Add rich camera support for: Reolink Cameras

[skynet01]

As per #884 this is a request to add media browsing support for Reolink cameras. There is an official Reolink integration https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/reolink/ that’s used by about 14k (5.4%) people and Jinstar’s integration https://github.com/JimStar/reolink_cctv (which the official one is forked from)

Describe the solution you'd like

the media functionality works within a card just like frigate cameras. Would be great if it worked with both integrations as a considerable amount of people still use Jimstars integration

[dermotduffy]

Hi @skynet01 . Thank you for the specific request to add media browsing capabilities for Reolink cameras into this card.

Looking at the integration code for the official one, it does not appear to expose media at all (i.e. no Media browsing support in HA)? Is that right? If yes, there's nothing I can do on the card to fix that. Perhaps @starkillerOG (the codeowner for the official Reolink integration) could comment on whether there's any plan to add media browsing support there, or if I'm missing anything.

A quick look at the JimStar version suggests it does expose media (source), so having the card pull out its media would be possible.

Obviously though, given the choice, I'd rather only support the official one since it will likely have the widest reach given time.

[skynet01]

I am still using the JimStar integration as it has the most features and I think it actually is more popular, as the official one just launched a month or so back. I think the official one will add media browsing as well. I asked the author I'll update this thread with his answer. Thank you for considering

[skynet01]

The author confirmed its already being developed in the core integration I believe since its a fork from them Jimstar integration implementing it for the Jimstar will make it work with the other when it's released.

[starkillerOG]

There is some work beeing done on media browsing for the build-in reolink integration, see here: Question about media platform. · Issue #9 · starkillerOG/reolink_aio · GitHub 2 But currently I am too busy with other features that I am implementing and testing to work on that. Probably it will get added at some point, but it is not my first priority.

[dermotduffy]

Thanks @starkillerOG . Should we expect that the media source in the core HA version of the integration would be a "clean" fork of the JimStar version, or might it be entirely unrelated?

[If it's going to likely be very similar, we could safely do development on this end. If you don't know, we still could, but at much greater risk we'd need to change it later]

[starkillerOG]

@dermotduffy it will probably be losely based on, but no I will build it up from the ground. I do not like the thumbnail chaching for instance. And there was some problem with DST time offsets that I would like to fix in the upstream library instead of the HomeAssistant code.

[dermotduffy]

@starkillerOG Thank you, will keep that in mind.

[skynet01]

The native Reolink plugin now supporst media playback any chance this can now be added into the cards :)

[dermotduffy]

The native Reolink plugin now supporst media playback any chance this can now be added into the cards :)

Aha, great! Every chance, but more upvotes would make it more likely for me to prioritize this. I also plan to rename the card after the v6 release (see rename bug), and I'm hoping it can help accelerate support for other camera engines like Reolink.