Chismoso

Free and open source · for Frigate NVR

Timelapses from your Frigate cameras, made easy

Pick your cameras and a time range, and get a short timelapse of the whole day. Chismoso also does live view, a recordings timeline, clips and notifications, in a small app for Windows, macOS and Linux.

WindowsmacOSLinux

Chismoso on Windows: six cameras in a grid, with the recordings timeline underneath showing the last hour of alerts.

A whole day in a minute

Pick the cameras and a time range, say how long the timelapse should be, and Chismoso works out the speed. Frigate does the rendering, several cameras at a time, and the files land in a folder you choose. Plain clips work the same way.

  • Fast mode decodes keyframes only, many times quicker for long ranges.
  • Optionally delete the server copy once it's downloaded.
  • The same engine runs from the command line for scheduled jobs.
More about clips and timelapses
Illustration of the Timelapse tab: three cameras selected, yesterday's range, a one-minute target length at 1440×, and progress bars for exports rendering in parallel.

Watch live, without the wait

Every camera in a grid, or one camera full size. Chismoso picks the best way to stream on its own: WebRTC through Frigate's go2rtc when it can, MSE when it can't, and snapshots as a last resort, so there's always a picture.

  • Use Frigate's camera groups, or build your own layouts.
  • Substreams keep the grid light; the full view lets you pick the stream.
  • Each tile shows the frame rate you're actually getting.
More about live view
Illustration of a single camera in full view: a stream picker, a Live · WebRTC badge, detect and record switches, and the timeline below.

Scroll back through time

Under the grid sits a timeline you can zoom from weeks down to seconds, with alerts in red and detections in amber. Click anywhere and every camera in the layout plays from that moment, in step.

  • Hover an event to see its thumbnail; jump to the previous or next one.
  • Play from −16× (backwards) to 16×, with J K L like a video editor.
  • Select a stretch to play it, save it, or turn it into a timelapse.
More about the timeline
Illustration of recordings playback: two cameras playing in sync at 4×, with a selected range on the timeline ready to save as a clip or timelapse.

Know when something happens

New Frigate alerts arrive as native notifications, with a snapshot when a person is detected. Choose the cameras, add detections if you like, and set a cooldown so a busy driveway doesn't bury you.

No MQTT broker or cloud service involved: the app listens to Frigate directly while it's running.

More about notifications
A Windows notification from Chismoso: “Person at Garage. New alert. Open the app to watch.” with a camera snapshot of the person outlined.

Light by design

A camera app shouldn't need a gigabyte of memory, or keep your server busy for nobody.

~10 MB
download, built with Rust and Tauri 2
No Electron
uses your system's own web view
Idle when hidden
streams close 30 s after you minimize
Load screen
see what the app asks of Frigate

More about the Load screen

Illustration of the Load screen: open streams, bandwidth, requests per minute and 24-hour trend lines.

And a few more things

Smaller things that came along the way.

  • Camera view

    One camera, full size. Pick a stream, flip detect, record and snapshots on or off, go full screen.

    Camera view
  • Config editor

    Edit Frigate's config.yml with validation, then save or save & restart. Admins only.

    Settings
  • Your certificate, pinned

    Works with Frigate's self-signed certificate: trust it once and you're warned if it ever changes. Your password is never stored.

    Privacy & security
  • Command line

    Make timelapses and exports from scripts and scheduled jobs, no window needed.

    Command line
  • Keyboard friendly

    Jump, scrub, change speed and hop between events without reaching for the mouse.

    Shortcuts
  • Updates from GitHub

    The app checks GitHub releases and offers to update when a new version is out.

    Updates
  • Phones, eventually

    Android and iOS are built from the same code. A phone release will come later.

    Phone apps
  • No account, no cloud

    The app talks straight to your Frigate server. Your footage stays between the two of them.

    FAQ

Give it a try

Windows, macOS and Linux. If something breaks or you have an idea, open an issue on GitHub.

WindowsmacOSLinux