ONVIF

The ONVIF camera integration allows you to use an ONVIF Profile S conformant device in Home Assistant. This requires the ffmpeg integration to be already configured.

Configuration

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

ONVIF can be auto-discovered by Home Assistant. If an instance was found, it will be shown as Discovered. You can then set it up right away.

Manual configuration steps

If it wasn’t discovered automatically, don’t worry! You can set up a manual integration entry:

Tip

It is recommended that you create a user on your device specifically for Home Assistant. For all current functionality, it is enough to create a standard user.

Note

If running Home Assistant Core in a venv, ensure that libxml2 and libxslt Python interfaces are installed via your package manager.

Configuration notes

Most of the ONVIF devices support more than one audio/video profile. Each profile provides different image quality, or in the case of an NVR, separate connected cameras. This integration will add entities for all compatible profiles with the video encoding set to H.264. Usually, the first profile has the highest quality and it is the profile used by default. However, you may want to use a lower quality image. You may disable unwanted entities through the Home Assistant UI.

Options

Options for ONVIF 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 ONVIF are configured, choose the instance you want to configure.
  • Select the integration, then select Configure.
Option Description
RTSP transport mechanism RTSP transport protocols. The possible options are: tcp, udp, udp_multicast, http.
Extra FFmpeg arguments Extra options to pass to ffmpeg, e.g., image quality or video filter options. More details in ffmpeg integration.
Use wallclock as timestamps (Advanced Mode only) Rewrite the camera timestamps. This may help with playback or crashing issues from Wi-Fi cameras or cameras of certain brands (e.g., EZVIZ).
Enable Webhooks If the device supports notifications via a Webhook, the integration will attempt to set up a Webhook. Disable this option to force falling back to trying PullPoint if the device supports it.

Snapshots

Some cameras will not produce usable snapshots with larger stream sizes.

By default, the integration will only enable the camera entity for the first H264 profile. If you are unable to get a working snapshot:

  • If additional camera entities are available for other profiles, try enabling those entities.
  • Set the Extra FFmpeg arguments to -pred 1 -ss 00:00:05 -frames:v 1 to cause the snapshot to be taken 5 seconds into the stream.

Supported sensors

This integration uses the ONVIF pullpoint subscription API to process events into sensors that will be automatically added to Home Assistant. Below is a list of currently supported event topics along with the entities they create.

To help with development of this integration, enable info level logging for homeassistant.components.onvif and create an issue on GitHub for any messages that show “No registered handler for event”.

Topic(s) Entity Type Device Class Description
Motion alarm Binary sensor Motion Generic motion alarm.
Field detection Binary sensor Motion Polygonal field detection determines if each object in the scene is inside or outside the polygon.
Cell motion detection Binary sensor Motion Cell based motion detection determined by placing a grid over the video source and determining changes.
Human shape detection Binary sensor Motion Detection of human shapes by on-camera recognition algorithm.
Motion region detector Binary sensor Motion Detects any motion against the specified motion region. The rule is configured for an area defined by a polygon.
Detected sound Binary sensor Sound Device detected sound.
Digital input Binary sensor None A digital input was triggered on the device. Amcrest is known to use this as a doorbell button press on the AD410.
Relay triggered Binary sensor None Device relay output was triggered.
Image too blurry Binary sensor Problem Device reports blurry image.
Image too dark Binary sensor Problem Device reports dark image.
Image too bright Binary sensor Problem Device reports bright image.
Global scene change Binary sensor Problem Device reports a large portion of the video content changing. The cause can be tamper actions like camera movement or coverage.
Tamper detector Binary sensor Problem Detects any kind of tampering to the image sensor.
Storage failure Binary sensor Problem Storage failure on device.
Recording job state Binary sensor None Whether or not the device is actively recording.
Processor usage Sensor Percent Device processor usage.
Last reboot Sensor Timestamp When the device was last rebooted.
Last reset Sensor Timestamp When the device was last reset.
Last Clock Synchronization Sensor Timestamp When the device clock was last synchronized.
Last Backup Sensor Timestamp When the last backup of the device configuration has been retrieved.

If you are running into trouble with this sensor, please refer to the Troubleshooting section.

Action onvif.ptz

If your ONVIF camera supports PTZ, you will be able to pan, tilt or zoom your camera.

Data attribute Description
entity_id String or list of strings that point at entity_ids of cameras. Use entity_id: all to target all.
tilt Tilt direction. Allowed values: UP, DOWN, NONE
pan Pan direction. Allowed values: RIGHT, LEFT, NONE
zoom Zoom. Allowed values: ZOOM_IN, ZOOM_OUT, NONE
distance Distance coefficient. Sets how much PTZ should be executed in one request. Allowed values: floating point numbers, 0 to 1. Default : 0.1
speed Speed coefficient. Sets how fast PTZ will be executed. Allowed values: floating point numbers, 0 to 1. Default : 0.5
preset PTZ preset profile token. Sets the preset profile token which is executed with GotoPreset.
move_mode PTZ moving mode. Allowed values: ContinuousMove, RelativeMove, AbsoluteMove, GotoPreset, Stop. Default :RelativeMove
continuous_duration Set ContinuousMove delay in seconds before stopping the move. Allowed values: floating point numbers or integer. Default : 0.5

Supported switches

This integration uses the ONVIF auxiliary command and imaging service to send certain settings and information to the camera via switch entities. Below is a list of currently supported switches.

Name Entity Name Description
IR lamp ir_lamp Turn infrared lamp on and off via IrCutFilter ONVIF imaging setting.
Autofocus autofocus Turn autofocus on and off via AutoFocusMode ONVIF imaging setting.
Wiper wiper Turn on the lens wiper on and off via the Wiper ONVIF auxiliary command.