External Integration - Unifi Protect

Development
1

I’m creating this post because I couldn’t find a Unifi Protect topic by @guim31 :slight_smile: If it already exists, please just move it.

In Home Assistant, I have an automation that I can’t recreate in Gladys. We have facade lighting, and I turn it on based on the brightness values provided by my Unifi cameras. However, the integration doesn’t provide these properties. Maybe this could be added? :slight_smile:

2

Hi @stefanbauer, thanks for the thread :slightly_smiling_face:

Unfortunately, the official Protect API (the „Integration API“ with API key that this integration uses) does not provide a brightness value for the cameras: Neither in lux nor day/night status. Home Assistant reads it via the internal Protect API with username and password, and I deliberately do not use that.

What the integration does have: the brightness of the UniFi sensors (e.g. UP-Sense) in lux. If you have one, you can switch your facade lighting in a scene via it. Otherwise, it also works via the sunset (trigger „Sunset“ of the house).

3

I understand. May I ask why there isn’t an option with a username/password combination? At least optionally? That would allow for significantly more values. I checked again, the cameras don’t provide lux values, but a normal binary value isDark true/false.

I already tested sunrise and sunset. Unfortunately, it works extremely unreliable because it is based on times. Brightness is always correct :slight_smile: I will test it again here specifically.

4

@stefanbauer Great idea, so I’ve implemented it :slightly_smiling_face:

Version 1.1.0 (Update via Gladys): There is now an optional username and password for a local account of the console in the configuration. This gives each camera the function „Dark“ (on/off), which reads isDark every minute. After saving, the „Discover“ tab offers „Refresh“ for the cameras.

A few notes:

  • A local account without two-factor authentication, ideally a dedicated one just for Gladys with read-only permissions on Protect.
  • Without these fields, nothing changes, everything continues to run via the API key.
  • This is the internal, undocumented API: A Protect update can break it. I don’t have a Protect console, so you’re the first real test. „Test connection“ shows on how many cameras the night detection is read.

Let me know if it works for you!