Baby Monitor — RTSP Audio Noise Alert for Home Assistant

A lightweight Docker container that continuously monitors audio from an RTSP camera stream and sends alerts to Home Assistant when noise exceeds a configurable threshold. Designed for baby monitoring but works with any RTSP camera.

How It Works

Uses FFmpeg's ebur128 filter to sample audio volume from the RTSP stream every few seconds. When the volume exceeds the threshold for N consecutive readings, it fires a webhook to Home Assistant and publishes the raw volume to an MQTT topic.

RTSP Camera → FFmpeg → Volume check → MQTT (live volume)
                                    → HA Webhook (noise alert)

Features:

• Configurable dBFS threshold and trigger count (avoids false positives)
• Dual camera support — automatically falls back to a secondary URL on connection loss
• Auto-reconnect loop with configurable retry delay
• MQTT volume publishing for dashboards/graphs
• Home Assistant webhook integration for automations
• Fully configurable via environment variables — no code changes needed

Quick Start

Docker Compose

services:
  baby-monitor:
    image: ghcr.io/aldendana/ha-baby-monitor:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - CAMERA_URL=rtsp://user:pass@192.168.1.x:554/stream
      - THRESHOLD=-30
      - MQTT_HOST=192.168.1.x
      - MQTT_USER=mqtt_user
      - MQTT_PASS=mqtt_password
      - WEBHOOK_URL=http://homeassistant:8123/api/webhook/your_webhook_id

Build locally

docker build -t baby-monitor .
docker run --restart unless-stopped \
  -e CAMERA_URL="rtsp://user:pass@192.168.1.x:554/stream" \
  -e THRESHOLD=-30 \
  -e MQTT_HOST=192.168.1.x \
  -e MQTT_USER=mqtt_user \
  -e MQTT_PASS=mqtt_password \
  -e WEBHOOK_URL="http://homeassistant:8123/api/webhook/your_webhook_id" \
  baby-monitor

Environment Variables

Home Assistant Setup

1. Create the webhook automation

- alias: Baby noise alert
  triggers:
    - trigger: webhook
      webhook_id: baby_noise_alert
      allowed_methods: [POST]
      local_only: true
  actions:
    - action: notify.mobile_app_your_phone
      data:
        title: Baby Monitor
        message: Noise detected in baby room

2. MQTT sensor for live volume (optional)

mqtt:
  sensor:
    - name: Baby Room Volume
      state_topic: home/baby_monitor/volume
      unit_of_measurement: dB
      device_class: signal_strength

Threshold Tuning

The ebur128 filter measures integrated loudness in dBFS. Typical values:

Start with -30 and adjust based on the MQTT volume readings. Enable debug logging (FFMPEG_LOGLEVEL=verbose) to see real-time volume output.

License

MIT — see LICENSE

Support

This is a spare-time project, shared free under the MIT licence and maintained as time allows. If it saved you an afternoon, you're welcome to sponsor on GitHub or buy me a coffee — completely optional, and it never gates features, fixes or support. A good bug report is worth more than a donation.