Home Assistant

Fregata exposes the same HTTP API and MQTT topics as upstream Frigate, so the official Frigate Home Assistant integration works unchanged. You install it in HA, point it at your Mac’s IP and port 8971, and Fregata’s cameras, events, and detection state appear as HA entities.

What you’ll get in HA

Once the integration is connected, each Fregata camera produces:

• camera.<name> — the live MJPEG/MSE feed for the dashboard.
• binary_sensor.<name>_motion — true while motion is in progress.
• binary_sensor.<name>_<object> — one per tracked class (_person, _car, etc.), true while that object is in frame.
• sensor.<name>_<object>_count — current count of that class.
• switch.<name>_detect, _recordings, _snapshots — toggles for the per-camera features.

Plus a global update.frigate_server (which will say “Fregata” because Fregata reports its own version), and a media_source for playing back recordings and event clips inside HA.

Setup

1. Install HACS in Home Assistant (if you haven’t)

The Frigate HA integration ships through HACS, not core HA. Follow HACS installation if you don’t already have it.

2. Add the Frigate integration to HACS

In HA: HACS → Integrations → ⋮ → Custom repositories and add:

https://github.com/blakeblackshear/frigate-hacs-integration

…as an “Integration” repository. Then search for “Frigate” in the HACS Integrations list and install.

Restart HA.

3. Configure the integration

Settings → Devices & Services → Add Integration → Frigate.

In the URL field, enter the address your HA instance can reach Fregata at:

http://<mac-ip-or-hostname>:8971

For example, http://10.0.1.42:8971 or http://mac-mini.local:8971.

Caution

Use the LAN IP, not 127.0.0.1 or localhost, unless you’re running HA on the same Mac as Fregata. HA needs to reach the Mac from wherever it’s running.

If you’ve put TLS in front of Fregata (see Network & remote access), use https://... and the integration will pick that up.

4. (Optional) MQTT

For best responsiveness you’ll also want MQTT — HA gets push events when objects appear and disappear instead of polling. Add an mqtt block to ~/Fregata/config/config.yml:

mqtt:
  enabled: true
  host: 10.0.1.42      # your MQTT broker; HA's Mosquitto add-on is fine
  port: 1883
  user: fregata
  password: !env_var FREGATA_MQTT_PASSWORD

Set FREGATA_MQTT_PASSWORD in Settings → Environment Variables (or paste it in plaintext if you’re not the secrets-management type — Fregata’s config never leaves the Mac).

Restart Frigate from the tray to pick up the MQTT settings.

Automations

The integration’s docs at blakeblackshear.github.io/frigate-hacs-integration have a full walkthrough of automations. The two most useful starting templates:

Person on the front porch

automation:
  - alias: Notify on front-porch person
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.front_porch_person
        to: 'on'
    action:
      - service: notify.mobile_app_my_phone
        data:
          message: "Person on front porch"
          data:
            image: "/api/frigate/notifications/{{ trigger.to_state.attributes.event_id }}/snapshot.jpg"

Auto-disable detection while you’re home

automation:
  - alias: Pause Fregata detection when home
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: person.you
        to: home
    action:
      - service: switch.turn_off
        target:
          entity_id:
            - switch.front_porch_detect
            - switch.driveway_detect

The second one is a common privacy ask — pause object detection on indoor cameras when you’re physically there. Recordings keep going unless you also flip _recordings.

Troubleshooting the integration

The most common failure modes:

• Cameras don’t appear — the integration couldn’t reach http://mac-ip:8971/api/config. Hit that URL from a browser on the same network as HA. If it doesn’t load, the issue is between HA and your Mac, not in the integration.
• Clips/snapshots fail to play in HA — the integration uses media_source URIs that point back at the Fregata HTTP server. HA needs to be able to reach those URIs from whichever browser you’re viewing HA on. If you’re on a VPN or different subnet, you may need to expose Fregata via your reverse proxy too.
• Counts stay at zero — MQTT isn’t connected. Check the Frigate log via the tray’s Open Crash Log; an MQTT connection failure appears prominently.