A Xiaomi camera as a baby monitor

Can a Xiaomi camera be a baby monitor on its own?

Yes, and for plenty of families that's enough. Add the camera to Xiaomi Home with a Xiaomi account, aim it at the crib, and you have a live picture on your phone. The indoor models have infrared night vision, so you see a sharp black-and-white picture in a dark room, which no phone by the crib can match. All of them have a speaker and microphone, and the pan-and-tilt models turn from the app.

Crying detection depends on the model. In Xiaomi's MIoT specs, the technical description Xiaomi Home uses to talk to each camera, the C300, C400 and C500 Pro have a separate "baby cry detection" service (the C500 Pro also general sound detection). The C200 and the older Mi 360° 2K Pro have nothing of the kind; they report motion only. If crying alerts are what you want from the camera, skip the C200.

Worth knowing first: crying and motion alerts come through Xiaomi's cloud, so they need the internet, not just Wi-Fi. If your connection drops at night, the camera keeps glowing but your phone hears nothing. There's no night mode for the parent's phone and no overview of the night; it reports an event, and that's it. Fine for a nap, weaker than what you'd expect from a baby monitor over a whole night.

Why doesn't a Xiaomi camera work with other apps?

Most cameras that work with a baby monitor app offer their video on your home network over RTSP, a standard address that VLC, a recorder or Mamoon can read. Current Xiaomi cameras don't have it at all, not hidden in advanced settings, not for a fee. Video between the camera and the app uses Xiaomi's own encrypted protocol, with keys agreed through Xiaomi's cloud. Even Xiaomi's official Home Assistant integration switches lights and reads sensors but gives no live video. So when Mamoon searches your network and doesn't find the Xiaomi, it's not a setting you missed.

The go2rtc bridge

go2rtc is a small streaming server built into Home Assistant and Frigate. Its xiaomi source speaks Xiaomi's protocol, so it connects to the camera directly over your network, like the Xiaomi Home app would. The catch, said plainly: it fetches the encryption keys from Xiaomi's cloud with your account at every new connection. The video then stays local, but without the internet no new connection starts.

1. Sign go2rtc in to your Xiaomi account. In go2rtc's web interface (port 1984), add the Xiaomi account that owns the camera. Expect an email or phone verification. go2rtc then lists your cameras.
2. Add the camera's stream. go2rtc fills in a line like xiaomi://ACCOUNT:REGION@CAMERA-IP?did=…&model=…. Give the camera a fixed IP in your router.
3. Convert the picture and sound. Mamoon needs H.264 video and G.711 sound; newer Xiaomis send H.265 and PCMA or Opus. Wrap the stream with ffmpeg: ffmpeg:xiaomi1#video=h264#audio=pcma.
4. In Mamoon choose "go2rtc server" and enter rtsp://SERVER-IP:8554/STREAM-NAME. From then on it's an ordinary camera: cry detection on your phone, the 1 % night screen, and an alert within 20 seconds if the picture stops.

About an hour, if Home Assistant or Frigate already runs at home. If you're hearing of them for the first time, building a server for this camera is a bad trade. The Home Assistant guide covers go2rtc in detail.

What to use instead

• A TP-Link Tapo C200 or C210, about $25–35: infrared, pan and tilt, a microphone, and RTSP with G.711 sound after one Camera Account setting. Mamoon finds it by itself. See Tapo C200 as a baby monitor.
• An old phone by the crib, free, tonight. It listens for crying and keeps working when the internet is down, because the video only travels over your Wi-Fi. Leave a dim night light on. See the old phone guide.

And the Xiaomi? Keep it. It's a good camera for the hallway, the dog or the front door, and it does everything it did in Xiaomi Home.

Frequently asked questions