This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/homeassistant by /u/One_of_Eight_Billion on 2025-11-08 04:12:19+00:00.
#frigate #proxmox #docker #rclone #tapo #homeassistant
https://gist.github.com/1ofeightbillion-hub/66c75a53f01833fb10e47f041ec6815b
🧠 After 60+ hours of trial and error, I finally got Frigate + Home Assistant working on Proxmox — here’s my full working guide (based on Mostly Chris’s setup)
Throughout this entire project, I kept thinking I was just one more step away from being done. Every little fix felt like the last piece — until it wasn’t. So, before you dive into this, deeply consider whether you want to take it on. If I’d known how much time and trial it would take, I might’ve chosen an easier route. That said, if you’re stubborn (like me) and want total control over your setup, it’s doable — just expect a serious learning curve.
After what felt like a hundred restarts, broken YAMLs, and Docker rebuilds, I finally got my Frigate + Home Assistant stack running reliably on Proxmox — with Tapo cameras, a Coral USB TPU, and continuous Google Drive backups through rclone.
This post isn’t just a tutorial — it’s a story about how I got there.
I went back and forth with ChatGPT over and over (which was equal parts helpful and maddening). It could generate 90% of what I needed, but it also had a habit of reintroducing old errors or “fixing” things that weren’t broken. After a while, I realized the only way to make progress was to keep a running list of everything that worked — every command, every tweak, every test — and to make only small, deliberate changes each time.
That running log eventually became the guide I’m sharing below.
⚙️ My Hardware / Core Setup
- Host: Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny (i5-8500T, 8 GB RAM)
- Proxmox VE 9.0.3 (Debian 13)
- Home Assistant OS VM — 2 vCPU / 4 GB RAM
- Frigate LXC Container running Docker
- Coral USB TPU — fully detected and stable (USB model)
- No VAAPI (ever again — it caused endless issues for me)
- Tapo cameras: C210 (indoor pan/tilt) and C720 (outdoor floodlight)
I chose Tapo cameras because they’re inexpensive, easy to set up, and — most importantly — expose a native RTSP stream, which made integrating them into Frigate and go2rtc straightforward. I initially spent days trying to hack old Yi Home and Waze cameras to get RTSP working. I eventually got one Yi cam running, but it was fragile — random disconnects, flaky firmware, and constant tinkering. Adding more cameras and Frigate features made it worse. Switching to Tapo solved most of the instability immediately.
☁️ The Backup Journey (rclone + Google Drive)
My first plan was to keep things simple: run Home Assistant OS directly on the Mini PC, install rclone inside it, and back up recordings to Google Drive. That… did not go as planned.
HAOS is great for automation, but it’s relatively locked down for low-level system tasks. In my case, rclone wouldn’t run reliably inside HAOS, and the Coral USB TPU wouldn’t pass through or be recognized reliably. I tried multiple workarounds, but none gave me stable continuous backups and functional object detection.
So I split the workload under Proxmox:
- Home Assistant OS (VM) → automations, integrations, UI
- Frigate in its own LXC (Docker) → object detection and camera recording
- rclone inside the Frigate LXC → continuous sync to Google Drive
Once Frigate and rclone lived together in the same LXC, continuous backups became reliable. I run rclone via a systemd service that continuously syncs footage while Frigate records locally. I also built a health-check script to quickly verify Coral, rclone logs, and the Frigate container.
🔧 Based on (and adapted from) Mostly Chris’s Docker setup
The backbone of this project came from Mostly Chris’s excellent Docker guide — huge credit to him. His instructions got me most of the way there, but a few parts (hardware acceleration, some LXC permissions) didn’t translate cleanly to my Proxmox environment, so I reworked them for a CPU-only + Coral USB workflow.
🧩 What’s inside my guide
The full guide (linked below) includes:
- Full working Docker Compose + Frigate YAML
- Step-by-step LXC container setup for Frigate
- go2rtc restreams for all cameras
- Continuous Google Drive backup with rclone and systemd
- Health-check script for Frigate, rclone, and Coral TPU
- Event-based vs continuous recording examples
🔁 My recommendation for others (use AI — but don’t lose your brain)
If you plan to use this guide, here’s a practical tip that saved me a ton of repetitive work: feed this guide into your favorite AI assistant along with the specifics of your own setup (device names, camera models, VM/LXC IDs, user accounts, paths, etc.), and have the AI generate pasting-ready scripts and config files with placeholders replaced for your environment. That way you get ready-to-run commands and YAML that match your exact setup.
That said — don’t blindly copy-paste everything and don’t rely on AI as a substitute for understanding. Use Google, the official docs, and community posts as well. Double-check permissions, device paths, and service names before you run anything. Keep a running log of changes, and make small, reversible edits so you can roll back if something breaks. In short: use AI to speed the boring parts, but keep your brain on.
🔗 References
If you’re trying to run Frigate + Home Assistant on Proxmox — especially with Tapo cams, a Coral TPU, and Google Drive backups — this might help you skip a few sleepless nights. At the very least, it proves you can get all of this running smoothly on a little Lenovo Tiny box with patience, logs, and a lot of coffee. ☕
LINK TO THE GUIDE:
Home Server Guide: Proxmox + HAOS + Frigate + Coral TPU (Verified Working Build)
