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Eight camera views from Tapo, Ring, Arlo, and UniFi arranged in a two-row grid on a light gray background. With the Seam camera APIs, your application can react to what happens at a property’s doors and entryways. You use the same connected accounts, devices, events, and webhooks that you already use for locks and thermostats. Seam handles each camera provider’s cloud or local protocol for you. The camera APIs cover three things:
  • Events. Seam emits a camera.activated event when a camera detects motion and a device.doorbell_rang event when someone presses a video doorbell.
  • Event media. Each event lists the IDs of the clip and thumbnail captured for it. You exchange an ID for a short-lived URL with /media/get.
  • Live video. You play a camera’s live feed in your user’s browser over WebRTC with the /cameras/live_views endpoints.
Camera APIs are in public beta. Live video is enabled by default in production and sandbox workspaces. You don’t need to request access. The request and response shapes for event media and live video may change before general availability.

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Supported Providers

Each camera reports the can_stream_live_video capability flag at the top level of its device object. Check that it is true before offering a live view, and check it again immediately before opening the session. It is true only when the provider supports live video and the camera is online. It is false when live video is unsupported or the camera is offline; local cameras also need their paired Seam Bridge online.

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Event Media

When a camera detects motion or a doorbell is pressed, the event’s media_ids array lists one ID for each piece of media Seam expects for it, usually a video clip and a thumbnail image.
  1. Subscribe a webhook to camera.activated and device.doorbell_rang.
  2. Store each event’s media_ids with its event_id and device_id.
  3. When you need the media, call /media/get with a media_id. The response includes the media’s status and, once it’s available, a signed url that expires within minutes.
  4. To download the file from a server-side client, pass format=redirect. Seam responds with a 302 to the signed URL.
Store the media ID, not the URL. Call /media/get again whenever you need a fresh URL. See Retrieve Event Media for the full workflow, statuses, and errors.

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Live Video

Live video streams straight from the camera to your user’s browser. Your servers never handle the video, and your API key never reaches the browser.
  1. On your backend, use your API key to create a client session that has access to the camera’s connected account, and send its token to the browser.
  2. In the browser, call /cameras/live_views/create for a camera whose can_stream_live_video is true.
  3. Send the browser’s WebRTC offer to /cameras/live_views/offer, then apply the answer to play the video.
  4. Call /cameras/live_views/stop when your user closes the player.
All three live view endpoints require the client session token. Sending your workspace API key directly to a live view endpoint returns 401 Unauthorized. See Stream Live Video for a complete browser example and provider session limits.

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Next Steps