Add support for reconfigure step

[daltskin]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
When running multiple frigate deployments for testing (not at the same time) being able to easily switch the instance that HA is using easily would be handy.

Describe the solution you'd like
Would be great to have a UI option eg. in the Frigate Integration options to tweak this, which then warns to restart HA & reload the integration to pick up the change.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Currently the alternative is to go and manually edit the core.device_registry and do a search and replace on the IP address which is error prone.

Additional context
Had a bit of an experiment, maybe add a new field something like this?

Thanks for the great integration though :)

[dermotduffy]

When running multiple frigate deployments for testing (not at the same time) being able to easily switch the instance that HA is using easily would be handy.

I'm sure you know this, but just to confirm: You can always just configure multiple instances of the Frigate integration within HA (e.g. I have multiple Frigate instances connected to a single HA instance all the time). You just cannot change the connection URL after you create one.

Would be great to have a UI option eg. in the Frigate Integration options to tweak this, which then warns to restart HA & reload the integration to pick up the change.

The HA design philosophy is for the (i) parameters required for the integration to function in the first place, to be separate from (ii) options where the integration can figure out reasonable defaults. The URL is in category (i), and HA does not allow these parameters to be changed by design choice. You'll notice there are not [to my knowledge] any core integrations that allow what you are asking for.

Definitely think this is technically possible, but it does create a bunch of corner cases / code complexity (e.g. we'd unavoidably have a URL field associated with the config entry and another one in the options field and need to choose, the title of the whole config entry is the currently the host -- would we change this if the option is set?), etc, etc.

Summary: Reasonable request, wouldn't recommend we implement it though, as it's code complexity for limited gain, and if we ever chose to move this integration into HA Core, we'd very likely have to undo this.

[daltskin]

Thanks @dermotduffy for the swift response and explanation here. First time I've looked at the development side of Frigate and HA so there is a lot to unpack!

I'm sure you know this, but just to confirm: You can always just configure multiple instances of the Frigate integration within HA (e.g. I have multiple Frigate instances connected to a single HA instance all the time). You just cannot change the connection URL after you create one. #

hmm.. I did try that but the camera names then all got an appended number (eg. _2) on the end of each one to differentiate them from the other instance. This broke all the automations they were referenced in and was a pain to go through and fix them up. Was much quicker to do the IP replacement above!

Thanks again!

[dermotduffy]

hmm.. I did try that but the camera names then all got an appended number (eg. _2) on the end of each one to differentiate them from the other instance. This broke all the automations they were referenced in and was a pain to go through and fix them up. Was much quicker to do the IP replacement above!

Ah, the intention is for the temporary Frigate instance to "replace" the existing one (vs be an additional one)?

Yes, I agree that is a pain. Usually in this case I'd just recommend changing the Frigate instance in place (e.g. run a separate docker container, and just down the original one and start the temporary one for testing purposes). HA would not be involved in that at all. However, that may not be viable depending on your situation & uptime requirements.

[daltskin]

ok not too worry, my use case is probably edge!

I was swapping between 2 physical machines with different HW capabilities to test out different detector models. Was seeing a lot of Segmentation Faults so needed a "stable" environment and a "hot swappable" one for trying out different configuration settings.

Thanks for your insight and help.

[NickM-27]

@dermotduffy it looks like this might have changed? MQTT offers this option for example https://developers.home-assistant.io/blog/2024/03/21/config-entry-reconfigure-step/

[dermotduffy]

@NickM-27 Oh, very cool! Thanks.