IP Camera Stream Discovery with Strix Home Assistant Add-on

Ever bought a cheap IP camera and spent hours hunting for the right RTSP URL? You’re not alone. Most budget cameras ship with zero documentation, wrong stream paths, or completely proprietary protocols. Strix fixes that. It’s an open-source tool that automates IP camera stream discovery — testing over 102,787 URL patterns across 67,288 camera models in 30–60 seconds. And it comes with an official Home Assistant add-on.

What Is Strix?

Strix is a smart IP camera stream discovery system written in Go. It scans your camera using three parallel methods:

ONVIF — industry-standard auto-discovery (works on ~30% of cameras)
Database lookup — 67,288 models from 3,636 brands with known URL patterns
Universal patterns — 206 common URL paths that work even for unknown cameras

The result: a working stream URL in under a minute, plus a ready-to-paste Frigate/go2rtc config. The hassio-strix repository brings this IP camera stream discovery engine directly into Home Assistant as an official add-on.

⚠️ Beta status: The Home Assistant add-on is currently experimental. Real-time progress (SSE) may not display correctly due to Ingress limitations. The IP camera stream discovery itself works — you just might not see live scan progress. For full SSE support, the Docker installation is recommended.

Supported Protocols

One of Strix’s biggest strengths is protocol coverage. IP camera stream discovery isn’t just about RTSP:

RTSP — standard protocol, most modern cameras
HTTP MJPEG — very common on older and budget models
JPEG snapshots — auto-converted to stream via FFmpeg
HTTP-FLV — found on some Chinese-branded devices
BUBBLE — proprietary Chinese NVR/DVR protocol
ONVIF — for compatible cameras with auto-discovery

This makes IP camera stream discovery effective even for cameras that have no RTSP at all — a common scenario with cheap AliExpress hardware.

Installing the Strix Add-on

Step 1 — Add the Repository

Go to Settings → Apps → Install app, click the ⋮ menu in the top right, then Repositories. Add the following URL:

https://github.com/eduard256/hassio-strix

Click Add → Close. You can also use the one-click button directly from the hassio-strix GitHub page.

Step 2 — Install and Configure

Find “Strix – Camera Stream Discovery” in the store (refresh if it doesn’t appear)
Click Install
Enable “Start on boot”
Enable “Show in sidebar”
Click Start

That’s it. Strix appears in your HA sidebar and is ready for IP camera stream discovery on your local network.

Running Your First IP Camera Stream Discovery

Click Strix in the sidebar to open the web UI. The workflow is straightforward:

Enter Camera Details

Field	Notes
IP Address	e.g. `192.168.1.100`
Username	camera login (blank if open)
Password	camera password
Model	optional, improves accuracy

Click “Discover Streams”

Strix kicks off the IP camera stream discovery process. It tests methods in parallel:

ONVIF query
Database model match
Universal URL patterns (206 paths)

Most cameras are done in 30–60 seconds. Results appear as each stream is found.

⚠️ Due to the known Ingress SSE limitation, live progress may not update in the add-on UI. The final results will still appear when the scan completes.

Review Results

Each discovered stream shows:

Field	Example
Protocol	RTSP / HTTP / MJPEG
Resolution	1920×1080, 640×480
FPS	25, 15, 10
Codec	H264, H265, MJPEG
Audio	Yes / No

Pick the stream that fits your use case and move to config generation.

Generating a Frigate Config

This is where IP camera stream discovery really pays off. 🚀

After the scan, click “Use Stream” → “Generate Frigate Config”. Strix outputs a complete, ready-to-paste YAML config:

yaml

go2rtc:
  streams:
    '192_168_1_100_main':
      - rtsp://admin:[email protected]:554/stream1
    '192_168_1_100_sub':
      - rtsp://admin:[email protected]:554/stream2

cameras:
  camera_192_168_1_100:
    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/192_168_1_100_sub
          roles: [detect]
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/192_168_1_100_main
          roles: [record]
    objects:
      track: [person, car, cat, dog]
    record:
      enabled: true

Using sub streams for detection instead of the main stream can cut Frigate’s CPU usage by 5–10×. That’s a significant win for resource-constrained homelab hardware.

Smart Config Merging

Already have a frigate.yml with multiple cameras? Paste it into Strix — it will add the new camera without touching your existing configuration. No manual YAML editing required.

Advanced Options

In the web UI under Advanced, you can tune the IP camera stream discovery parameters:

Option	Default	Notes
Channel	0	For NVR/DVR multi-channel systems
Timeout	240s	Max scan time
Max Streams	10	Stop after N streams found

Lowering Max Streams and Timeout speeds up IP camera stream discovery when you already have a good idea what you’re looking for.

HA Add-on vs Docker

	HA Add-on	Docker
Install effort	Low	Medium
Real-time SSE progress	⚠️ Limited	✅ Full
HA sidebar integration	✅ Yes	❌ No
Recommended for	Quick testing	Production use

If you’re running a homelab on Proxmox (see Install Proxmox VE 9.1), spinning up Strix in a Docker container gives you the full IP camera stream discovery experience with real-time progress. You can also secure remote access to your camera streams with WireGuard VPN on Proxmox.

REST API

Strix also exposes a REST API for automation workflows:

bash

# Health check
GET /api/v1/health

# Search camera database
POST /api/v1/cameras/search
{ "query": "hikvision", "limit": 10 }

# Start stream discovery (returns SSE stream)
POST /api/v1/streams/discover
{
  "target": "192.168.1.100",
  "username": "admin",
  "password": "12345",
  "timeout": 240,
  "max_streams": 10
}

Full API docs are in DOCKER.md in the main repo.

Final Thoughts

Strix is one of the most practical tools for anyone setting up IP cameras in a Home Assistant environment. The IP camera stream discovery process is automated, fast, and produces output you can use immediately in Frigate — no manual URL hunting, no trial-and-error with RTSP paths.

The HA add-on is the easiest entry point for testing. For stable production use — especially if you want real-time feedback during IP camera stream discovery scans — run the Docker version on a dedicated host or LXC container.

If you’re building out your smart home stack, check out how to build a touch-controlled Home Assistant dashboard or explore DIY ESPHome sensors to complement your camera setup.

📦 Add-on repository: github.com/eduard256/hassio-strix 🔧 Main Strix project: github.com/eduard256/Strix 🐳 Docker Hub: hub.docker.com/r/eduard256/strix

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