Home Assistant RTSP Camera & go2rtc Low-Latency Setup Guide
Stream IP cameras to Home Assistant Lovelace dashboards with under 200ms delay using go2rtc and WebRTC.
Need a live RTSP stream link right now to test this setup in VLC or OpenCV?
#1Configuring go2rtc in Home Assistant
Add your camera streams to go2rtc.yaml for instant WebRTC transcoding and 2-way audio support. If you need help finding your camera model's exact stream syntax, construct your paths with our IP Camera RTSP URL Builder:
streams:
driveway_cam:
- rtsp://admin:password@192.168.1.64:554/Streaming/Channels/101
- "ffmpeg:driveway_cam#audio=opus"
backyard_cam:
- rtsp://admin:password@192.168.1.108:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0#2Lovelace WebRTC Camera Card
Use the custom webrtc-camera card in your Lovelace dashboard for instantaneous playback without HLS buffering delay. To understand the protocol-level performance differences, read our RTSP vs WebRTC Low-Latency Comparison:
type: custom:webrtc-camera
url: driveway_cam
title: Driveway HD
muted: trueFrequently Asked Questions
Why is standard Home Assistant camera stream delayed by 10 seconds?
By default, Home Assistant converts RTSP into HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) with 3 segments of 2-3 seconds each. Using go2rtc switches the stream to WebRTC or MSE, dropping latency to under 200 milliseconds.
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