Open APIs for developers

[jerryk]

There are many developers that would like to extend the capabilites of the cameras specifically and the system in general.  If there was an open API that would let users access their local cameras and control them that would be great.  Also, if there was a documented RESTful API to get to the data on the servers that would allow incorporating the data into a whole host of applications.  I suspect both the camera and server APIs do exist since the original developers had to use something.  If other could get at these interfaces this system could be the go to system for developers.

[shutton]

+1 for an API.  Arlo has the potential to be a great hobbiest platform!

[timesinks]

Creating home automation after ping ponging from cloud service to cloud service leaves much to be desired. If the lights aren’t on and the talk radio isn’t playing by the time the intruder has progressed from the driveway to the front door, it defeats the purpose. Going through ifttt is incredibly unreliable and slow.

Local network discovery (ie bonjour) and an open, locally-accessible API unlocks the true potential of these devices. I want my home automation hub to be registered as a callback so when motion occurs, automations can take place in real time.

Also being able to stream video off to a local viewer or network-accessible local storage is incredibly important. The cloud has its place — off premise backup, analysis, ML — definitely. But for a home security product, some features need to Just Work when either the router, the isp, their connectivity with you, or your service are down. There are too many steps between my LAN and your servers for anything approaching even two nines of availability.

[alexbk66]

I use HomeSeer (HS) automation system and I bought one Arlo Q Pro for testing, but was disappointed to find out that there's no Arlo integration in HS. For that reason when buying more cameras - I'm going to check if they support HS integration or at least have public API.

I was happy to find @jeffreydwalter project on github and want to give it a try.  The only problem is - since it's not based on official API – so it can change any day (as it happens to Logitech Harmony integration).

[Bloesch]

Alro already provides an API for use of other applications- in my use case it's Stringify.  I can setup more complex logic to tie in my Arlo Pro/Pro2 cameras.  For example, when a camera detects motion between 11pm and 5am, then turn on my Hue lights inside my house.
However, it be great if the new Arlo SMART features could also be part of an API.  Right now in the logic above, a neighbor's cat or a strong wind can cause motion that turns on the lights.  It would be MUCH better if I could only have the lights triggered on when a Person is detected by Arlo SMART.  
Can this be easily added?

[Boulc]

Just bought the Arlo Pro 2 today, very nice product and quality, motion detection, alerts and all.

Requiring an Internet connection is a no go for a surveillance system, no local API and only internet IFTTT.

May return it just for that 😞

[Siege36]

I would love a full featured api. Features would at least include:

1. Getting current status of cameras and basestations
2. Getting recording history and links to recorded videos
3. Triggering a camera to record or take a picture
4. Being able to arm/disarm system including custom modes, currently IFTTT only supports the default arm/disarm modes.

This would go a long way to allow developers of the smarthome community really utilize your hardware.

[DBS1970]

I love these cameras and have been using them for almost 2 years, but having them completely seperate from the majority of my home automation is so annoying! PLEASE PLEASE open a discussion with Hubitat to allow integration into my home automation scheme. It would be so nice to be able to have zones of cameras that are active say during the evening, outside cameras, but have other zones disabled, internal cameras. It would also be wonderful to have these zones tied to a "Mode" within my home automation to setup the rules of recording for the entire time motion is detected including motion sesnors by 3rd party providers tied to my home automation system. The list of creative opportunites to expand my network of cameras is huge when I begin to think about integration into my home automation! There is a huge desire from the Hubitat community for integration of your product which we all love. I saw the resent partnership with HomeKit so I know you have the ability, I really hope you will, I have chosen to wait on expanding my camera family until you or someone else provides what I am asking for.

[codeputer]

I'm still looking for documentation to the Arlo API to extend functionality on my Ultra cameras.  Where is the DOCUMENTATION??????

[Linus1985]

I have a Arlo Pro system with one camera, and I'm working on some integrations. I'm paying and therefore have the smart object recognition. When something is noticed in the camera, I get a push notification to my Android directly and in this message it can tell me what is has seen (animal, person etc).

My project: I want to fire up some lights when a car or person is registered in the camera.

My problem: I'm currently listening on all events on https://my.arlo.com/hmsweb/client/subscribe, but no event here tells me what kind of recognition it is. The only interesting to fire an event on is 'properties': {'motionDetected': True}.

But since this can be whatever, it do me no good. 

Is it possible to send this event data to another endpoint to get more information, maybe?

The only way i've found is to look into the library and get the latest recording, and here get the 'objCategory': 'Person' (for example).

This do me no good either, since it takes a while for a motion to be recorded and uploaded to the library. 

Since the push notification can tell me directly what kind of object it has seen, I guess there must be a way of doing this? I can't think that the push notification data is comming from anything else than this API...?

I've investegated the possibillity to handle this on account level (i'm using another account for my script) but from master account i can only disable special alerts just for the push notification (that's for all accounts, by the way), not event stream. 

So. Does anyone have an idea for how to do this? 

Another question: Does anyone know a quite complete list of documented API endpoints? 

[Linus1985]

Since I'm not able to edit my post (?), here's the latest attempt i'm working on. 🙂 

When detection is made, give it a couple of secs, then take a snapshot and make my own image recognition. 

But since the camera is in use, it seems that i'm not able to do this..?

Anyone know if it's possible to steal a frame from the camera while it's recording?

I'm cyrrently using this library ("arlo" for python) https://github.com/jeffreydwalter/arlo/