | number | No | |
| MQTT username | string | No | |
| MQTT password | secret | No | |
| MQTT over TLS | boolean | No | The broker certificate is checked like Frigate's: trusted if signed by an authority, otherwise trusted on first connection and pinned. |
| Frigate topic prefix | string | No | |
| Options | section | No | Scene triggers only fire above the minimum confidence, and at most once per camera and cooldown period. |
| Minimum confidence (%) | number | No | |
| Trigger cooldown (s) | number | No | |
| Zone occupancy sensors | boolean | No | Adds one presence sensor per zone and tracked object. |
| Expert: TLS certificate | section | No | Optional. By default, a certificate signed by an authority is verified normally, and a self-signed one is trusted on the first connection, then pinned: if it changes later, the connection is refused until you press "Trust the new certificate". Fill in ONE of the fields below to pin a known certificate or use your own authority instead. |
| Pinned certificate SHA-256 fingerprint | string | No | |
| Certificate authority (PEM) | string | No | Paste the PEM certificate of your authority; a single line is fine. |
How to install Frigate in Gladys
- In Gladys, open Integrations: Frigate appears in the catalog, next to the native integrations, with a community badge.
- Click Install. Gladys pulls the Docker image (
ghcr.io/lm1lc3n7/gladys-frigate:0.3.1), starts it in a sandbox isolated from the core, and generates the integration's interface (devices, discovery and configuration). - Open the Configuration screen of the integration, fill in the settings, and save.
- You can also install it directly from its repository URL: https://github.com/LM1LC3N7/gladys-frigate.
Frigate requires Gladys >=5.1.0. The catalog inside Gladys refreshes every hour, so a new version becomes available at most one hour after its release.
Not running Gladys yet? It is free and open source: follow the installation guide to get started.
About external integrations
Frigate is an external integration: a community integration packaged as a Docker container and published on GitHub, that Gladys installs in one click and runs in a sandbox isolated from its core. It is published and maintained by LM1LC3N7, not by the Gladys core team.
- Browse all external integrations
- Discover the native integrations built into Gladys
- Build and publish your own external integration
- Source code on GitHub — source of this documentation