Guide: Frigate 0.14 review notifications in HomeAssistant

[NickM-27]

As part of the new Frigate UI events are now intelligently organized into different categories and combined by times of activity. This means that a person delivering a package is one review item instead of having separate events for the person and the package. This behavior is often also desirable for notifications. In Frigate 0.14 there is a new /reviews MQTT topic that can be used for notifications as well.

Automation YAML

alias: Frigate Notifications
description: ""
# The trigger is mqtt and will fire when any camera has an alert
trigger:
  - alias: "topic published to /reviews"
    platform: mqtt
    topic: frigate/reviews
    id: frigate-event
    payload: alert  # this ensures notifications are only received for alerts
    value_template: "{{ value_json['after']['severity'] }}"
    variables:
      zones: "{{ trigger.payload_json['after']['data']['zones'] }}"
      camera: "{{ trigger.payload_json['after']['camera'] }}"
      id: "{{ trigger.payload_json['after']['id'] }}"
      before_objects: "{{ trigger.payload_json['before']['data']['objects'] }}"
      objects: "{{ trigger.payload_json['after']['data']['objects'] }}"
      sub_labels: "{{ trigger.payload_json['after']['data']['sub_labels'] }}"
      events: "{{ trigger.payload_json['after']['data']['detections'] }}"
      type: "{{ trigger.payload_json['type'] }}"
condition:
  - alias: Update has no new objects
    condition: template
    value_template: "{{ type != \"update\" or before_zones | length < after_zones | length }}"
action:
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id: frigate-event
        sequence:
          # this is a custom notification script, see an example of using the built in notification service below
          - service: script.send_dynamic_notification_to_all_devices
            data:
              id: "{{ id }}"
              title: >-
                {% set data = namespace(labels=[]) %} {% for obj in objects %}
                    {% if "-verified" in obj %}
                    {% else %}
                        {% set data.labels = data.labels + [obj] %}
                    {% endif %}
                {% endfor %} {% set data.labels = data.labels + sub_labels %} {{
                data.labels | unique | list | sort | join(", ") | title }}{{ '
                was' if type == "end" else '' }} detected in {{ zones | join(',
                ') | replace("_", " ") | title }}
              message: Detected on {{ camera | replace("_", " ") | title }}
              notifTag: "{{ id }}"
              notifIcon: >-
                {% if objects[0] == "cat" -%} mdi:cat {%- elif objects[0] ==
                "dog" -%} mdi:dog-service {%- elif objects[0] == "person" and
                type == "end" -%} mdi:account-outline {%- elif objects[0] ==
                "person" -%} mdi:account-clock-outline {%- elif objects[0] ==
                "person-verified" -%} mdi:account-check-outline {%- elif
                objects[0] == "package" -%} mdi:package-variant-closed-check {%-
                elif objects[0] == "amazon" -%} mdi:truck-delivery-outline {%-
                elif objects[0] == "fedex" -%} mdi:truck-delivery-outline {%-
                elif objects[0] == "ups" -%} mdi:truck-delivery-outline {%- elif
                objects[0] == "car" -%} mdi:car-outline {%- elif objects[0] ==
                "car-verified" -%} mdi:car-outline {%- else -%} mdi:cctv {%-
                endif %}
              group: frigate-notification-{{ camera }}
              channel: Frigate
              importance: "{{ \"max\" if type != \"end\" else \"default\" }}"
              label: "{{objects | join(', ')}}"
              camera: "{{camera}}"
              live: |-
                {% if type == "end" -%}
                  https://frigate.storagewhacker.com/review?id={{id}}
                {%- else -%}
                  https://frigate.storagewhacker.com/#{{camera}}
                {%- endif %}
              image: |-
                {% if type == "end" -%}
                  {{undefined}}
                {%- else -%}
                  https://ha.storagewhacker.com/api/frigate/notifications/{{events[0]}}/snapshot.jpg?bbox=1
                {%- endif %}
              video: |-
                {% if type == "end" -%}
                  https://ha.storagewhacker.com/api/frigate/notifications/{{id}}/review_preview.gif?format=ts
                {%- else -%}
                  {{undefined}}
                {%- endif %}
    default: []
mode: parallel
trace:
  stored_traces: 100
max: 10

