Build one
Mini PC with a Coral TPU
A small, quiet box that uses little power. It suits a home or a shop with a handful of cameras.
- Detection
- Coral TPU
- Suits
- Homes and small shops
- Footprint
- Fits on a shelf, runs quietly
Frigate camera system
Cameras that tell a person from a shadow.
We install Frigate on a recorder at your home or shop, connect the cameras you already have, and send your phone only the moments that matter.
Get a quoteRuns on and built with
Frigate
Homebridge
One screen that knows what it is looking at
Frigate records every camera around the clock and runs object detection on the recorder itself, so each clip is already marked: a person at the gate, a car in the driveway, a dog in the yard.
You decide where it looks, and what counts
We draw zones on each camera's picture and choose, for every zone, which objects matter. A car passing in the street is ignored; a person at your door is not.
- Zone
- Front door
- Person
- Alert to your phone
- Car
- Record the event
- Animal
- Ignore
- Keep recordings
- As long as you choose
The footage stays in the building
Recordings are written to a disk in your home or shop, not to someone else's cloud. When you are away, you watch them from the app over a secure connection.
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Your cameras
The IP cameras you already have, over RTSP or ONVIF.
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The recorder
Frigate on a small computer on your premises. Detection happens here.
Recordings are stored here -
Your phone
Live view, clips and alerts, from wherever you are.
No third-party cloud keeps a copy of your footage.
A recorder sized for your cameras
Detection runs on a small accelerator beside the processor. We choose it from how many cameras you have and how busy their pictures are, before anything is bought.
Build two
Mini PC or small server with a GPU
More headroom for more cameras, higher resolutions and busier scenes, with room to add cameras later.
- Detection
- Graphics card (GPU)
- Suits
- Larger properties and businesses
- Footprint
- A cabinet or a server corner
The disk is sized to how long you want to keep footage, and can be enlarged later.
Frigate's specification, on one sheet
What the software supports and where its limits are, taken from its own documentation. What your recorder uses is decided in the survey, from your cameras.
| Area | What Frigate supports | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Open source under the MIT licence. Free to use and to change. | The name Frigate and its logo are trademarks of Frigate, Inc. |
| Cameras | Any IP camera that offers an RTSP stream. ONVIF lets Frigate steer cameras that pan, tilt and zoom. | A camera with no local stream cannot be connected. Each camera can give a light stream for detection and a sharper one for recording. |
| Detection hardware | Google Coral (USB or M.2), Intel graphics and NPUs through OpenVINO, Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, Apple silicon and Hailo modules. | Detection on the processor alone is meant for testing; a dedicated detector is recommended. A single Coral runs one detection in about 10 milliseconds. |
| Objects | More than 80 labels, among them person, car, bicycle, cat and dog. Your own model can be added. | A fresh install tracks people only. Every other object is switched on on purpose. |
| Zones | Shapes drawn on the camera picture. Each one can allow only certain objects, and an alert can require the object to be inside one. | An object counts as inside when the bottom centre of its box is. A loitering time can ask it to stay a few seconds first. |
| Recording | Around the clock or only around events. Keep everything, only segments with motion, or only segments with moving objects. | Five seconds before and after an event are kept by default. Around-the-clock recording is off until it is switched on, and it uses the most disk. |
| Live view | In the browser with low delay. A camera shows a still picture until something moves, then switches to live video. | Two-way talk needs a compatible camera and a secure connection. |
| Alerts and integrations | Built-in phone alerts through web push in Chrome, Firefox and Safari. MQTT and Home Assistant for everything else. | Web push needs a secure connection. On an iPhone the app must first be added to the Home Screen. |
Source: the Frigate documentation · About our Homebridge service
What happens in the moment someone walks into view
Frigate does not treat every frame alike. The moment passes through a short series of checks, and each one can end it, which is how a shadow stays a shadow.
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Motion
A very light check watches the detection stream and finds the parts of the picture that changed.
Stops here ifNothing moved, so nothing else runs.
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Detection
The detector looks only where something moved, names what it sees, and follows it from frame to frame.
Stops here ifIt is not an object you chose, so there is no event.
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Zone
The object has to be inside a zone you drew, for as long as you set.
Stops here ifIt is outside the zone or only brushed it, so it is kept as a detection, not as an alert.
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Recording
The clip is saved with a few seconds before and after it, five seconds each by default.
Stops here ifThe retention you chose does not keep this kind of footage.
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Alert
The event reaches your phone, and goes to Home Assistant and MQTT so a light or a message can follow.
Stops here ifIt is only a detection, or the phone was never registered for alerts.
Zones, objects and how long footage is kept are set with you, in the steps below.
From the cameras you have to alerts on your phone
Survey
We list your cameras, check that each speaks RTSP or ONVIF, and look at what it sees.
Size
We choose the recorder, the detector and the disk for your cameras.
Connect
We install Frigate and bring every camera into it.
Zones and objects
We draw the zones and choose person, car or animal for each camera.
Alerts and retention
Phone notifications and how long footage is kept, set with you.
Hand over
We show you the app, then stay on for updates and upkeep.
Connected to your home, and looked after
Home Assistant
Cameras and detections appear in Home Assistant, so a person detected at the door can turn on a light or send you a message.
Apple Home
Through our Homebridge service, the cameras appear in the Home app on your iPhone and iPad.
About our Homebridge serviceUpdates, tried first
New Frigate releases are tried before they reach your recorder, and your settings are backed up.
Storage health, watched
We keep an eye on the disk, so it is replaced before it fails - not after you needed a recording.
Tell us about your cameras
How many there are, where they point and what you want to know about. We size the system and quote it after a short conversation.
Get a quote