📞 Ring Intercom Video Camera

🏠 Home Assistant custom integration that adds a WebRTC live-stream camera for the Ring Intercom Handset Video (2024/2025 model with built-in camera).

The official Ring integration only exposes lock and ding entities for intercoms. This component adds the missing camera entity with native WebRTC live view — the same streaming technology Ring uses for its doorbell cameras.

---

🧩 The full picture: backend + frontend

This repository is the backend integration. There is a companion Lovelace card that pairs with it to give you the full intercom experience (video, two‑way audio, open door, hang up) from any HA dashboard.

Piece	Repo	What it does
🛰️ Integration (this repo)	ring-intercom-video	Creates the camera.* entity and bridges WebRTC signaling between HA and Ring
🎛️ Lovelace card	ring-intercom-video-card	UI with two‑way audio, pick‑up / hang‑up and open‑door buttons

You can use this integration on its own (you'll get a working camera entity), but the card is what turns it into a real intercom on your dashboards or wallpanels.

---

✨ Why?

The Ring Intercom Video replaces analog intercoms (e.g. Fermax, Tegui, Comelit) and includes a camera that digitizes the analog CVBS video signal. However:

• ❌ The official HA Ring integration doesn't create camera entities for intercoms
• ❌ Standard Ring snapshot/recording APIs don't work for this device (they require Ring Protect)
• ✅ The device does support WebRTC live view, using the exact same protocol as Ring doorbells

This component bridges that gap.

---

🛠️ How it works

Lovelace (browser)  <-->  Camera Entity  <-->  Ring Signaling  <-->  Ring Intercom
   [WebRTC peer]         [SDP/ICE bridge]      [WebSocket]          [720x576 H.264]

1. 🖥️ You open the camera card in your dashboard
2. 🌐 Your browser creates a WebRTC connection (SDP offer)
3. 🔀 This component forwards it to Ring's signaling server via python-ring-doorbell
4. 📨 Ring returns the SDP answer and ICE candidates
5. 🎥 Your browser connects directly to the Ring device — live video at ~25fps

⚡ No server‑side video processing. No aiortc, no ffmpeg, no Pillow for the live stream. The browser handles all the WebRTC decoding natively.

---

🎛️ Companion Lovelace card

For a full intercom experience, install the companion card:

👉 ring-intercom-video-card

What the card adds on top of this integration:

• 📹 Live video in any Lovelace dashboard
• 🎤 Two‑way audio with a push‑to‑talk button (uses your browser's microphone)
• 📞 Pick up / Hang up buttons (clean WebRTC session teardown — releases mic and camera)
• 🔓 Open door button (calls lock.unlock or any custom service of your choice)
• 🪟 Pop‑up on a wallpanel — pairs nicely with browser_mod so a ding can automatically open the card as a popup on your tablet / wallpanel
• 🌍 Multi‑language UI (Spanish, English, Catalan) with auto‑detection
• 🛠️ Visual editor — pick entities, no YAML needed

💡 Suggested setup: integration + card + browser_mod automation triggered on binary_sensor.<intercom>_ding → instant doorphone on every wallpanel in the house.

---

🔌 Device compatibility

Device	Kind	Supported
Ring Intercom Handset Video (2024/2025)	intercom_handset_video	✅ Yes
Ring Intercom (audio only)	intercom_handset_audio	❌ No (no camera)

Tested with Fermax 3304/99139 (5‑wire) as the predecessor analog intercom.

---

⚠️ Important: camera behavior

The analog intercom camera (Fermax CVBS) only outputs video when activated:

• 🛎️ During a ding — someone presses the call button on the street panel
• 🖐️ Manual activation — pressing the camera button on the indoor handset

When the camera is not active, the stream shows a black image. This is normal — it's how analog intercoms work.

💡 Tip: If you have a Zigbee/Z‑Wave relay connected to the camera button on your indoor unit, you can trigger the camera via HA automation before opening the stream.

