Alarm.com Cameras for Home Assistant

A Home Assistant add-on that brings Alarm.com camera support to your smart home. View snapshots and live video from your Alarm.com cameras directly in Home Assistant dashboards.

How It Works

Alarm.com has no public API for camera access. This add-on runs a headless Chromium browser (via Playwright) that logs into your Alarm.com account, navigates to the camera pages, and captures screenshots of the live video feeds. It's the same approach you'd use viewing cameras in your own browser — just automated.

Alarm.com Website  <──  Headless Chromium (Playwright)
                              │
                        Screenshot capture
                              │
                        REST API (aiohttp)
                              │
              HA Camera Entities  /  Web UI

Features

• Periodic snapshots — automatically captures camera images (default: every 10 minutes)
• On-demand snapshots — trigger a fresh capture anytime
• Live view — ~1fps MJPEG stream via screenshot loop
• Built-in web UI — manage credentials, solve CAPTCHAs, handle 2FA challenges
• Persistent sessions — browser profile survives restarts (no re-login needed)
• Trusted device support — automatically trusts the browser after 2FA
• Auto-install companion integration — camera entities appear in HA automatically
• Session health monitoring — auto-recovers from expired sessions

Installation

Step 1: Add the Repository

In Home Assistant, go to Settings > Add-ons > Add-on Store, click the three-dot menu (⋮), select Repositories, and add:

https://github.com/jsight/alarmdotcom-cameras

Step 2: Install & Start

Find "Alarm.com Cameras" in the add-on store and click Install. Once installed, click Start.

Step 3: Log In

1. Open Alarm.com Cameras from the HA sidebar
2. Enter your Alarm.com email and password in the Setup tab
3. Click Save & Login
4. If a CAPTCHA appears, solve it in the web UI
5. If 2FA is required, enter the code sent to your phone/email
6. The add-on will automatically trust the device for future logins

Step 4: Add the Integration

The add-on automatically installs a companion integration on first startup. After the first install:

1. Restart Home Assistant (needed once to load the new integration)
2. Go to Settings > Devices & Services > Add Integration
3. Search for "Alarm.com Cameras"
4. The add-on URL is auto-detected — just click Submit

Your cameras will now appear as standard HA camera entities that you can add to any dashboard.

Step 5: Add to Dashboard

• Edit any dashboard and click Add Card
• Choose Picture Entity or Picture Glance
• Select your camera.alarm_com_* entity
• The card shows the latest snapshot and auto-refreshes

Configuration

Settings are configured in the add-on's Configuration tab:

Setting	Default	Description
snapshot_interval_minutes	10	Minutes between automatic snapshots
stream_fps	1	Live view frames per second (0.5, 1, or 2)
stream_timeout_minutes	5	Auto-stop live view after this many minutes
jpeg_quality	80	JPEG compression quality (10–100)
trusted_device_name	HA Alarm.com Cameras	Name shown in Alarm.com's trusted devices list
log_level	info	Logging verbosity (debug, info, warning, error)

Web UI

The add-on includes a built-in web interface accessible from the HA sidebar with four tabs:

Tab	Purpose
Setup	Enter credentials, solve CAPTCHAs, handle 2FA challenges
Cameras	View discovered cameras, capture snapshots, start live view
Settings	View current configuration, clear browser profile
Status	Monitor add-on health, uptime, session status

Troubleshooting

"Not Connected" after restart

The add-on preserves browser cookies across restarts. If your session expired, open the web UI and log in again. Use Clear Browser Profile in the Settings tab if you're stuck in a bad state.

No cameras found

Make sure the auth badge shows "Connected" (green). Then click Refresh on the Cameras tab. Camera discovery requires an active authenticated session.

CAPTCHA keeps appearing

Alarm.com may show CAPTCHAs during login. Solve them through the web UI. The add-on preserves the session afterward, so CAPTCHAs should be rare after initial setup.

2FA code rejected

If your code is rejected, click Resend Code to get a fresh one. Make sure you enter it promptly — codes expire quickly.

Live view is slow

Live view captures screenshots at the configured FPS (default 1fps). This is a deliberate trade-off — real-time streaming would require reverse-engineering Alarm.com's WebRTC protocol. You can increase to 2fps at the cost of higher CPU usage.

High CPU or memory usage

The headless Chromium browser is resource-intensive. The add-on minimizes idle usage by reusing a single browser page, but active streaming will use more resources. Consider:

• Reducing stream_fps to 0.5
• Increasing snapshot_interval_minutes
• Stopping live view when not needed (it auto-stops after stream_timeout_minutes)

Architecture

Add-on (alarmdotcom_cameras/)

The Docker container runs:

• Playwright + Chromium — headless browser for Alarm.com interaction
• aiohttp server — REST API on port 8099 (via Ingress)
• S6 Overlay — process supervision

Key modules:

• browser.py — Playwright engine: login, CAPTCHA/2FA handling, camera discovery, snapshot capture, MJPEG streaming
• server.py — HTTP server with background tasks (periodic snapshots, session health monitoring)
• routes.py — 17 REST API endpoints
• credentials.py — Fernet-encrypted credential storage
• static/ — Single-page web UI (HTML/JS/CSS)

Companion Integration (custom_components/alarmdotcom_cameras/)

A standard HA integration that:

• Connects to the add-on's REST API
• Creates camera entities for each discovered camera
• Polls for snapshots via async_camera_image()
• Periodically re-discovers new cameras (every 5 minutes)

The integration is automatically installed by the add-on on first startup.

Requirements

• Home Assistant OS or Supervised installation
• An Alarm.com account with camera access
• ~512MB RAM for the headless browser
• amd64 or aarch64 architecture

License

MIT