Frigate - Realtime Object Detection for IP Cameras

Uses OpenCV and Tensorflow to perform realtime object detection locally for IP cameras. Designed for integration with HomeAssistant or others via MQTT.

Use of a Google Coral USB Accelerator is optional, but highly recommended. On my Intel i7 processor, I can process 2-3 FPS with the CPU. The Coral can process 100+ FPS with very low CPU load.

• Leverages multiprocessing heavily with an emphasis on realtime over processing every frame
• Uses a very low overhead motion detection to determine where to run object detection
• Object detection with Tensorflow runs in a separate process
• Object info is published over MQTT for integration into HomeAssistant as a binary sensor
• An endpoint is available to view an MJPEG stream for debugging, but should not be used continuously

Example video (from older version)

You see multiple bounding boxes because it draws bounding boxes from all frames in the past 1 second where a person was detected. Not all of the bounding boxes were from the current frame.

Getting Started

Build the container with

docker build -t frigate .

Models for both CPU and EdgeTPU (Coral) are bundled in the image. You can use your own models with volume mounts:

• CPU Model: /cpu_model.tflite
• EdgeTPU Model: /edgetpu_model.tflite
• Labels: /labelmap.txt

Run the container with

docker run --rm \
--privileged \
--shm-size=512m \ # should work for a 2-3 cameras
-v /dev/bus/usb:/dev/bus/usb \
-v <path_to_config_dir>:/config:ro \
-v /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro \
-p 5000:5000 \
-e FRIGATE_RTSP_PASSWORD='password' \
frigate:latest

Example docker-compose:

  frigate:
    container_name: frigate
    restart: unless-stopped
    privileged: true
    shm_size: '1g' # should work for 5-7 cameras
    image: frigate:latest
    volumes:
      - /dev/bus/usb:/dev/bus/usb
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
      - <path_to_config>:/config
    ports:
      - "5000:5000"
    environment:
      FRIGATE_RTSP_PASSWORD: "password"

A config.yml file must exist in the config directory. See example here and device specific info can be found here.

Access the mjpeg stream at http://localhost:5000/<camera_name> and the best snapshot for any object type with at http://localhost:5000/<camera_name>/<object_name>/best.jpg

Debug info is available at http://localhost:5000/debug/stats

Integration with HomeAssistant

camera:
  - name: Camera Last Person
    platform: mqtt
    topic: frigate/<camera_name>/person/snapshot
  - name: Camera Last Car
    platform: mqtt
    topic: frigate/<camera_name>/car/snapshot

binary_sensor:
  - name: Camera Person
    platform: mqtt
    state_topic: "frigate/<camera_name>/person"
    device_class: motion
    availability_topic: "frigate/available"

automation:
  - alias: Alert me if a person is detected while armed away
    trigger: 
      platform: state
      entity_id: binary_sensor.camera_person
      from: 'off'
      to: 'on'
    condition:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: alarm_control_panel.home_alarm
        state: armed_away
    action:
      - service: notify.user_telegram
        data:
          message: "A person was detected."
          data:
            photo:
              - url: http://<ip>:5000/<camera_name>/person/best.jpg
                caption: A person was detected.

sensor:
  - platform: rest
    name: Frigate Debug
    resource: http://localhost:5000/debug/stats
    scan_interval: 5
    json_attributes:
      - back
      - coral
    value_template: 'OK'  
  - platform: template
    sensors:
      back_fps: 
        value_template: '{{ states.sensor.frigate_debug.attributes["back"]["fps"] }}'
        unit_of_measurement: 'FPS'
      back_skipped_fps: 
        value_template: '{{ states.sensor.frigate_debug.attributes["back"]["skipped_fps"] }}'
        unit_of_measurement: 'FPS'
      back_detection_fps: 
        value_template: '{{ states.sensor.frigate_debug.attributes["back"]["detection_fps"] }}'
        unit_of_measurement: 'FPS'
      frigate_coral_fps: 
        value_template: '{{ states.sensor.frigate_debug.attributes["coral"]["fps"] }}'
        unit_of_measurement: 'FPS'
      frigate_coral_inference:
        value_template: '{{ states.sensor.frigate_debug.attributes["coral"]["inference_speed"] }}' 
        unit_of_measurement: 'ms'

Tips

• Lower the framerate of the video feed on the camera to reduce the CPU usage for capturing the feed