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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io

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Simple video doorbell software recommendations? (self.homeassistant)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by Heavybell to c/homeassistant

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So I'd like to have a video doorbell set up so that it communicates locally with my HA, raising an event when the button is pressed, allowing me to watch its audio and video stream live, and speak back to whoever is at the door. Ideally either from the browser or my phone, when I'm at home or not.

I don't care about motion sensing or AI or even NVR functions really. What software do I need? Should I bother going through the process of setting up Frigate or is there something simpler that would do the job?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I have the Reolink doorbell, among a couple other Reolink cams. It integrates very nicely with HA. I have it set up for essentially what you're looking for, audio/video feed, notifications with an image attached when the bell is rung (also motion detection notification from another cam, but could do the doorbell too), and the ability to have it play quick reply messages, including custom ones.

I believe you can have the two way audio in HA as well, but I haven't explored it. The Reolink app has this functionality if I really need it, but haven't come across an instance where I needed to use it.

You should be able to do all this with just the Reolink integration.

[–] keyez 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Are you able to have it blocked or limited from the greater internet and just comm with HA or does it need that as well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Yep, but the method is separate from HA. Could do it two ways, I use Pi-hole so that it's still able to contact the NTP server (could also set the time server to something local through the desktop app, I believe) but block all other external traffic, or you can block external access through your router firewall. I noticed the time would occasionally be inaccurate if I had blocked all internet access.

Either way you can use a VPN or other tunnel service to access while you're away from home. I use WG-tunnel on my phone to auto connect to VPN when I disconnect from my home network, it's quite handy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You could also set up a local NTP server, and block them entirely.
Currently, I have mine set with an invalid gateway, and blocked from the internet to be sure.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I didn't ponder it when setting the cameras up, but after writing these posts I was planning to do just that when I'm back at home.

[–] keyez 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Awesome that's good to hear, all my LEDs and stuff I have blocked to everything but HA at my firewall but some devices like my smart vacuum apparently NEED internet access to work at all which I was hoping it didn't. My current doorbell needs it I think but hoping to get a new doorbell and camera when I move next year.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Yep, Reolink cams can be fully local only and still work fine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

One of my key buying points for hardware is "will this run without any internet, and could I set it all up again without internet?".

This is why I'm so happy to finally have Hue on my zigbee controller. And it's why I'm always on the lookout for a second hand Valetudo compatible robovac.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

@keyez @OminousOrange I've got the reolink doorbell cam too, but just block the WAN at the router, and unblock when I'm out of town, which is pretty rare these days. Seems to function pretty well that way.