Do not maintain a connection to the camera if not required

Describe what you are trying to accomplish and why in non technical terms

I have a battery-powered camera in which I want to add to Frigate, but I don’t want Frigate to record or detect objects on it all the time. I will enable Frigate’s recording dynamically through external events, like by an external motion sensor in Home Assistant.

When there’s no one connected in the camera, the camera enters in sleep mode to save battery.

Describe the solution you’d like Ideally Frigate should NOT maintain a connection with the camera for a configuration like below:

video_porteiro:
    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://192.168.1.10:8554/camera.video_porteiro
          roles:
            - detect
            - record
            - rtmp
      output_args:
        record: -f segment -segment_time 10 -segment_format mp4 -reset_timestamps 1 -strftime 1 -c:v copy -c:a aac
        rtmp: -c:v copy -c:a aac -f flv
    record:
      enabled: false
    rtmp:
      enabled: true
    detect:
      enabled: false
      width: 640
      height: 360
    live:
      height: 360

I have rtmp.enabled: true, but I have no client streaming from it (and preload is not activated in Home Assistant configuration). Frigate should understand that a connection with the camera is not required in this situation.

Describe alternatives you’ve considered I can’t think of any.

Additional context I’m using go2rtc to capture my Tuya battery-powered video doorbell through this:

• https://github.com/felipecrs/hass-expose-camera-stream-source#importing-home-assistant-cameras-to-go2rtc-andor-frigate

And I’m reusing the go2rtc stream in Frigate. In the go2rtc info panel I can see that it’s Frigate who is connected to the stream.

[NickM-27]

Given that, I think there’s enough distinction to warrant separate requests though they may be addressed in the same solution.

[NickM-27]

Well… there is. Frigate can supply a NO VIDEO or Camera is disabled picture as its input.

Frigate has no control or knowledge of the consumer request for restream from go2rtc.

Well, Frigate can also delete the stream from go2rtc as well (I suppose there’s a API for it, since there’s an API to add).

Yeah that’s true