---

📥 Installation

🟢 HACS (recommended)

1. Open HACS in Home Assistant
2. Go to Integrations → click the ⋮ menu (top right) → Custom repositories
3. Add this URL: https://github.com/cmos486/ring-intercom-video
4. Category: Integration
5. Click Add, then search for "Ring Intercom Video Camera" and download it
6. Restart Home Assistant

🔧 Manual

1. Copy the custom_components/ring_intercom_camera/ folder to your HA custom_components/ directory
2. Restart Home Assistant

---

⚙️ Configuration

Add to your configuration.yaml:

ring_intercom_camera:

Restart Home Assistant. The component will auto‑discover intercom_handset_video devices from your existing Ring integration.

A new camera entity will appear: camera.<device_name>_camera 🎉

---

📋 Prerequisites

• ✅ The official Ring integration must be configured and working in HA
• ✅ Your Ring account must have an Intercom Handset Video device
• ✅ HACS installed (for HACS installation method)

---

🔐 Authentication

You don't need to configure any credentials. This component reuses the authentication from the official Ring integration already set up in your Home Assistant.

Under the hood:

• 🔑 The official Ring integration handles all login / OAuth / 2FA via its config flow (Settings → Integrations → Ring)
• 🔗 This component declares ring as a dependency and accesses the already‑authenticated Ring API client from hass.data["ring"]
• 🚫 No tokens, passwords, or API keys are stored or managed by this component

If your Ring integration is working (you can see your intercom's lock and ding entities), this component will work too — no extra login needed.

---

🎨 Dashboard setup

You have two options:

• 🎛️ Use the companion Ring Intercom Video Card (recommended) — full intercom UX with video + two‑way audio + open door + hang up.
• 📷 Use a built‑in card — any Picture Entity or Camera card. When you click the live view button, WebRTC streaming starts automatically. (Video only — no two‑way audio.)

---

🧪 Technical details

This component:

1. 🐒 Monkey‑patches RingOther (the intercom class in python-ring-doorbell) to add WebRTC streaming methods — the same methods that RingDoorBell has for doorbell cameras
2. 🎥 Creates a camera entity with CameraEntityFeature.STREAM that implements the HA WebRTC signaling interface (async_handle_async_webrtc_offer, async_on_webrtc_candidate, close_webrtc_session)
3. 🛰️ Uses python-ring-doorbell's RingWebRtcStream for all signaling — no custom WebSocket/HTTP code needed

---

🔧 Troubleshooting

❓ No camera entity appears after restart

• Check that the official Ring integration is working (Settings → Integrations → Ring)
• Verify your device is an intercom_handset_video (not intercom_handset_audio)
• Check HA logs for ring_intercom_camera entries

❓ Live view shows black / no video

• This is expected when the Fermax camera is not active
• The analog camera only outputs video during a ding or manual activation
• Try pressing the call button on the street panel, then open the live view

❓ Live view button doesn't appear

• Make sure you're using a browser that supports WebRTC (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge — all current versions)
• Check that CameraEntityFeature.STREAM is listed in the entity attributes

❓ Two‑way audio doesn't work / microphone is silent

• The browser requires a secure context (HTTPS) to access the microphone
• Use Nabu Casa, a reverse proxy with Let's Encrypt, or a native HA HTTPS certificate
• Also make sure you're using the companion card — built‑in HA camera cards do not implement two‑way audio

❓ Ring Protect subscription

• Not required. This component uses WebRTC live view which works without any subscription
• Snapshots and recordings stored in the cloud do require Ring Protect, but this component doesn't use those APIs

---

🙏 Attribution

This integration builds on top of:

• 📚 python-ring-doorbell (LGPL‑3.0) — Python library for Ring devices. This component monkey‑patches its RingOther class at runtime to add WebRTC stream support for intercom devices.
• 🏠 Home Assistant Ring Integration (Apache 2.0) — The camera entity's WebRTC signaling interface is modeled after the official Ring camera implementation in HA Core.

---

📄 License

Apache License 2.0

Copyright 2026 Kilian Ubeda Cano