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Dermot Duffy abcba884e5 feat: Add 'call' support to improve 2-way audio experience (#2486 )

Draws significant inspiration (and direct styling) from
https://github.com/dermotduffy/advanced-camera-card/pull/2447 . Thank
you @Maudfer !

BREAKING CHANGE:

The microphone condition previously bundled two unrelated signals —
whether a two-way-audio session was connected and whether the microphone
was muted. Connection state is now its own dedicated call condition, and
microphone is reserved purely for mute state. Configs are upgraded
automatically (the card rewrites affected conditions under overrides,
elements, and automations). If you maintain config by hand, convert as
follows:

If you only used connected:

# Before
```yaml
condition: microphone
connected: true
```

# After
```yaml
condition: call
call: true
```
If you used both connected and muted — they must be split into two
conditions, since they no longer live together:

# Before
```yaml
condition: microphone
connected: true
muted: false
```

# After
```yaml
condition: and
conditions:
  - condition: call
    call: true
  - condition: microphone
    muted: false
```

2026-06-30 17:45:13 -07:00

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2-way Audio

This card supports 2-way audio (e.g. transmitting audio from a microphone to a suitably equipped camera). In general, due to the myriad of different cameras, security requirements and browser limitations getting 2-way to work may be challenging.

Requirements

Environmental requirements

Must have a camera that supports audio out (otherwise what's the point!)
Camera must be supported by go2rtc for 2-way audio (see supported cameras).
Must be accessing your Home Assistant instance over https. The browser will enforce this.

Card requirements

Only Frigate cameras are supported.
Only the go2rtc live provider is supported.
Only the webrtc mode supports 2-way audio.

If your setup supports 2-way audio but detection is intermittent on load:

Increase cameras[].go2rtc.metadata_fetch_timeout_seconds.
Or force the capability with cameras[].capabilities.force: ['2-way-audio'].

Example configuration

type: custom:advanced-camera-card
cameras:
  - camera_entity: camera.office
    live_provider: go2rtc
    go2rtc:
      modes:
        - webrtc
      # Optional: For slower cameras increase timeout (default: 2)
      metadata_fetch_timeout_seconds: 10

Usage

Two-way audio is driven by the call menu button (a phone icon). It is enabled by default and appears in the live view whenever the selected camera -- or one of its dependencies -- supports 2-way audio.

Tap the call button to start a call. An on-screen overlay appears with controls to mute/unmute the microphone, mute/unmute the inbound audio, and end the call. When more than one 2-way-audio camera is available the button becomes a submenu with one entry per camera.
When a call starts the inbound audio is unmuted automatically, so the caller can be heard immediately. The microphone stays muted by default (push-to-talk) -- tap the microphone button in the overlay to speak. This is configurable via live.microphone.auto_unmute and live.auto_unmute.
The camera will always load without the microphone connected, unless the always_connected microphone option is set to true. On the first call there may be a brief webrtc connection reset to include 2-way audio.
While a call is in progress the card locks disruptive actions (camera and substream changes, casting, reload, etc.) so an accidental tap, swipe, or button press doesn't cut the call off. Set live.controls.call.lock to false to disable this.
End the call with the overlay's end-call button. When the call ends the microphone and inbound audio are muted again.
The video automatically resets to remove the microphone after the number of seconds specified by disconnect_seconds have elapsed since the call ended.

Calls can also be started and ended programmatically with the call_start and call_end actions -- for example, from an automation that fires when a doorbell sensor triggers. The call condition can be used to show or hide elements while a call is in progress.

Call lifecycle

The diagram below traces a call from start to finish:

Talking with a single tap

By default, two taps are needed to speak: the call button starts the call (so you can hear), then the microphone button in the call overlay unmutes your microphone (so you can be heard). This push-to-talk default keeps the microphone muted until you explicitly choose to speak.

To collapse that to a single tap, unmute the microphone automatically when a call starts:

live:
  microphone:
    auto_unmute: ['call']

The call button then behaves as a toggle -- one tap starts the call and opens the microphone, a second tap ends the call and closes it again. Note this also opens the microphone for calls started by an automation; leave auto_unmute empty (the default) to always start muted.

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