Home Assistant: How to Add Wyze Cameras without Flashing with RTSP

Like most things with Home Assistant, much of the documentation is there, while key details are missing or presumed knowledge. While I was able to get this to work, I’m not confident that it works as well as a natively compatible camera. The stream is acceptable, but my weaker cameras tend to pause – probably due to a poor connection. I was able to get a live stream on the dashboard after I began editing my own dashboards – and not relying on Home Assistant to do it for me.

Install the Add On

I generally followed the steps in the Github instructions.

Install the docker-wyze-bridge add-on: go to Github, scoll down to and click ADD REPOSITORY.

Open the repository in your Home Assistant, and add it.

Don’t Start it yet!

Click the Configuration tab, and enter your Wyze email and password. Leave everything else as default; I had to set the RTSP_READTIMEOUT when setting up the config. From what I can understand, the RTSP_READTIMEOUT is the time allowed for the cameras to drop offline before the integration considers them unavailable. I had a camera with a weak connection, so I set this to 10 seconds to avoid losing the feed (actually I lose the feed, but at least the image remains, giving me the illusion that it’s still running).

Click the Info tab and Start.

Now go to your Overview page, and you will see the video stills. Your stream isn’t yet set up.

Go back to the Docker Wyze Bridge add on, and click the Log tab to find your camera stream names. You should see something like this:

2022/03/07 11:35:07 [RTSP][FRONTDOOR] ? '/frontdoor' stream is UP! (3/3)
2022/03/07 11:35:08 [RTSP][BACKDOOR] ? '/backdoor' stream is UP! (3/3)
2022/03/07 11:35:08 [RTSP][GARAGE] ? '/garage' stream is UP! (3/3)

If you don’t see your cameras, you may need to Restart the add on.

Note your camera names here – they are not quite the same as what you named them in your Wyze app, nor are the the same as displayed in your router. This detail alone took many trial and errors before I found that I could just look it up in the add on the docker-wyze-bridge add in Log tab

Check the Video Stream with VLC

To check to see if they’re working, install VLC Media Player, then open it > Media > Open Network Stream, enter the rtsp stream address, and click Play. Note the IP address is the address of your Home Assistant, and not the IP of the camera.

You should see your video stream there. If not, troubleshoot the stream before trying to add it to your Home Assistant.

Add Stream to Configuration.YAML

Once you have a functioning stream, use the HA File Editor to edit your configuration.yaml, and add the following:

camera:
  - platform: generic
    name: Backdoor
    stream_source: rtsp://192.168.0.84:8554/backdoor
  - platform: generic
    name: Frontdoor
    stream_source: rtsp://192.168.0.84:8554/frontdoor
  - platform: generic
    name: Garage
    stream_source: rtsp://192.168.0.84:8554/garage

where the IP address is the IP address of your Home Assistant.

Click Configuration > Settings > CHECK CONFIGURATION.

If it’s OK then click RESTART.

After restarting Home Assistant, you may need to restart the docker-wyze-bridge add-on too. You should now see your streaming cameras on your dashboard.

Make it Live on Dashboard

Edit your dashboard, and click EDIT on the camera card.

Select live for the Camera View.

I can see that the cameras with the worst connection tend to time out, so I may need to buy a WiFi repeater.

Next: Which Camera Platform Works Best

This post discusses the different platforms and what worked best for him/her.

I tried it with FFMPEG, but the stream kept freezing and going Unavailable. To try FFMPEG, add this to the configuration.yaml:

stream:
ffmpeg:
  ffmpeg_bin: /usr/bin/ffmpeg
camera:
  - platform: ffmpeg
    name: BackdoorFF
    input: -rtsp_transport tcp -i rtsp://192.168.0.84:8554/backdoor
    extra_arguments: '-q:v 1 -r 15 -vf "scale=640:360"'
  - platform: generic
    name: Frontdoor
    stream_source: rtsp://192.168.0.84:8554/frontdoor
  - platform: generic
    name: Garage
    stream_source: rtsp://192.168.0.84:8554/garage

The extra_arguments may or may not work. It streams without that line. It didn’t appear to me that it was re-scaled, so it probably didn’t work.

Overall, it was 1) worse video feed quality 2) tended to drop out. So I reverted back to the generic camera.