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Manual

Setting up Yapaia Vision

Connect the grabber, name the channels, bring the reversing camera into your dashboard.

What you need

  • An analogue camera, e.g. a reversing camera with an RCA plug.
  • A USB video grabber. Anything Home Assistant OS recognises as a video device works (drivers usbtv, stk1160, em28xx, cx231xx, uvcvideo) – plus the EasyCAP002 “4CH USB DVR”, for which Vision brings its own programs.
  • The Yapaia Vision add-on from the Yapaia store (see Installation).

Setup

  1. Plug the grabber into the Home Assistant computer. On Proxmox: pass the USB device through to the Home Assistant VM.
  2. Start the add-on. The log shows which grabber was found and which channel goes to which input.
  3. Home Assistant reports “Yapaia Vision discovered” → Add. If it is your first Yapaia add-on, restart Home Assistant once.

No grabber yet? Switch on Test picture in the configuration. Every channel then shows its name and the time.

The EasyCAP002 needs firmware

Linux has no driver for this stick. Vision talks to it directly, but needs the firmware from its Windows driver:

  1. From the CD that came with the stick, take SmiUsbGrabber3F.sys or SmiUsbGrabber3E.sys – or simply the whole Setup.exe.
  2. Upload it on Yapaia Vision’s page (the button appears as long as the firmware is missing), or put it in /share/yapaia-vision/ and restart Vision.

Proxmox: pass the stick through by USB port, not by vendor and device ID. With the firmware loaded, it re-registers under a new ID, and a pass-through by ID would lose it.

Channels

In the add-on configuration, add one entry under Channels per camera, in the order of the grabber’s inputs. The name becomes the camera’s name in Home Assistant; the entity ID stays the same when you rename it (camera.yapaia_vision_kamera_1 …).

  • One grabber with several inputs (most four-channel sticks): only one channel is live at a time; the others show their last picture.
  • One device per input: all channels run at the same time.

If the sockets are not labelled, change the channel’s eingang (input, 0–3) until the picture is right.

Switching

  • The Channel select (select.yapaia_vision_kanal) – for example in an automation when reverse gear is engaged.
  • The action Yapaia: Vision select channel (yapaia.vision_kanal_waehlen) with e.g. kanal: Rückfahrkamera.
  • On the add-on’s page in the sidebar.

A good picture

  • TV standard: PAL for most cameras from Europe. Many reversing cameras send NTSC, though – then set NTSC and the resolution 720x480. With the wrong standard, the picture rolls, stays black and white, or shows a green bar at the bottom.
  • Deinterlace helps against comb artefacts in motion.
  • Always capture: the picture is there immediately. Otherwise capture starts as soon as someone watches and keeps running for the configured run-on time (“Run-on”).