Camera

A Camera card shows a still image from a Home Assistant camera or image entity. It is useful for doorbells, driveway cameras, room snapshots, weather cameras, or any Home Assistant image entity you want visible on the panel.

Camera cards are display cards. They do not stream live video, pan the camera, or send camera control actions. Tapping the card opens a larger view of the latest loaded image.

P4 screens only

Camera cards are not supported on the ESP32-S3 screen because it has an older, slower processor and less available memory than the ESP32-P4 screens.

Setting Up a Camera Card

1. Select a card and change its type to Camera Card.
2. Enter a Camera Entity, for example camera.front_door.
3. Optionally turn on Show Label and enter a label. If the label is blank, EspControl uses the entity name from Home Assistant.
4. Optionally turn on Show Icon and choose an icon. The default icon is Camera.
5. Choose Expanded Image:
   • Crop to fit fills the expanded view and may crop the edges.
   • Show full image keeps the whole image visible and may leave empty space around it.

The card accepts both camera.* and image.* entities, so image.latest_package_snapshot works as well as camera.front_door.

How It Works on the Panel

• The card asks Home Assistant for the entity picture and downloads it through Home Assistant.
• The small card shows a resized snapshot so it fits the grid tile.
• Tapping the card opens a larger image view with a back button.
• The card refreshes when Home Assistant reports a new entity picture or an entity state update.
• If the image cannot be loaded, the card shows Loading, Unavailable, Configure, or Too many instead of leaving a blank tile.
• Camera cards can be used on the main page or inside subpages.

Practical Limits

Camera images use more memory than normal control cards, so EspControl limits how many can be active at once.

ESP32-P4 screens support up to 6 Camera cards total. This limit is shared across the main page and all subpages combined. For example, 4 Camera cards on the main page and 2 Camera cards inside subpages reaches the limit.

If you see a Too many message or a warning while saving, reduce the number of Camera cards across the main page and subpages.

For best results, use a few important camera snapshots rather than filling a whole page with cameras. Wider or larger card sizes usually make camera images easier to recognise.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to check
The card says Configure	Add a camera.* or image.* entity to the card.
The card says Unavailable	Check that the entity exists in Home Assistant and has an image available.
The card says Too many	Remove or move some Camera cards so the panel has enough image download slots.
The picture is cropped	Change Expanded Image to Show full image.
The picture does not update often	Check whether the Home Assistant camera entity itself is updating its snapshot image.