Smart Home Security Camera Idea – Never Miss a Parcel Again

Today we are going to solve a very common problem nowadays, missing deliveries and most importantly the parcels 🙂

With my interconnected smart home I’m able to send a notification to my phone when my doorbells rings. I attach a photo from the front door so that I can check who is at the door. I have an option with a button to open my garage door and let the delivery person leave the package in the home. I have CCTV in the garage to record what is happening in the garage and also use a google mini to leave a voice message to the delivery person thanking them for the delivery.

 

The brains of my smart home is a free automation software called home assistant if you are new to home assistant I suggest you take my free course to get started.

 

New to Home Assistant?

If you are just getting started with home assistant I suggest you enroll in my Free Home Assistant Course !

What do I need

If you click the link below you will find everything you need apart from the google devices, which from some reason are not compatible with Kit.co

 

My personal setup is:

• Nest Hello Doorbell
• Google Mini
• Shelly 1
• Annke IP Camera

How do I control my Garage Door?

 

How to create a Garage Door Opener in Home Assistant

Automation Code

This code is for IOS devices

Copy and paste this into configuration.yaml

ios:
  push:
    categories:
      - name: Doorbell
        identifier: 'doorbell'
        actions:
          - identifier: 'OPEN_GARAGE_DOOR'
            title: 'Open Garage Door'
            activationMode: 'background'
            authenticationRequired: true
            destructive: false
            behavior: 'default'

Now Restart the Server.

If you haven’t got a www folder under configuration you can create that. I used the file editor add-on to achieve that.

Check if you have this line in your configuration.yaml, if you do no need to do anything.

stream:

I suggest you first create this automation with the interface under Configuration / Automation. In this way you can pick the correct device, in the trigger you need to select your doorbell in my example I’m using nest hello. In the action part we are doing the following: Using our front door to store a video footage for 120 seconds. In the filename part I’m saving with a mp4 format under /config/www The file name is front_door_pressed and with the date time of when it was recorded. My second service calls a snapshot service to save a photo (jpg file) that is used in the notification to your phone. Third service sends a notification to my iMac with a message of “Someone is at the Front Door!” Fourth service send a similar message to my mobile phone with that image for that you need to specify your URL this needs to be external, if you don’t have it check this Nabu Casa article

- id: '1614379200298'
  alias: Doorbell Test
  trigger:
  - platform: device
    device_id: 1921c6edd5a36ff852987602f898c921
    domain: nest
    type: doorbell_chime
  action:
  #Front Door Recording
  - service: camera.record
    target:
      entity_id: camera.front_door
    data:
      filename: '/config/www/front_door_pressed{{ now().strftime("%Y%m%d-%H%M%S") }}.mp4'
      duration: 120
  - service: camera.snapshot
    data: 
      entity_id: camera.front_door
      filename: '/config/www/front_door_doorbell.jpg'
  - service: notify.mobile_app_smarts_imac
    data:
      message: Someone is at the Front Door!
  - service: notify.mobile_app_giordano_s_iphone_12
    data:
      message: Someone is at the Front Door!
      data:
        attachment: 
          url: "https://ABCDEFG.ui.nabu.casa/local/front_door_doorbell.jpg"
          content-type: jpeg
          hide-thumbnail: false
        push:
          category: doorbell
  mode: single

This automation uses the event from the first automation to trigger the opening of the garage door, I'm also recording the footage of the garage door.
The last service uses nabu Casa's TTS(text to speech) to send a vocal message thanking them for the delivery.

- alias: Open Garage Door for Delivery
  trigger: 
    platform: event
    event_type: ios.notification_action_fired
    event_data:
      actionName: OPEN_GARAGE_DOOR
  action: 
# Open Garage Door
    #Front Door Recording
  - service: camera.record
    target:
      entity_id: camera.garage_camera
    data:
      filename: '/config/www/garage_door{{ now().strftime("%Y%m%d-%H%M%S") }}.mp4'
      duration: 120
  - service: switch.turn_on
    data:
      entity_id: switch.garage_door
  - delay:
      hours: 0
      minutes: 0
      seconds: 30
      milliseconds: 0
  - service: tts.cloud_say
    data:
      entity_id: media_player.living_room_speaker
      message: Hello! Please leave the parcel on the floor, thank you for delivering to us! Have a Great Day!
      options:
        gender: female
      language: en-GB

If you want to find out more about my smart home checkout this course: