How to Set Up Frigate NVR With Home Assistant: Step-by-Step Guide

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Frigate is a locally-hosted network video recorder (NVR) with real-time AI object detection. It runs entirely on your hardware, stores footage on your own drives, and integrates seamlessly with Home Assistant — no subscriptions, no cloud, no monthly fees. This guide takes you from zero to a working Frigate setup.

What Frigate Gives You

  • 24/7 recording from multiple IP cameras
  • AI detection of people, vehicles, animals, and more
  • Motion-triggered clips saved locally
  • Home Assistant integration for automations based on detections
  • Live view and recorded footage accessible from anywhere via the Home Assistant app

Hardware Requirements

  • Minimum (2–4 cameras, no AI): Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB RAM
  • Recommended (4–8 cameras with AI detection): Mini PC with Intel N100 or better, 8GB+ RAM
  • GPU acceleration: A Google Coral USB Accelerator (~$60) dramatically reduces CPU usage for AI inference

Step 1: Install Frigate as a Home Assistant Add-on

In Home Assistant, go to Settings → Add-ons → Add-on Store. Frigate is not in the default store — add the Frigate repository first.

  1. Click the three-dot menu → Repositories
  2. Add: https://github.com/blakeblackshear/frigate-hass-addons
  3. Find “Frigate NVR” in the store and click Install
  4. Do not start it yet — configuration comes first

Step 2: Configure Your Cameras

Edit the Frigate configuration with a minimal example for one camera:

mqtt:
  host: 192.168.1.x

cameras:
  front_door:
    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://admin:[email protected]:554/stream1
          roles:
            - detect
            - record
    detect:
      width: 1920
      height: 1080
      fps: 5
    record:
      enabled: true
      retain:
        days: 7

Step 3: Find Your Camera RTSP URL

  • Reolink: rtsp://admin:password@IP/h264Preview_01_main
  • Amcrest/Dahua: rtsp://admin:password@IP/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0
  • Hikvision: rtsp://admin:password@IP/Streaming/Channels/101

Step 4: Set Up Object Detection

Add detection configuration to enable AI detection:

objects:
  track:
    - person
    - car
    - dog

For better performance with Intel hardware, add the OpenVINO detector:

detectors:
  ov:
    type: openvino
    device: AUTO

Step 5: Integrate Frigate with Home Assistant

Install the Frigate integration: Settings → Integrations → Add Integration → Frigate. This creates entities for each camera — motion binary sensors, person detection sensors, and camera entities for live view.

Step 6: Create a Person Detection Automation

Trigger on binary_sensor.front_door_person_occupancy state change to On, then send a notification with a camera snapshot from frigate/front_door/latest.jpg.

Storage Planning

24/7 recording at 1080p typically uses 1–3GB per camera per day. A 1TB drive stores about 1 month of footage for 2–3 cameras. Adjust Frigate retention settings to match your storage capacity.