Frequently asked questions

How do I use it with an untested version of UniFi Video?

Use the keyword argument check_ufv_version when creating an API instance:

from unifi_video import UnifiVideoAPI
uva = UnifiVideoAPI(api_key='xxxxxx', addr='10.3.2.1', check_ufv_version=False)

How to skip cert verification?

Use the keyword argument verify_cert when creating an API instance:

from unifi_video import UnifiVideoAPI
uva = UnifiVideoAPI(api_key='xxxxxx', addr='10.3.2.1', verify_cert=False)

How do I use an open file descriptor, or another file-like object to save a snapshot with?

The filename param of snapshot() can be set to True to force the method to return the raw response body. You can then do with it as you please.

from unifi_video import UnifiVideoAPI

uva = UnifiVideoAPI(api_key='xxxxxx', addr='10.3.2.1')
camera = uva.get_camera('Garage')

some_file_like_object.write(camera.snapshot(filename=True))

This goes for all the download methods:

• unifi_video.camera.UnifiVideoCamera.snapshot()
• unifi_video.camera.UnifiVideoCamera.recording_between()
• unifi_video.recording.UnifiVideoRecording.snapshot()
• unifi_video.recording.UnifiVideoRecording.download()

What is the difference between the three camera collections?

A UnifiVideoAPI object has three camera collections:

from unifi_video import UnifiVideoAPI

uva = UnifiVideoAPI(api_key='xxxxxx', addr='10.3.2.1')

for camera in uva.cameras:
  print(camera)

for camera in uva.active_cameras:
  print(camera)

for camera in uva.managed_cameras:
  print(camera)

UnifiVideoAPI.cameras

Contains every camera the associated UniFi Video server is aware of. These could be anything from an unmanaged camera on the network to an old long ago removed camera that still has a lingering database entry.

UnifiVideoAPI.managed_cameras

Only contains cameras that are managed by the UniFi Video server. Note that this does not exclude cameras that are offline.

UnifiVideoAPI.active_cameras

Cameras that are both managed by the UniFi Video server and currently online.

unifi-video-api, unifi-video, unifi_video: which is it?

unifi-video-api is the name of the Github repository, unifi_video is the name of the python package, and unifi-video is the name of the PyPI package that contains the unifi_video python package.