homebridge-arlo

homebridge-arlo

Arlo platform plugin for Homebridge.

Installation

1. Install homebridge using: npm install -g homebridge
2. Install this plugin using: npm install -g homebridge-arlo
3. Update your configuration file. See the sample below.

Updating

• npm update -g homebridge-arlo

Setup

Arlo only allows a single login to each account at a time, as a result, if you are running Homebridge and the Arlo on the same account... logging in on your iPhone to view cameras will log out homebridge's Arlo access.

Therefore, I highly recommend creating an additional account in Arlo, just for homebridge access.

Limitations

This plugin currently only support Base Stations, not cameras. This is mainly because I haven't gotten video streaming to work yet.

Configuration

"platforms": [
    {
        "platform": "Arlo",
        "name": "Arlo",
        "email": "<insert arlo account email address>",
        "password": "<insert arlo account password>",
        "interval": 6000 
    }
]

NOTE: interval time is in milliseconds - e.g. 6000 ms are 10 sec

Optional parameters

Modes

By default, Arlo only provides two modes (armed and disarmed). Since HomeKit allows a security system to have 4 states (away, home, night and off), we provide two config parameters to enable support for the additional 2 states. If these configuration parameters aren't provided setting the state to home or night will result in the state being set to away, i.e. armed.

Arlo uses the string modeX to identify each mode, with mode0 used for the default disarmed state and mode1 used for the default armed state. To determine the correct modeX string for your custom state, login to the Arlo web console and click the "Edit Mode" button. The URL will show the modeX string for that custom state, e.g. https://arlo.netgear.com/#/modes/<USER_ID>/edit/mode2

Once you've determined the modeX string of your custom mode(s), you can configure homebridge-arlo to use those for the additional modes available via HomeKit:

• stay_arm - The modeX label for the custom mode created in Arlo for the home or stay state.
• night_arm - The modeX label for the custom mode created in Arlo for the night state.

Streaming

Live video streaming functionality requires transcoding of the video and audio streams provided by Arlo into a format acceptable to HomeKit. By default, this transcoding is assumed to be performed by a local installation of FFmpeg with the libx264 video codec and libfdk_aac audio codec. Alternate configuration options are provided to help optimize the transcoding performance.

• videoProcessor: The video processor used to perform transcoding. Defaults to ffmpeg. An alternate executable maybe used, however it needs to conform to ffmpeg parameters.
• videoDecoder: The video codec used to decode the incoming h264 stream from the Arlo server. Defaults to no value, meaning the default h.264 software decoder (libx264) will typically be used.
• videoEncoder: The video codec used to encode the outgoing h264 stream to the iOS client device. Defaults to libx264.
• audioEncoder: The audio codec that will be used to decode/encode the audio stream. HomeKit requires either an Opus or AAC-ELD format audio stream. Defaults to the libopus codec, and currently Homebridge-Arlo tells HomeKit it only supports the Opus audio type.
• packetsize: The packet sized to be used. Defaults to 1316. Use smaller multiples of 188 to possibly improve performance (376, 564, etc)
• maxBitrate: The maximum bitrate of the encoded stream in kbit/s, the default is 300.
• additionalVideoCommands: Any video-specific additional flags or commands to pass to the ffmpeg executable.
• additionalAudioCommands: Any audio-specific additional flags or commands to pass to the ffmpeg executable.

Streaming with a Raspberry Pi 3

The Raspberry Pi 3 has both hardware decoder and encoder functionality, which can help with transcoding performance. However you will need to compile FFmpeg yourself to enable the hardware capability.

Even if you unconcerned with hardware transcoding, you will likely need to compile FFmpeg with either the Opus or libfdk_aac encoders enabled in order to output the required Opus or AAC-ELD audio format.

The below defines suggested compliation steps for FFmpeg on Raspberry Pi 3 that takes advantage of both the hardware encoder (omx) and decoder (mmal), and uses libopus-dev and/or libfdk_aac to enable transcoding of the audio.

Note: This assumes you're using Raspbian Stretch.

# Go to home folder
cd ~
# Install build tools
sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential pkg-config autoconf automake libtool checkinstall git
# Install various dependencies
sudo apt install libssl-dev libx264-dev libopus-dev libomxil-bellagio-dev

# Clone libfdk-aac-dev 
git clone https://github.com/mstorsjo/fdk-aac.git
cd fdk-aac
# Configure and build libfdk-aac-dev
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr/local --enable-shared --enable-static
# Uses -j4 flag to use multiple cores during compilation
make -j4
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
cd ..

# OPTIONAL: Remove any installed ffmpeg to avoid conflicts
sudo apt remove ffmpeg
# Clone ffmpeg
git clone https://github.com/FFmpeg/FFmpeg.git
cd FFmpeg
# Configure ffmpeg
./configure --prefix=/usr/local --arch=armel --target-os=linux --enable-openssl \
      --enable-omx --enable-omx-rpi --enable-nonfree --enable-gpl --enable-libfdk-aac \
      --enable-libopus --enable-mmal --enable-libx264 --enable-decoder=h264 --enable-network \
      --enable-protocol=tcp --enable-demuxer=rtsp

# Build ffmpeg
sudo make -j4

# Install ffmpeg, and use checkinstall to build a self-contained deb file that can be easily
# backed up for later use or reinstallation. Fill in all information requested by checkinstall.
sudo checkinstall

# Lock the custom ffmpeg package so it isn't replaced accidentally
echo "ffmpeg hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections

Thanks to KhaosT for the base ffmpeg implementation and setup instructions in homebridge-camera-ffmpeg and the Maniacland Blog/locutusofborg780 for FFmpeg configuration instructions.

Sample Configuration with Optional Parameters

This sample configuration specifies that for streaming transcoding, ffmpeg should use the h264_mmal and h264_omx hardware decoders/encoders for the video stream.

"platforms": [
    {
        "platform": "Arlo",
        "name": "Arlo",
        "email": "<insert arlo account email address>",
        "password": "<insert arlo account password>",
        "stay_arm": "mode2",
        "night_arm": "mode3"
        "streaming": {
            "videoDecoder": "h264_mmal",
            "videoEncoder": "h264_omx",
            "packetSize": 564
        }
      }
    }
]