Reolink privacy mode

[starkillerOG]

Breaking change

Proposed change

Reolink recently added a "Privacy mode" to the firmware of the Reolink E1 Zoom.
When the user activates this mode, the camera streams, HTTP API, ONVIF, RTMP, RTSP ports are all shut down.
Basically the only two things the camera can do at this point is disabling the privacy mode or rebooting (only options left in the Reolink app also).
This integration uses those protocols so this causes a whole bunch of errors and problems.

This version bump of the upstream library paired with some changes to the Home Assistant code resolves this issue: The integration will always be able to setup.

During runtime, privacy mode will not cause any errors anymore, all entities of this integration will be marked as unavailable.
As soon as privacy mode is turned off all entities will become available again (push update, so almost instant).

I have a follow up PR ready that will add a switch entity that can enable/disable this privacy mode. This entity will stay available even if privacy mode is turned ON. The user will be able to turn off privacy mode through this entity to get all entities available again.

Type of change

• Dependency upgrade
• Bugfix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• New integration (thank you!)
• New feature (which adds functionality to an existing integration)
• Deprecation (breaking change to happen in the future)
• Breaking change (fix/feature causing existing functionality to break)
• Code quality improvements to existing code or addition of tests

Additional information

• This PR fixes or closes issue: fixes HTTP(s) login failed while Baichuan login succeeded, re-opening HTTP(s) port and looking up correct port on host #135389 fixes Reolink reolink_aio.exceptions.ReolinkConnectionError #134878
• This PR is related to issue: Support the new Privacy Mode for E1 series starkillerOG/reolink_aio#99 Reolink E1 Zoom - Privacy Mode Switch #135483 Reolink Integration Generating Errors with core-2025.1.1 #135242
• Link to documentation pull request:

Checklist

• The code change is tested and works locally.
• Local tests pass. Your PR cannot be merged unless tests pass
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• Tests have been added to verify that the new code works.

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• Documentation added/updated for www.home-assistant.io

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To help with the load of incoming pull requests:

• I have reviewed two other open pull requests in this repository.

[bdraco]

        enable_onvif = kwargs.get("NetPort", {}).get("onvifEnable")
        enable_rtmp = kwargs.get("NetPort", {}).get("rtmpEnable")
        enable_rtsp = kwargs.get("NetPort", {}).get("rtspEnable")

It would be nicer to rewrite that as

        net_port = kwargs.get("NetPort", {})
        enable_onvif = net_port.get("onvifEnable")
        enable_rtmp = net_port.get("rtmpEnable")
        enable_rtsp = net_port.get("rtspEnable")

[starkillerOG]

        enable_onvif = kwargs.get("NetPort", {}).get("onvifEnable")
        enable_rtmp = kwargs.get("NetPort", {}).get("rtmpEnable")
        enable_rtsp = kwargs.get("NetPort", {}).get("rtspEnable")

It would be nicer to rewrite that as

        net_port = kwargs.get("NetPort", {})
        enable_onvif = net_port.get("onvifEnable")
        enable_rtmp = net_port.get("rtmpEnable")
        enable_rtsp = net_port.get("rtspEnable")

Thanks for the suggestion, just changed it in the upstream lib: starkillerOG/reolink_aio@9d398a5

[home-assistant]

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[edenhaus]

If privacy mode is turned ON when starting, the integration will disable privacy mode for about 5-10 seconds to get the needed information to be able to start the integration (mainly the capabalities of the camera). Then the Privacy mode will be enabled again.

I'm against enabling it even for a short period as the user enabled it for a certain reason. The integration could store the needed information to setup in a storage file, so have a cache for already know devices.
If a user adds a new camera with the privacy mode enabled, the integration should offer in my opinion only a restart and privacy mode entity

[joostlek]

I also think that we should not do this. As in, Reolink now seem like the good choice for local devices. I think if the devices now provide a privacy mode, and with Home Assistant we break that mode, its not really that privacy after all. I think it the beauty and challenge here is to make sure that we can do without that information. This way the device and the mode does what it promises.

