home-information/docs/integrations/frigate.md

Frigate

Overview

Frigate is an open-source NVR with built-in object detection. The Frigate integration imports each Frigate camera into Home Information (HI) as a camera item with an object-presence sensor and alerting area. HI consumes Frigate's HTTP API only (no MQTT). It best serves users who want their security-camera events to participate in HI's spatial display and rule-based alarms alongside other integrations.

Frigate couples motion to object detection — there is no motion-without-class signal on the events API — so each camera's state is a single canonical object class (person / car / animal / package / other / none) rather than a separate motion bit and label.

Prerequisites

• Frigate version ≥ 0.14 (tested against 0.17). Earlier versions may work but are not validated.
• The Frigate host must be reachable from the HI server and, for video playback, from the user's browser.
• A camera that produces a browser-playable codec (H.264 or H.265) on the stream Frigate uses for recording. Older cameras that only output MPEG-4 produce clips browsers cannot decode. See Event clip will not play below.

Obtaining credentials

The integration was validated against Frigate with authentication disabled. No credentials are required in that mode. For installs that gate Frigate behind authentication, see Authentication at the end of this page.

Configuration values

Field	What to enter	Notes
Base URL	Frigate's API root, e.g. http://frigate.local:5000	No trailing slash.
Authorization Header	Optional verbatim Authorization header value.	See Authentication.

Setup walkthrough

1. Open HI's integration picker (see Enabling an integration) and choose Frigate.
2. Fill in the fields above and save.
3. Click CONNECT to pull each Frigate camera as an HI camera item and place the imported cameras into a location view or collection.

To pick up upstream changes later (new cameras, renames, removals), click UPDATE on the integration's manage page.

Troubleshooting

Camera streams or event clips will not play (CSP)

Browsers refuse to load video frames from a different origin unless the server's Content Security Policy (CSP) explicitly allows it. If your Frigate host is at a different origin than HI, add the Frigate origin to HI's allowed CSP URLs:

export HI_EXTRA_CSP_URLS="${SCHEME}://${HOST}:${PORT}"

Set this in the environment of the running HI process (e.g., your service unit file or shell profile) and restart HI.

Event clip will not play

Symptom: the event-detail panel shows "No video with supported format and MIME type found" or a similar decode error, even though the camera and recording are working in Frigate's own UI.

Frigate records and serves event clips in whatever codec the camera streams. If the camera outputs a codec the browser cannot decode — most commonly MPEG-4 (the older DivX/Xvid family, not the H.264 that newer cameras default to) — the resulting clip will fail to play.

Fixes:

• In the camera's admin UI, change the recording stream's codec to H.264 if it is not already.
• If the camera cannot produce H.264, configure Frigate to transcode the recording — see Frigate's ffmpeg presets documentation.

Connection refused / cannot reach Frigate

The Base URL is wrong, or Frigate is not reachable from the HI host. Verify by opening the URL in a browser from the HI host and confirming Frigate's web UI loads.

Update finds zero cameras

Frigate's /api/config returned an empty cameras map. Confirm your config.yml defines at least one camera and that Frigate is serving that config (the web UI lists the cameras Frigate knows about).

Known limitations

• No MQTT support. Frigate's MQTT topics are not consumed; all detection events are pulled via the HTTP API.
• The per-camera state is the canonical six-value OBJECT_PRESENCE set. Raw Frigate labels (dog, truck, …) are bucketed; the original label is preserved on each event's detail record but is not directly addressable as a sensor state.
• No zone-as-state mapping. Zone names travel as event metadata but do not project into per-zone sensors.
• No PTZ control.
• No continuous-recording playback. Only event clips are played.
• HI does not run any image analysis itself — all detection originates from Frigate. Configure detection sensitivity, zones, and recording in Frigate's own config.

Authentication

The integration was validated against Frigate with authentication disabled — the default on a local network. For installs that gate Frigate behind auth, the supported options are:

Your Frigate setup	What to put in Authorization Header
No auth (LAN default)	Leave blank.
Reverse proxy with HTTP Basic auth	Basic <base64(user:pass)>
Reverse proxy with a long-lived bearer token	Bearer <token>
Reverse proxy with anonymous backend access (proxy enforces auth, but the HI server reaches Frigate on an internal address)	Leave blank.
Frigate's built-in username/password login	Not supported in v1. Frigate issues short-lived JWTs that require a login flow not implemented here. Workaround: front Frigate with a reverse proxy that handles auth and either expose the unauthenticated backend to HI on an internal network, or use one of the static schemes above.

The value you provide is sent verbatim as the Authorization HTTP header on every request to Frigate.

References

• Frigate documentation
• Frigate HTTP API reference
• Frigate ffmpeg presets