Live view

Tap a camera on the Cameras tab to watch it live. The picture comes straight from your server, through go2rtc when the camera is restreamed, in full quality and with sound.

**Back** to the cameras. Swiping in from the left edge does the same.

**The stream** you’re watching, and its resolution.

**Sound**, on or off. Only there when the camera sends audio.

**Stream stats**: what’s actually arriving. See Stream stats.

**Pause**: stops the stream. **Play** starts it again.

**Stream**: chooses between the camera’s streams. Only there when it has more than one.

**History**: this camera’s recordings, from a minute ago.

**Alerts**: snooze this camera’s alerts, or turn them off, on this iPhone.

**Settings**: the camera’s own switches. Administrators only.

**Full screen**.

Under the camera’s name, a word says what the stream is doing: connecting…, live, paused, idle or no video.

Zoom and full screen

Pinch to zoom, up to 8×. Drag to look around while zoomed. Double-tap a spot to zoom in on it, and double-tap again to see the whole picture.
Full screen turns the picture to its own shape: landscape for an ordinary camera, upright for one mounted sideways to cover a hallway. It works with the iPhone’s rotation lock on.
Turning the iPhone on its side also fills the screen, unless its rotation lock is on.
In full screen, tap the picture to show or hide the controls. They hide by themselves after a few seconds.

Choose the stream

A camera can offer more than one stream. The first is always its main stream, at full resolution. Others come from your server’s configuration, most often a smaller substream, and are named as Frigate’s web interface names them. Pick one from the Stream control under the picture, or in full screen, from the chip at the top.

A smaller stream is the thing to choose on a slow connection: if the picture keeps stalling, the app says so and suggests one. The choice isn’t automatic, because every switch is a short reconnection.

On Fregata NVR Fregata NVR only, the server also offers lighter versions of each camera, made on the fly at lower bit rates. Away from home, live view opens on a lighter one by itself; any other is a tap away, and the chip says what you’re watching, such as 720p · 1.5 Mbps.

Sound

The speaker at the top turns sound on or off for every camera at once, live and in recordings, and the app remembers it. It’s only there when the stream carries audio. Sound plays through the speaker, headphones or AirPlay like any other video, and plays even with the iPhone’s silent switch on.

This camera’s alerts

Alerts under the picture is the quickest way to quiet one camera This iPhone only:

Snooze: holds this camera’s alerts back on this iPhone for 15 minutes, an hour, four hours, or a time you choose with Other…, then ends by itself. While it’s on, the control reads Snoozed and End Snooze ends it early.
Alerts from this camera: turns the camera off in the notification filter in force, until you turn it back on. Other filters keep their own setting. If no filter is on, turning it off starts one called Home.
Objects, zones, sounds and level: everything else about this camera in that filter.

Nothing here changes the server or anyone else’s alerts. To stop a camera’s alerts for everyone, see Turn a camera’s alerts off for everyone.

The camera’s own switches

With an administrator account, Settings under the picture turns parts of the camera on or off on the server Everyone on your server Needs an administrator:

Switch	Off means
Camera	The camera stops entirely: no stream, no detection, no recording.
Object detection	Frigate stops looking for people, cars and animals. Recording carries on.
Recording	Nothing is written to disk. What happens while it’s off can’t be recovered.
Snapshots	No still is saved with each event.

These are Frigate’s own switches, the same as in its web interface, so they change things for everyone. They last until the server restarts: on restart, each goes back to what Frigate’s configuration file says. To change one for good, change the configuration.

Stream stats

The gauge at the top opens a panel of numbers about the stream as it arrives:


Stream	Which stream, and how it’s delivered: go2rtc · MSE normally, Frigate · jsmpeg for the fallback.
Codec	H.264, HEVC, or MPEG-1 for the fallback, and whether it’s decoded in hardware.
Resolution and Frame rate	What’s actually arriving.
Bandwidth	The bit rate right now.
Frames	How many were shown, and how many dropped.
Latency	The small delay the app adds to keep playback smooth.
Opened in	How long the stream took to start.
Video / audio	Whether each is flowing.

They’re the numbers to look at when a camera plays badly. See Live video problems.

Reduced quality and fallback

When the full-quality stream can’t play, the app doesn’t give up: it plays the best thing it can, and a line under the picture says what and why. A Fallback badge marks Frigate’s own low-resolution picture, which is smaller, slower and silent.

You see	Why	What to do
This camera is not restreamed through go2rtc	Frigate has no go2rtc stream for it, so only its fallback exists.	Add a go2rtc restream in Frigate’s configuration.
go2rtc could not open this camera’s stream	go2rtc couldn’t reach the camera, or rejected the stream.	Check the camera’s stream in go2rtc on your server.
… could not be decoded, so … is playing instead	This iPhone can’t decode that stream’s format.	Pick another stream, or change the camera’s codec.
Reduced — device is warm	The iPhone is hot, so the app lightens the load.	It returns to normal once it cools.
Paused — app is in the background	Live video only plays while the app is open.	It resumes when you come back.

Every message, and the fix for each, is in Live video problems.