tesseraA camera's picture on the screen, on a screen with memory for pictures: every screen but the CYD, the Hosyond and the Waveshare 3.5 inch.
The camera tile
On the tile: the camera's icon, its name and Idle, Live or Recording. The Live picture display fills the tile with the camera's picture instead. On P4 boards it defaults to Live. Other boards refresh every 5, 10, 15 or 30 seconds. Picture chooses Fill the tile or Whole picture; On the picture puts the name on it, or nothing.
Tap shows the picture full screen, live on P4 boards and refreshed every four seconds on other boards. Use the back key in the top bar to return.
Image entities
An image entity, such as the last snapshot of a doorbell, works like a camera: on a tile, full screen on a tap.
Where the pictures come from
The app fetches the picture from Home Assistant, scales it for the screen and sends it over your network. A camera that gives no snapshot keeps its icon. The pictures share the screen's memory with album covers and maps, which is why the screens without extra memory don't show them.
In standby and in alerts
A screen can show a camera while it is in standby; see Screensaver. An alert from an automation can carry the camera's picture of that moment.
Live pictures on ESP32-P4 screens
The Guition P4 profiles, M5Stack Tab5, reTerminal D1001 and Waveshare P4 86 panel can show a live Home Assistant camera on a tile and full screen. Live is the default pace for camera tiles on these boards. The tile plays while its page is visible and nothing covers it.
The app receives the camera through Home Assistant and sends pictures to the screen. The frame rate depends on the camera, network and Home Assistant host. Choose the camera's low-resolution stream when the host has limited processing power. A camera without a video stream supplies snapshots as quickly as it can.
On P4 models with configured audio, a full-screen camera also plays its sound. Its top bar has a mute control. Volume under Extras sets the screen's playback volume.
A live camera tile pauses while a control card, settings page or firmware-update progress covers the screen. It resumes when its page becomes visible again. Full-screen camera sound is separate from a camera tile, which stays silent.
The built-in camera
The reTerminal D1001 and M5Stack Tab5 can expose their own cameras in Home Assistant with the Screen camera plugin. This is separate from showing a Home Assistant camera on a tile. See Plugins, Assist and screen hardware.