motionEye

The motionEye integration allows you to integrate your motionEye server into Home Assistant. motionEye is an open source web-frontend for the motion daemon, used to centralize the management and visualization of multiple types of cameras.

Configuration

To add the motionEye integration to your Home Assistant instance, use this My button:

Options

Options for motionEye can be set via the user interface, by taking the following steps:

• Browse to your Home Assistant instance.
• Go to Settings > Devices & Services.
• If multiple instances of motionEye are configured, choose the instance you want to configure.
• Select the integration, then select Configure.

Usage

Entities

Note:

• If the video streaming switch is turned off, the camera entity, and actions that operate on that camera, will become unavailable. The rest of the integration will continue to function.
• As cameras are added or removed to motionEye, devices/entities are automatically added or removed from Home Assistant.

Camera MJPEG Streams

In order for the MJPEG streams to function they need to be accessible at <motioneyehost>:<streaming port>, i.e. Home Assistant will directly connect to the streaming port that is configured in the motionEye UI (under Video Streaming) on the host that the motionEye integration is configured to use.

Example:

• If this integration is configured to talk to motionEye at http://motioneye:8765, and a camera is configured to stream on port 8081 – Home Assistant needs to be able to communicate to motioneye port 8081.

Stream URL Template

For advanced usecases, this behavior can be changed with the Stream URL template option. When set, this string will override the default stream address that is derived from the default behavior described above. This option supports jinja2 templates and has the camera dict variables from motionEye (example) available for the template. Note that no Home Assistant state is available to the template, only the camera dict from motionEye.

This is very useful when motionEye is behind a custom configured reverse proxy, and/or when the stream ports are otherwise not accessible to Home Assistant (e.g. firewall rules).

Stream URL Template Examples

The below are useful examples of how this option may be set.

Use the camera name in the stream URL:

http://motioneye/video/{{ name }}

Use the camera name in the stream URL, converting it to lowercase first:

http://motioneye/video/{{ name|lower }}

Use the camera id in the stream URL:

http://motioneye/video/{{ id }}

Events

On receipt of a motion or file stored callbacks, events will be fired which can be used in automations (etc).

Data in events

• The event data includes the Home Assistant device_id for this motionEye camera device and the Home Assistant device name.
• Event data also includes as many Motion Conversion Specifiers as make sense for that event type.
• Any additional &key=value pairs added manually to the motionEye webhook (in the motionEye UI) will automatically propagate to the event data. If you manually tweak the webhook, remove the src=hass-motioneye parameter or the webhook will be overwritten.
• For file storage events, the integration will automatically add media_content_id (an identifier that can be used to play the media in a Home Assistant media player) and file_url (a raw URL to the media). See example automation below for an illustration of how this can be used.
• file_type will be less than 8 if the media stored is an image, otherwise, it is a movie/video. See the motion source for more details.

Example motion detected event

{
    "event_type": "motioneye.motion_detected",
    "data": {
        "device_id": "662aa1c77657dbc4af836abcdf80000a",
        "name": "Office",
        "camera_id": "2",
        "changed_pixels": "99354",
        "despeckle_labels": "55",
        "event": "02",
        "fps": "24",
        "frame_number": "10",
        "height": "1080",
        "host": "6aa7a495490c",
        "motion_center_x": "314",
        "motion_center_y": "565",
        "motion_height": "730",
        "motion_version": "4.2.2",
        "motion_width": "252",
        "noise_level": "12",
        "threshold": "20736",
        "width": "1920"
    },
    "origin": "LOCAL",
    "time_fired": "2021-04-11T04:25:41.106964+00:00",
    "context": {
        "id": "0320bb897aa3656dbb02affddce322f2",
        "parent_id": null,
        "user_id": null
    }
}

Example file stored event

{
    "event_type": "motioneye.file_stored",
    "data": {
        "device_id": "662aa1c77657dbc4af836abcdf80000a",
        "name": "Office",
        "camera_id": "2",
        "event": "03",
        "file_path": "/var/lib/motioneye/Camera2/2021-04-10/21-27-53.mp4",
        "file_type": "8",
        "media_content_id": "media-source://motioneye/74565ad414754616000674c87bdc876c#662aa1c77657dbc4af836abcdf80000a#movies#/2021-04-10/21-27-53.mp4",
        "file_url": "https://cctv/movie/2/playback/2021-04-10/21-27-53.mp4?_username=admin&_signature=bc4565fe414754616000674c87bdcacbd",
        "fps": "25",
        "frame_number": "21",
        "height": "1080",
        "host": "6aa7a495490c",
        "motion_version": "4.2.2",
        "noise_level": "12",
        "threshold": "20736",
        "width": "1920"
    },
    "origin": "LOCAL",
    "time_fired": "2021-04-11T04:27:54.528671+00:00",
    "context": {
        "id": "0358cac9457e3e3a2039da8c998e4c25",
        "parent_id": null,
        "user_id": null
    }
}

Actions

All actions accept either an entity_id or device_id.

motioneye.snapshot

Trigger a camera snapshot (e.g. saving an image to disk).

Parameters:

Note: This is a thin wrapper on the motioneye.action call.

motioneye.action

Trigger a motionEye action (see motionEye Action Buttons).

Parameters:

Note: record_start and record_stop action are only partially implemented in motionEye itself and thus do not function as would be expected at this time (relevant code).

motioneye.set_text_overlay

Set the text overlay for a camera.

Parameters:

Note:

• Calling this action triggers a reset of the motionEye cameras which will pause the stream / recordings / motion detection (etc).
• Ensure the Text Overlay switch is turned on to actually display the configured text overlays.

Example:

action: motioneye.set_text_overlay
data:
  left_text: timestamp
  right_text: custom-text
  custom_right_text: "Alarm armed"
target:
  entity_id: camera.office

Media Browsing

Saved motionEye media (movies and images) can be natively browsed from the Home Assistant “Media Browser”.

Manually Configured Root Directories

Whilst this integration allows drilling down into the media for each camera separately, underneath motionEye is using the directory structure to associate media items to each individual camera. Thus if multiple cameras are manually configured to share the same root directory, motionEye will return the combination of the media items when any one of the “overlapping” cameras are queried. Use different root directories (in motionEye: File Storage -> Root Directory) to ensure motionEye (and thus this integration) will correctly associate media with the camera from which that media was captured.

Example Dashboard Card

A dashboard card with icons that will call the action action to send action commands to motionEye.

- type: picture-glance
  title: "Living Room"
  camera_image: camera.living_room
  camera_view: live
  entities:
      - entity: camera.living_room
      - entity: camera.living_room
        icon: "mdi:arrow-left"
        tap_action:
          action: call-service
          action: motioneye.action
          data:
            action: left
            entity_id: camera.living_room
      - entity: camera.living_room
        icon: "mdi:arrow-right"
        tap_action:
          action: call-service
          action: motioneye.action
          data:
            action: right
            entity_id: camera.living_room
      - entity: camera.living_room
        icon: "mdi:arrow-up"
        tap_action:
          action: call-service
          action: motioneye.action
          data:
            action: up
            entity_id: camera.living_room
      - entity: camera.living_room
        icon: "mdi:arrow-down"
        tap_action:
          action: call-service
          action: motioneye.action
          data:
            action: down
            entity_id: camera.living_room

Example Automations

Set text overlay when alarm is armed

A simple automation to set text overlay indicating the alarm armed status. Text overlay must be switched on for this automation to work (controllable via switch.<name>_text_overlay).

- alias: "Set camera text overlay to armed"
  triggers:
    - trigger: state
      entity_id: alarm_control_panel.home_alarm
      to: "armed_away"
  actions:
    - action: motioneye.set_text_overlay
      target:
        entity_id: camera.living_room
      data:
        left_text: custom-text
        custom_left_text: "Alarm is ARMED"

- alias: "Set camera text overlay to disarmed"
  triggers:
    - trigger: state
      entity_id: alarm_control_panel.home_alarm
      to: "disarmed"
  actions:
    - action: motioneye.set_text_overlay
      target:
        entity_id: camera.living_room
      data:
        left_text: custom-text
        custom_left_text: "Alarm is disarmed"

Automatically play stored movies

An automation to cast stored movie clips to a TV as they arrive.

- alias: "Cast motionEye movie clips"
  triggers:
    - trigger: event
      event_type: motioneye.file_stored
      event_data:
        # Only cast video.
        file_type: "8"
  actions:
    - action: media_player.play_media
      target:
        entity_id: media_player.kitchen_tv
      data:
        media_content_id: ""
        media_content_type: video

Debugging

Debug Logging

To enable debug logging for both the integration and the underlying client library, enable the following in your configuration.yamlThe configuration.yaml file is the main configuration file for Home Assistant. It lists the integrations to be loaded and their specific configurations. In some cases, the configuration needs to be edited manually directly in the configuration.yaml file. Most integrations can be configured in the UI. [Learn more] and then restart:

logger:
  default: warning
  logs:
    motioneye_client: debug
    homeassistant.components.motioneye: debug