Smart Home Camera Guide

action.devices.types.CAMERA - Cameras are complex and features will vary significantly between vendors. Over time, cameras will acquire many traits and attributes describing specific capabilities, many of which may interact with the video/audio stream in special ways, such as sending a stream to another device, identifying what's in the stream, replaying feeds, etc.

This type indicates that the device gets the Camera icon and some related synonyms and aliases.

Device capabilities

Refer to the corresponding trait documentation for implementation details, such as attributes and states that your service should support, and how to build EXECUTE and QUERY responses.

Required traits

These traits and commands are required, if applicable to your device.

Quality requirements

  • Latency: must be less than or equal to 2000ms.
  • Reliability: must be more than or equal to 97%.

Example device: Simple camera

This section contains example intent payloads representing a common "Camera" based on the device type and traits above. If you add or remove traits in your implementation, modify your responses accordingly to reflect those changes.

Sample SYNC response

Request
{
  "requestId": "6894439706274654512",
  "inputs": [
    {
      "intent": "action.devices.SYNC"
    }
  ]
}
Response
{
  "requestId": "6894439706274654512",
  "payload": {
    "agentUserId": "user123",
    "devices": [
      {
        "id": "123",
        "type": "action.devices.types.CAMERA",
        "traits": [
          "action.devices.traits.CameraStream"
        ],
        "name": {
          "name": "Simple camera"
        },
        "willReportState": true,
        "attributes": {
          "cameraStreamSupportedProtocols": [
            "hls",
            "progressive_mp4"
          ],
          "cameraStreamNeedAuthToken": true,
          "cameraStreamNeedDrmEncryption": false
        },
        "deviceInfo": {
          "manufacturer": "smart-home-inc",
          "model": "hs1234",
          "hwVersion": "3.2",
          "swVersion": "11.4"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Sample QUERY response

Request
{
  "requestId": "6894439706274654514",
  "inputs": [
    {
      "intent": "action.devices.QUERY",
      "payload": {
        "devices": [
          {
            "id": "123"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}
Response
{
  "requestId": "6894439706274654514",
  "payload": {
    "devices": {
      "123": {
        "status": "SUCCESS",
        "online": true
      }
    }
  }
}

Sample EXECUTE commands

GetCameraStream

For additional details on the command parameters, see the action.devices.traits.CameraStream reference.

Request
{
  "requestId": "6894439706274654516",
  "inputs": [
    {
      "intent": "action.devices.EXECUTE",
      "payload": {
        "commands": [
          {
            "devices": [
              {
                "id": "123"
              }
            ],
            "execution": [
              {
                "command": "action.devices.commands.GetCameraStream",
                "params": {
                  "StreamToChromecast": true,
                  "SupportedStreamProtocols": [
                    "progressive_mp4"
                  ]
                }
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}
Response
{
  "requestId": "6894439706274654516",
  "payload": {
    "commands": [
      {
        "ids": [
          "123"
        ],
        "status": "SUCCESS",
        "states": {
          "online": true,
          "cameraStreamAccessUrl": "https://fluffysheep.com/baaaaa.mp4",
          "cameraStreamReceiverAppId": "1g2f89213hg",
          "cameraStreamAuthToken": "12657342190192783",
          "cameraStreamProtocol": "progressive_mp4"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Device ERRORS

See the full list of errors and exceptions.
  • resourceUnavailable - Any failure related to generating the stream url.