Frigate is awesome

TheRoDent

Cool Ideas Rep
Joined
Aug 6, 2003
Messages
6,758
Reaction score
3,858
Location
Johannesburg
For those looking for an NVR system that actually just works, and integrates beautifully into HomeAssistant I can highly recommend https://frigate.video/

I use a pile of EzViz LC1C cameras, and have been messing around with Shinobi, and various other NVR tools for around a year and-a-half, and Frigate is without a doubt the best tool I've ever encountered.

I use frigate on a beefy intel PC, but if you add a Coral TPU, you can get really good performance even on lower-spec hardware.

I also recommend the Official EZVIZ addon, https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/ezviz if you want to turn on the lights, or sound the alarm on the EZVIZ cameras.
 
For those looking for an NVR system that actually just works, and integrates beautifully into HomeAssistant I can highly recommend https://frigate.video/

I use a pile of EzViz LC1C cameras, and have been messing around with Shinobi, and various other NVR tools for around a year and-a-half, and Frigate is without a doubt the best tool I've ever encountered.

I use frigate on a beefy intel PC, but if you add a Coral TPU, you can get really good performance even on lower-spec hardware.

I also recommend the Official EZVIZ addon, https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/ezviz if you want to turn on the lights, or sound the alarm on the EZVIZ cameras.
If you can find one in stock anywhere...
 
I've been using Frigate + a Google TPU on an Intel-NUC-like machine for probably around 2 years now.

Agreed, it is pretty awesome software. I was irritated that I bought a bunch of hikvision cameras a couple of years before the AI powered ones started coming out, but I can still do waaay more with my setup than anything else.

Especially awesome is the "feature" my home automation system has where it tells you that somebody is waiting outside my gate (EZViz camera mounted pointing at the driveway, zone for Frigate defined, identifies cars/people in the zone, and then announces the whole thing via Google Home in the house - before they've even pressed the doorbell button).
 
My next experiment is to link Frigate Motion sense to Deepstack


Want to see how that purrs on a Nvidia or Intel TPU
 
Last edited:
I've been using Frigate + a Google TPU on an Intel-NUC-like machine for probably around 2 years now.

Agreed, it is pretty awesome software. I was irritated that I bought a bunch of hikvision cameras a couple of years before the AI powered ones started coming out, but I can still do waaay more with my setup than anything else.

Especially awesome is the "feature" my home automation system has where it tells you that somebody is waiting outside my gate (EZViz camera mounted pointing at the driveway, zone for Frigate defined, identifies cars/people in the zone, and then announces the whole thing via Google Home in the house - before they've even pressed the doorbell button).
That's a nifty idea actually. I prefer my cameras pretty dumb and the software smart too. Just provides way more flexibility and upgradability. Just wish the TPU's will become available again, but the i7 is doing the job for now.
 
Last edited:
Anybody got an idea where you can source Coral USB locally (or internationally that ships here) - I have been waiting with Farnell for ages....
 
Anybody got an idea where you can source Coral USB locally (or internationally that ships here) - I have been waiting with Farnell for ages....
Saw on Reddit that Rs components got a lot of stock in the UK now. Not sure if it is available locally.
 
with Coral, each frame takes about 12ms to process - I am currently running at 61fps.
View attachment 1352318

Nice. I get around 50ms with 5 cameras and only two CPU threads, on a fairly oldish i7. I kinda feel like the TPU is really only useful if you need high framerate (and frigate only sends "movement frames" for processing in any case), or have a lot of cameras. Sure an i7 isn't quite as efficient as a TPU, but my HASS/general VM box is just sitting there doing nothing most of the time.

The graph clearly shows the work being done when there's actual activity around the house. I have no idea as to the actual FPS being processed, but it only really matters when Frigate swings frames at the Tensors due to motion detected.

I'm very happy with what frigate is managing, it's detection accuracy and it's reasonable CPU usage.

I hated Shinobi.


1658530403210.png


And since the i7 is passively cooled, with a Zalmann... I don't really care too much about noise, since there isn't any. ;)

Code:
processor       : 7
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 60
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz

1658530966044.png

Yes, it's dusty.

I'm renovating... :confused:
 
Last edited:
Nice. I get around 50ms with 5 cameras and only two CPU threads, on a fairly oldish i7. I kinda feel like the TPU is really only useful if you need high framerate (and frigate only sends "movement frames" for processing in any case), or have a lot of cameras. Sure an i7 isn't quite as efficient as a TPU, but my HASS/general VM box is just sitting there doing nothing most of the time.

The graph clearly shows the work being done when there's actual activity around the house. I have no idea as to the actual FPS being processed, but it only really matters when Frigate swings frames at the Tensors due to motion detected.

I'm very happy with what frigate is managing, it's detection accuracy and it's reasonable CPU usage.

I hated Shinobi.


View attachment 1352382


And since the i7 is passively cooled, with a Zalmann... I don't really care too much about noise, since there isn't any. ;)

Code:
processor       : 7
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 60
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz

View attachment 1352384

Yes, it's dusty.

I'm renovating... :confused:
I am using deepstack on a very old i5 2500, but it takes about 2 seconds to process an image. But this is also die to deepstack running in the HA VM since this oc is still on Win 7. Planning to upgrade to a newer build at some point to get Intel Quick sync which helps with CPU usage as well. Wondering if Frigate does a better job than deepstack?
 
Nice. I get around 50ms with 5 cameras and only two CPU threads, on a fairly oldish i7. I kinda feel like the TPU is really only useful if you need high framerate (and frigate only sends "movement frames" for processing in any case), or have a lot of cameras. Sure an i7 isn't quite as efficient as a TPU, but my HASS/general VM box is just sitting there doing nothing most of the time.

:confused:

Im using a HP i5 Mini-machine, but I will be replacing it with something smaller soon. I am on the quest for low energy as every 20Watts the PC uses, equates to 0.5kWh per day. (15kWh per month) My aim is 10 Watts or less.

On the frame rates - I use the TPU for activating a spotlight when a person is detected in the driveway and also when someone is at the front gate - as the AI is not really 100% all the time, a higher frame rate is used to make sure it has a better chance of notifying me quicker and reacting for the automation. I have limited Frigate/Coral to 10fps / per camera.
 
Saw on Reddit that Rs components got a lot of stock in the UK now. Not sure if it is available locally.
Tried the UK RS - they do have in stock, but dont see how to get it locally without a res-shipper - Thanks
 
IMG_0438.jpg

Notification I get when somebody is outside. And of course Google announces it for me.

(Yes yes I need to fix the two } brackets)
 
Tried the UK RS - they do have in stock, but dont see how to get it locally without a res-shipper - Thanks
I haven't been able to source a Google TPU in SA ever - had to bring mine in via somebody flying to/from the US.
 
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X