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. In full screen, or with the iPhone on its side, a zoomed picture grows over the black bars around it, so a very wide camera can fill the screen.
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.

Move a PTZ camera

When Frigate has ONVIF set up for a camera that can pan, tilt or zoom, live view shows the same PTZ controls as Frigate’s web interface: with the other controls, or along the bottom of the picture in full screen and landscape. A control appears only when the camera reports it can do that, and only while the camera is on. Any account can use them, not just an administrator Everyone on your server.

The arrows pan left and right and tilt up and down. Hold one: the camera moves while your finger is down and stops when you lift it.
Zoom in and zoom out, held the same way.
Focus nearer and farther, held the same way, on a camera that can focus.
Tap to move: the viewfinder button. While it’s on, tapping the picture turns the camera to center that spot. On Frigate 0.18, dragging a box from its top left to its bottom right centers the box and zooms in to fill the picture with it, and dragging the other way zooms out. Tap the button again to turn it off and get pinch-to-zoom back.
Presets: the … button lists the positions saved in the camera. Choose one to go there.

Moving the camera moves it for everyone watching it.

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.

The server makes only the versions smaller than the camera’s own picture, so a 1080p camera has no 1080p one, and none for a camera whose video it doesn’t transcode. The app asks the server which it has and offers only those. An older server can’t say, so the app offers every version in its configuration; if you open one it doesn’t have, the main stream plays instead, a line under the picture says so, and the app stops offering that camera’s lighter versions until the app or the server restarts. If a smaller version has already played, only the missing one and any larger ones go.

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.

Talk through a camera

When Frigate has two-way talk set up for a camera, live view shows Talk: on the same cameras and streams as the microphone button in Frigate’s web interface. It’s under the other controls, or along the bottom of the picture in full screen and landscape. Any account can use it, not just an administrator.

Tap Talk to start. The first time, iOS asks to let Fregata use the microphone. After a moment of Connecting…, what you say plays from the camera’s speaker.
It’s a conversation, as on a phone call: you hear the camera while you talk, and your iPhone cancels the echo of its own speaker, so the person at the camera doesn’t hear themselves. Talking turns the camera’s sound on if it was off.
Tap Stop talking to end it. Leaving the camera, choosing another stream or leaving the app ends it too, so the microphone is never left on.

Two-way talk needs:

The camera’s two-way talk set up in Frigate, as Frigate’s documentation describes. If your configuration gives talk a stream of its own, as Frigate suggests, choose that stream under Stream first: Talk follows the stream, as Frigate’s button does.
A route to your server’s port 8555, the port go2rtc uses for WebRTC. Watching goes through the same address as the rest of the app, but your voice goes straight to that port, not through a tunnel such as Cloudflare Tunnel. At home, over a VPN such as Tailscale, or with the port forwarded on your router, you can count on that route. With a tunnel alone, talk can still connect if your iPhone and server find a way through both networks using STUN, but that depends on your router and mobile carrier. Frigate’s web interface works the same way. If talk can’t connect, a line under the button says why.

The camera’s sound comes through the talk connection when it’s G.711 or Opus, which most camera microphones are. A camera that sends only AAC still plays, but the iPhone can’t cancel its echo: use headphones, or give the camera’s go2rtc stream an Opus copy, as Frigate’s WebRTC setup shows.

On some cameras, the picture pauses for a moment when you start talking, while go2rtc opens the camera’s speaker. Frigate’s web interface does the same.

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. The switches are the ones Frigate’s web interface shows for that camera: Audio detection only when the camera’s configuration sets it up, and Autotracking only on a PTZ camera set up to track.

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.
Audio detection	Frigate stops listening for sounds like barking, speech and alarms.
Autotracking	The camera stops turning to follow what it detects.

While the camera is off, the other switches can’t be changed. Nor can Recording on a camera whose configuration doesn’t set recording up: Frigate can only turn recording on at run time where its configuration file allows it.

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.
Talk	Only while you’re talking: go2rtc · WebRTC, the connection your voice travels on. The picture keeps its own, so Transport still says go2rtc · MSE.

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.
The server does not have … for this camera, so … is playing instead	Fregata NVR only That lighter version doesn’t exist on the server for this camera.	Nothing: the main stream is playing.
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.