I think for adding a new device I think its a sensible question to ask if the user wants to disable privacy mode, so we can set up the camera correctly.

[starkillerOG]

Well this is going to be a challange.
I will see what I can do.

Do you have an example of how to storage a large amount of text in a data file?

Probably the most visable approach would be to cache the complete reponse to all get_host_data commands, and load that in when Privacy mode is enabled.
I am mostly woried what happens when the response changes but it was not retrieved during startup. It contains many one-time values like the preset-position points, limit values for zoom, tracking, and any other number entity, and the options for the select entities. For instance quick replies, that can be added in the Reolink app.
Or after a firmware update, the capabilities of the camera often change.

That info will not be retrieved again, which could lead to some very curious user issues:
for instance the camera no longer supports a feature after a firmware update (This happens, for instance pet detection can be replaced by animal detection which is more advanced, but the pet sensors will not work anymore).
If the user has privacy mode always enabled when at home, and at home he restarts homeassistant and makes his diagnostics files, I will see incorrect capabalities and will have a hard time understanding why things don't work.
Of course this can all be cercumvented with more advanced code, but its going to be a deep rabbit hole I think....

[joostlek]

Isn't it possible just to compile a list of "this camera supports x, x, x"? Because the entities being set up are either unknown or unavailable, so we should not store enough to know all info, but we should know enough to know which entities to set up.

[starkillerOG]

But then how do I get all the other info I need during statup:
UID (unique ids), MAC, models, hardware version (device info).
I also need to figure out which command versions I need (for instance getEvents vs GetAIstate and GetMdState or GetRecV20 vs GetRec etc.) For some the only option is to try with fallbacks during get_host_data to figure out what to use.
But also retrieving the streaming details like h264 encoding vs 265 encoding, I need to check those, you need a diffrent RTSP url depending on the encoding and not all camera's are reporting the encoding correctly (depending on firmware versions) so there is a whole process with multiple diffrent commands to know for sure which RTSP url to use.
Besides all the limits (min/max) and option lists are also only set 1x during startup.

The checking of the RTSP URL will in fact be another thing I will need to take into account, I should also store that URL, did not think of that yet.

[joostlek]

For the time being I think it would be okay to say, let's just retry if its in privacy mode

[edenhaus]

I would only store data, which is really required for setting up the entities.

But also retrieving the streaming details like h264 encoding vs 265 encoding, I need to check those, you need a diffrent RTSP url depending on the encoding

In my opinion, you don't need to know this kind of information as the camera entity will unavailable and therefore you don't need the difference between the RTSP urls

[starkillerOG]

@joostlek @edenhaus my appologies for beeing a bit grumpy about the needed changes.
In the end it was not that hard to get it to work and the result is much better: privacy mode stays on as its supposed to.

There are still some things to do:

• write and adjust the tests
• publish a new version of reolink-aio
• catch the error in the config flow and make a extra step requesting the user if he wants to disable privacy mode for the setup.

However could you take a look at the way I am now saving and loading the required data to a file?
Before I continue finishing this up, I would like to get some feedback if this approach would be accepted like this.

I know you would prefer to save the minimum amount of needed info, but I think it will be a lot more robust towards the future if I save the whole host data json. This way the upstream libary follows the same process as if the camera just responded with data. So I don't need to make exceptions everywhere in case data is not know yet. In the future I would need to remember to add those exception each time I add some new stuff...

[starkillerOG]

This PR has grown too big, therefore I am splitting it up:

• version bump Bump reolink_aio to 0.11.8 #136504
• preventing errors Prevent errors when Reolink privacy mode is turned on #136506
• config flow ask permission to turn off privacy mode Ask for permission to disable Reolink privacy mode during config flow #136511
• ensure startup works when privacy is on Reolink privacy start #136514
• add swith entity Add Reolink privacy switch entity #136521