Example Payload

Here is an example payload

  payload_json:
    type: end  #  new, update, or end
    before:
      id: 1716750796.680641-ao0d9x
      camera: front_doorbell_cam
      start_time: 1716750796.680641
      end_time: 1716750832.273281
      severity: alert  # detection or alert
      thumb_path: >-
        /media/frigate/clips/review/thumb-front_doorbell_cam-1716750796.680641-ao0d9x.webp
      data:
        detections:  # list of event IDs (can be used for getting a snapshot or clip of that object specifically)
          - 1716750795.092463-autt0m
        objects:  # list of object labels
          - person
        sub_labels: []  # list of sub labels
        zones:  # zones that have been entered
          - front_porch
        audio: []  # list of audio labels
    after:
      id: 1716750796.680641-ao0d9x
      camera: front_doorbell_cam
      start_time: 1716750796.680641
      end_time: 1716750832.273281
      severity: alert
      thumb_path: >-
        /media/frigate/clips/review/thumb-front_doorbell_cam-1716750796.680641-ao0d9x.webp
      data:
        detections:
          - 1716750795.092463-autt0m
        objects:
          - person
        sub_labels: []
        zones:
          - front_porch
        audio: []

Simple Notification Service

Reference the HomeAssistant notification docsfor how to customize these.

- service: notify.PHONE_SERVICE
  data:
    title: >-
      {{label | title}} was detected on {{
      trigger.payload_json["after"]["camera"] | replace("_", "
      ") | title }}
    message: >-
      {{label | title}} detected in the {{
      after_zones[0] }}
    data:
      url: >-
      HASS_URL_BASE/api/{{ id }}/{{camera}}/clip.mp4
      tag: '{{ id }}'
      group: frigate-notification-{{camera}}
      clickAction: >-
        HASS_URL_BASE/api/{{id}}/{{camera}}/clip.mp4
      image: >-
        /api/frigate/notifications/{{id}}/snapshot.jpg
      attachment:
        url: >-
          /api/frigate/notifications/{{id}}/snapshot.jpg

[superdong69]

Does this replace the need for SGTBattens blueprint in 0.14? I added the automation portion of your code to my automations.yaml, and created a script using the script portion, but I can't get it to do anything.

[NickM-27]

yes, this is doing the same thing

[fisch55]

@superdong69
does not work for me..... maybe you could show a full example...

[superdong69]

Also doesn't work for me. LOL But I'm having major issues with the update.

[Elder-HVAC-Man]

I need a set up guide for dummies 101.

[NickM-27]

this automation isn't meant to solve that need, for that most likely best to just wait for a blueprint to be offered

[Elder-HVAC-Man]

Thanks for the reply. Will wait on SGTBattens blueprint to be updated. His blueprint works for notifications, just no video stream on my watch.

[SgtBatten]

What's the -verified part doing Nik?

[NickM-27]

So -verified basically points to any object that has a sub label that is not in the labelmap. For example a person that has been tagged by doubletake. The issue in general is that we show this in the UI but there is no way to know just based off of a sub label if it is a person, car, etc. So instead the backend notates these as {label}-verified so we know to show a check mark next to the icon to designate it is a known object.

The logic in this automation is basically trying to filter those out and include the sub labels. It would be redundant for the notification to say person, person-verified, Nick detected in the front yard for example

[ofcedwards]

  id: "{{ trigger.payload_json['after']['id'] }}"

From what I can tell, this is no longer the proper way to reference an event id for the purpose of pulling a thumbnail, snapshot, or clip in a Home Assistant notification. I might be misunderstanding the new system with reviews, but this id seems to refer to the overall review item (which can include multiple objects) and not a singular detection like in 0.13.

To get a thumbnail in a notification like I would with the regular frigate/events topic, I need to set the variable to id: "{{ trigger.payload_json['after']['data']['detections'][0] }}" which you have under the "events" variable.

It would appear that what I'm familiar with as event id's are listed out under "detections" now as an array. This difference is likely why other users are unsuccessful in getting the template to produce a notification. I imagine (like myself), they used your template for the mqtt trigger and paired it with the provided "simple notification service" (which also uses a variable "label" instead of "objects").

These few tweaks seem to have my notifications working like before, but with customization of what causes a notification done through Frigate's alerts vs. detections instead of a bunch of conditions in Home Assistant. Really liking 0.14 so far and I hope this helps someone passing by!

[SgtBatten]

Hi Nick,

I cant seem to get the preview gif to load, even just as a url outside the notification.

[NickM-27]

What response are you getting and what url are you using

[SgtBatten]

{{base_url}}/api/frigate{{client_id}}/notifications/{{review_id}}/review_preview.gif?format=ts

https://ha.mydomain.com/api/frigate/notifications/{{review_id}}/review_preview.gif?format=ts

might be having issues, or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.
ERR_INVALID_RESPONSE

[NickM-27]

this endpoint doesn't exist in the latest version of the integration (only in the dev branch) so you might need to edit the file in the custom_component to enable it

[SgtBatten]

ahh okay thanks. bit beyond me at this time of day. will look at it on the weekend. thank you

[NickM-27]

I will look at doing a beta update for that