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Live Video

You can watch the monitor's camera in Homey.

Watching the camera​

  1. Open the Homey Mobile App or Homey Web App.
  2. Go to Devices and open your baby monitor.
  3. Open the Camera video on the device.

The video starts after a few seconds, while Homey and the monitor set up the stream.

How it works​

The monitors stream video over WebRTC, the same technique video calls in a browser use. When you open the camera, Homey asks the app for a stream, and the app asks the monitor for one through the Philips Avent (Tuya) cloud, the same way the official app does.

The monitors send their video with timing information that makes players stutter. So by default the video passes through the app on your Homey, which corrects the timing before passing it on to Homey. The video itself is not decoded, changed or stored; it goes from the monitor over your home network to Homey, and from Homey to the device you're watching on. You can turn this off with the Smooth video setting, and the video then goes straight from the monitor to Homey, but stutters.

Things to know​

  • Privacy mode blocks the video. Privacy mode turns the camera off, so while it is on Homey shows "Privacy mode is on, so the camera is off." Turn privacy mode off to watch.
  • Monitors added before video support need one Repair. The video needs a bit more from the sign-in than the rest of the app. If your monitor was added with an older version of the app, Homey shows "Use Repair on this device and sign in again to enable video." Run Repair once and the video, and the Wi-Fi signal, work from then on.
  • There is no snapshot image. The app offers the live video only, not a still image of the camera. That means there is no camera image to put in a notification or a Flow.
  • Sometimes the camera doesn't answer in time. Homey then shows "The camera didn't start the video. Try again in a moment." Close the video and open it again.
  • At most two streams per monitor. With Smooth video on, each viewer gets a stream from the monitor. When a third one starts watching, the oldest stream is closed.
  • Some SCD973 units stop the lullaby when the video starts. A play pressed while the video is still starting waits until it runs, so it doesn't get stopped right away. A lullaby that was already playing can stop when you open the camera; play it again.
  • Your Homey must support camera video. On a Homey that doesn't, the rest of the app works as usual, but there is no video on the device.