Use HomeKit Secure Video With Home Assistant, Even If Your Camera Isn’t Compatible

Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video lets you save video recordings from your HomeKit-compatible security cameras and video doorbells to iCloud so that you can access the footage from anywhere. If your camera doesn’t support HomeKit, you can use Home Assistant with the Scrypted add-on to achieve the same thing.

What You Need to Use HomeKit Secure Video

HomeKit Secure Video is a feature offered by Apple that lets you save the video recorded by your security cameras or video doorbells to iCloud. This means you can access the recordings at any time from anywhere, even if you’re not on your home network.

It also means that you don’t need to pay for an additional cloud subscription to access your recordings as you do with many popular brands such as Ring. However, you will need an iCloud+ subscription to use the feature; these start from as little as $0.99 per month, although you’ll need a higher tier if you want to use HomeKit Secure Video with multiple cameras. You will also need a home hub device like a HomePod, HomePod mini, Apple TV, or iPad somewhere in your home in order to use Apple’s smart home ecosystem.

If your security camera or video doorbell is already compatible with HomeKit, then you can stop reading right here. You can add HomeKit-compatible devices to the Home app directly and get all the benefits of HomeKit Secure Video without any additional effort.

If your camera or doorbell isn’t compatible with HomeKit, however, don’t despair. There are several ways to add an incompatible camera to HomeKit. One of those methods is to use an open-source video integration platform called Scrypted, which you can run within Home Assistant.

Installing the Scrypted Add-On in Home Assistant

The method I’m going to use in this article installs Scrypted as an add-on within Home Assistant, so if you don’t have one already, you’ll need to set up a Home Assistant server. Home Assistant is home automation software that can run on something as basic as a Raspberry Pi.

You can run Scrypted as a standalone desktop app or a background service, but if you already have Home Assistant set up, using the add-on is the simplest way to start using it.

In Home Assistant, go to Settings > Add-ons. Click the “Add-On Store” button in the bottom-right corner of the screen. At the top of the screen, click the three-dot menu icon, and select “Repositories.” In the “Add” field, enter “https://github.com/koush/scrypted” and click the “Add” button.

Click “Close,” scroll to the bottom of the screen, and click the “Scrypted” add-on that should now have appeared. Click “Install” and wait for the Scrypted add-on to install. Once it has, click “Start” to toggle “Show in Sidebar” on. Click “Scrypted” in the sidebar to access the Scrypted add-on.

Adding Your Video Cameras to Scrypted

In this example, I’m going to show how to add a Ring video doorbell to Scrypted, since this is a popular brand that doesn’t support HomeKit, but the method is similar for other brands of cameras and video doorbells, too. Full disclosure, I’ve recently ditched my Ring doorbell for another brand.

Select the Scrypted add-on in the sidebar, click the “Plugins” icon in the left-hand menu. Click the “Install” icon, and in the “Search Plugins” field, type “Ring.” Click “Install” for the “@scrypted/ring” plugin. If you’re using a different model of camera, search for the brand name of your camera.

You may need to check the Scrypted documentation if you can’t find your brand, as some plugins support multiple brands.

Once the plugin is installed, you’ll be prompted to enter the email and password for your Ring account, or the account of your brand of camera. Click “Save.” If you have two-factor authentication set up, add the code you are sent to the “Two Factor Code” field, and click “Save” again.

Once you’re signed in, you should see the name of your Ring app location. Click the location name, and you should see any Ring cameras you have set up at that location. Select a camera, and you should see a live feed from the camera within Scrypted.

Making Your Cameras Available to Apple Home

Now that your camera has been added to Scrypted, it’s time to make it HomeKit compatible. You will then be able to add the camera or doorbell to the Home app as if it were a HomeKit-compatible product.

In Scrypted, open the camera that you want to make compatible with HomeKit. Under “Settings,” click “Extensions.” Toggle “HomeKit” on. If you don’t see HomeKit as an option, you may need to search for and install the plugin from the “Plugins” tab. Once “HomeKit” is enabled, you should see a new “HomeKit” drop-down in your camera’s settings.

Expand “HomeKit,” and select the “Pairing” tab. Check the “Standalone Accessory Mode” box, which allows you to add the camera as a standalone device to the Home app. Click “Save.” Wait a few moments for the HomeKit plugin to reload. Click the “General” tab, and you should see a QR code for adding your camera to the Home app.

Adding Your Camera to the Home App

Once you’ve made your camera available to the Home app, you should be able to add it just like any other accessory that works with HomeKit. You can then take advantage of HomeKit Secure Video to save your camera recordings in iCloud.

Open the Home app on your iPhone. Click the “+” (plus) icon at the top of the screen and select “Add Accessory.” Scan the QR code from Scrypted. Click the “Add to Home” button. You’ll see a warning that the device is not certified. Click “Add Anyway.”

Add a location for your device and give the camera a name. Click “Continue.” To ensure that your recordings are saved to iCloud, under “Streaming and Recording,” tap “Stream” for “When Home” and select “Stream and Allow Recording.” Tap “Continue” and repeat for “When Away.”

Continue through the setup, changing any settings you need to. When you’re done, you should see confirmation that your camera was added to the Home app. Tap “Done” to complete the process.

Now that your camera is in the Home app, you can tap it to see a live feed. You can now set up and use HomeKit Secure Video just like you would with any other HomeKit-compatible camera.

HomeKit Secure Video offers some useful features, not least of which is the ability to save video recordings from camera brands such as Ring without having to pay any additional subscriptions. By using Scrypted in Home Assistant, you can add almost any camera or video doorbell to the Home app, even if the camera doesn’t offer native HomeKit support.