Cameras — Charyl

Cameras work through conversation the same way devices do: describe what you want in plain language, and Charyl resolves it to the right camera. Everything here works the same on the web dock and in the mobile app.

Pull up a snapshot

“Show me the driveway” gets you a current still image from that camera. It’s the fastest way to check on something without opening a live feed — she resolves your description to the right camera and hands back an up-to-date picture.

Check what happened

“Did anyone come by today?” checks the last seven days of doorbell rings, motion, and intercom activity for that camera — a log, not a live view, so it’s quick to review even if you’re catching up after being away. Ask for an older window and she clamps to the seven days available rather than returning an error.

Open live view

“Pull up the front door live” opens a genuine live stream, not a snapshot. This is the one camera action with a real difference depending on where you’re asking from:

On your home network

Live view is free and unrestricted, for everyone — whether your home runs on the standard subscription or is entirely self-hosted.
Away from home, on the mobile app

Remote live view is part of the Charyl Cloud subscription. If a day runs unusually heavy, it steps down to snapshots rather than leaving you looking at a dead tile.

Quiet the doorbell for a while

“Snooze the doorbell notifications for an hour” does exactly that — she confirms back the actual time it’ll resume, rather than leaving the duration vague.

A few things people ask her

“Show me the driveway.”
“Pull up the front door live.”
“Did anyone come by today?”
“Snooze the doorbell notifications for an hour.”

Each of those is exactly what you’d type — no special phrasing required, and no need to know a camera’s technical name to ask about it.

Naming helps

Charyl matches a free-text description like “the driveway” to a real camera behind the scenes. The clearer your camera and room names are, the more reliably that match lands on the first try.

Camera events and notifications

A doorbell ring or a motion event isn’t only something you can ask about after the fact. The same activity can drive a notification rule, so you hear about it as it happens rather than only when you think to check — see being notified when something happens for how those rules work.

Where your cameras come from

Cameras join your home the same way most smart-home devices do: through Home Assistant, not through a separate integration of their own — see connect Home Assistant if yours isn’t set up yet. When you ask for a live view, Charyl is brokering a stream Home Assistant already has — on your home network, that stream never has to leave the house; reaching it remotely from the mobile app routes through the same relay everything else away-from-home uses.

What she deliberately won’t do

Charyl can get you to the right camera and the right moment quickly. She can’t look at what’s in the picture. No camera image — a snapshot or a live frame — is ever handed to an AI to describe, so asking “who’s at the door” as though she can see it won’t work. Getting to the picture fast is the feature; interpreting it is still up to you.

No camera vision, by design

This isn’t a gap that’s about to close quietly. Describing what’s in a camera image is explicitly out of scope for how Charyl works today.

Where this all lives

Everything above works identically in the web dock and the mobile app — the same request gets the same answer either way. What differs is only what you’re looking at it on, and whether you’re on your home network or reaching in remotely.

For how live view is gated when you’re away from home, see can I use the app away from home; for what a camera event notification looks like on your lock screen, see what notifications say on my lock screen.