Frigate Timelapser

This is a node app that helps generate timelapse videos from a Frigate feed. It takes a snapshot every few seconds and when called will create a timelapse of the last 15 seconds (the length of the timelapse is configurable).

Why did I write this?

Because at the time Frigate didn't have a timelapse function and I find the one that it currently has clunky and unreliable. I wanted something that I could easily call from Home Assistant and it generate a video when, for example, my front door opens.

It's very much a work in progress and has next to no error checking. It does however work, I've been using it for a about a year, sending videos to my telegram via Home Assistant.

How to get it running..

You can run it locally via node (and maybe PM2) or via Docker.

Running locally.

Clone the repo:

  git clone https://github.com/MrSleeps/FrigateTimelapser.git
  cd FrigateTimelapser

Run npm install and wait for it to finish, once it's done it's business you need to edit your frigate.env file (scroll down for more information). Once your timelapse.env file is created you start the Timelapser by either of the following commands:

npm start

node server.js

Docker install

You can either build it yourself or grab it from DockerHub.

If you are building it yourself:

  git clone https://github.com/MrSleeps/FrigateTimelapser.git
  cd FrigateTimelapser
  ./build

Once it's built (hopefully without errors), or you are grabbing it direct from DockerHub, you need to copy the docker-compose file below and make the relevant changes

version: '3.6'

services:
  timelapser:
    image: mrsleeps/frigate-timelapser
    container_name: frigate-timelapser
    volumes:
      - ${PWD}/files:/app/files
      - ${PWD}/timelapse.env:/app/.env
    ports:
      - 8500:8500
    restart: unless-stopped

Before running you will need to do a few things, create a directory called files (or whatever) and update this line:

      - ${PWD}/files:/app/files

Replacing ${PWD}/files with whatever directory you created.

Next you need to create your .env file. Create a file called timelapse.env and copy and paste the following (modifiy for your own setup):

# The URL of this docker (ex: https://frigate-timelapse.yourhost.tld)
# No / at the end please!
timelapseURL = "http://your.host"
timelapsePort = "8500"

Change timelapseURL to whatever url you will be using (if behind a proxy use the proxy address).

If you change timelapsePort remember to update your docker-compose.yml file!

Once that's all done, update the line in docker-compose.yml

      - ${PWD}/timelapse.env:/app/.env

with the location of your timelapse.env file.

Save

Then run

docker-compose up -d

If all goes to plan Frigate Timelapser will be up and running and listening at your.host:8500

When you first visit Frigate Timelapser it will run you through a few setup questions, you will need to enter the following:

Frigate URL - This is fairly self explanatory, enter in the format http://your.host.tld (no trailing /)

Frigate Cameras - Enter your cameras, seperate cameras by a comma. For example camera1,camera2,camera3

If you are using the Home Assistant post back doobrie you will need to fill out the following two fields:

Home Assistant URL - Again, self explanatory and no trailing slashes.

Home Assistant Webhook ID - You can find this in your Home Assistant, under automations->triggers->webhooks. It'll give you the ID and paste it here.

Click save and off you go!

If you don't trust a web interface to set it up and prefer to do it the old school way by editing a text file you can also do that. Fire up your trusty text editor, copy and paste in the following and edit it to suit your needs.

{
    "needsSetup": 0,
    "frigateURL": "https://your.frigate.host",
    "frigateCameras": "camera1,camera2,camera3",
    "hassURL": "https://your.hass.host",
    "hassWebhook": "",
    "usingHomeAssistant": 0,
    "timeLapseSeconds": 16,
    "keepImagesDays":1,
    "keepVideosDays":1
}

Edit docker-compose.yml and add the following line to the volumes section:

      - /path/to/the/config.json:/app/data/config.json

Generating a timelapse

If you want to generate a timelapse you need to call (via a GET call) the url /:camera/timelapse/:hass/:json with the variables changed. What you set will generate different views.

Start with the variables..

:camera is the name of your camera, office for example
:hass is if you are calling it from Home Assistant
:json if you would like a json reply

The :hass option generates the video and then returns via POST to your Home Assistant URL that you set in the timelapse.env file. I use this to then send a copy of the timelapse on to my Telegram account
The :json option decides if you want a json reply with the url of the timelapse or you actually want to view it on the website. 1 returns json and 2 returns a webpage with the video embeded.

So for example, to generate a timelapse manually from a camera called "frontdoor" and watch it via your phone you would visit http://your.host.tld:8500/frontdoor/timelapse/0/0

If you were calling it from Home Assistant and wanted to get a copy of the timelapse sent back to Home Assistant you would visit http://your.host.tld:8500/frontdoor/timelapse/1/0

And finally, if you wanted to return a json which you can use in some other webpage/script/whatever you'd call http://your.host.tld:8500/frontdoor/timelapse/0/1 which would return json like: {"action":"finishedTimelapse","filename":"frontdoor/2024-02-12-02-55-06.mp4","camera":"frontdoor"}

Generating the timelapse takes some time, it's not an instant thing. Obviously the faster the host system is the quicker it will be.

To get an example of how to get this working with Home Assistant, read HomeAssistant.md

It's very much written for my needs and as such will have bugs (and very little error checking), suggestions/problems in "Issues" here on Github.

MrSleeps / FrigateTimelapser

readme