Compatibility
Devices
Section titled “Devices”| Needs | |
|---|---|
| iPhone and iPad | iOS or iPadOS 26 or later |
| Apple Watch | watchOS 26 or later, paired with an iPhone running the app |
| AI descriptions of alerts and events | iOS 27, on an iPhone or iPad that supports Apple Intelligence, with it switched on |
| Running a shortcut when an alert arrives | iOS 27 |
| Live Activities | An iPhone; the Dynamic Island on iPhones that have one, and the Smart Stack on a paired Apple Watch |
The app is in English, Spanish, French and German, and follows the device’s language. Frigate’s object names, such as person and license plate, are shown in that language too, the way Frigate’s own web interface names them.
On iPad, the app uses the extra room: Cameras, Review, Explore and Settings show a list and its detail side by side.
Servers
Section titled “Servers”Fregata Mobile works with Frigate 0.17 or later and every version of Fregata, the native port of Frigate for Apple silicon Macs. Older versions of Frigate aren’t supported.
Connect the app to Frigate’s signed-in port, 8971 by default, and sign in. Alerts are registered to an account, and which one depends on how the app connects:
- Sign-in can be off. With it off, alerts are filed under the
adminaccount, which Frigate and Fregata create the first time they start with sign-in on, as they do by default. Only a server that has had sign-in off since it was installed has no such account: it accepts the app’s registration and silently saves nothing. Turn sign-in on and restart it once to create the account. - Not port 5000. Frigate’s internal port, 5000, skips sign-in. Live view works over it, but
while sign-in is on, Frigate files an alert registration made through it under an
anonymoususer that has no account: the registration reports success, saves nothing, and no alerts arrive. Use port 8971. When the app is connected through port 5000, Server Notification Setup says so, and Settings › Diagnostics shows Connected without signing in.
Frigate 0.17 and 0.18
Section titled “Frigate 0.17 and 0.18”Almost everything works the same on both. The differences:
| 0.17 | 0.18 | |
|---|---|---|
| Ask Frigate for a test notification, in Server Notification Setup | Not accepted, even from an administrator. Walk past a camera instead. | ✓ |
Extras on Fregata NVR
Section titled “Extras on Fregata NVR”With a server running Fregata NVR, the app also:
- offers lighter live streams for every camera, made on the fly, and opens on a lighter one away from home;
- plays recordings that adapt to a slow connection;
- shows which part of the Mac runs detection, such as the Neural Engine, on the server status screen.
Accounts
Section titled “Accounts”Any Frigate account works. An administrator account also lets the app change the server: setting up alerts for you, turning a camera’s detection, recording, snapshots and notifications on or off for everyone, camera groups, and restarting. A viewer can do everything else. The full list is in Administrator or viewer.
Frigate can give an account access to only some cameras. The app shows that account only those cameras.
Networks
Section titled “Networks”The app reaches your server directly, at home or away: over your home network, a VPN such as Tailscale, Cloudflare Tunnel and Access, or a reverse proxy. Alerts arrive through Apple’s push service, wherever the iPhone is.