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Birdseye

In addition to Frigate's Live camera dashboard, Birdseye allows a portable heads-up view of your cameras to see what is going on around your property / space without having to watch all cameras that may have nothing happening. Birdseye allows specific modes that intelligently show and disappear based on what you care about.

Birdseye can be viewed by adding the "Birdseye" camera to a Camera Group in the Web UI. Add a Camera Group by pressing the "+" icon on the Live page, and choose "Birdseye" as one of the cameras.

Birdseye can also be used in HomeAssistant dashboards, cast to media devices, etc.

Birdseye Behavior

Birdseye Modes

Birdseye offers different modes to customize which cameras show under which circumstances.

  • continuous: All cameras are always included
  • motion: Cameras that have detected motion within the last 30 seconds are included
  • objects: Cameras that have tracked an active object within the last 30 seconds are included

Custom Birdseye Icon

A custom icon can be added to the birdseye background by providing a 180x180 image named custom.png inside of the Frigate media folder. The file must be a png with the icon as transparent, any non-transparent pixels will be white when displayed in the birdseye view.

Birdseye view override at camera level

If you want to include a camera in Birdseye view only for specific circumstances, or just don't include it at all, the Birdseye setting can be set at the camera level.

# Include all cameras by default in Birdseye view
birdseye:
enabled: True
mode: continuous

cameras:
front:
# Only include the "front" camera in Birdseye view when objects are detected
birdseye:
mode: objects
back:
# Exclude the "back" camera from Birdseye view
birdseye:
enabled: False

Birdseye Inactivity

By default birdseye shows all cameras that have had the configured activity in the last 30 seconds, this can be configured:

birdseye:
enabled: True
inactivity_threshold: 15

Birdseye Layout

Birdseye Dimensions

The resolution and aspect ratio of birdseye can be configured. Resolution will increase the quality but does not affect the layout. Changing the aspect ratio of birdseye does affect how cameras are laid out.

birdseye:
enabled: True
width: 1280
height: 720

Sorting cameras in the Birdseye view

It is possible to override the order of cameras that are being shown in the Birdseye view. The order needs to be set at the camera level.

# Include all cameras by default in Birdseye view
birdseye:
enabled: True
mode: continuous

cameras:
front:
birdseye:
order: 1
back:
birdseye:
order: 2

Note: Cameras are sorted by default using their name to ensure a constant view inside Birdseye.

Birdseye Cameras

It is possible to limit the number of cameras shown on birdseye at one time. When this is enabled, birdseye will show the cameras with most recent activity. There is a cooldown to ensure that cameras do not switch too frequently.

For example, this can be configured to only show the most recently active camera.

birdseye:
enabled: True
layout:
max_cameras: 1

Birdseye Scaling

By default birdseye tries to fit 2 cameras in each row and then double in size until a suitable layout is found. The scaling can be configured with a value between 1.0 and 5.0 depending on use case.

birdseye:
enabled: True
layout:
scaling_factor: 3.0