I built a local first AI CCTV assistant using Gemma 4 + Frigate

Now instead of generic motion alerts, I receive notifications like:

“A person wearing a dark shirt approached the gate, waited briefly, and left.”

All processed locally without sending any footage to the cloud.

The system continuously monitors my WiFi connected CCTV cameras using Frigate. Frigate is an open-source NVR that performs real-time object detection on video feeds. You can learn more about

Whenever Frigate detects a person:

1. Relevant frames are sent to a locally running Gemma 4 model


2. Frigate creates an event with the video clip and the AI summary.


3. Home Assistant automation triggers


4. A rich notification is sent directly to my phone

The result is a much more useful home surveillance experience.

Instead of manually checking every alert, I can instantly understand what happened from the notification itself.

Demo

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Update prompt and other alert / review settings as per your requirements in the Frigate config

If you run into any issues while setting it up, feel free to comment below. Your WiFi cameras should provide an RTSP stream that can be integrated into the Frigate configuration. Just refer to your camera’s documentation for instructions on retrieving the stream URL.

How I Used Gemma 4

I used the gemma4:e2b model running locally through Ollama.

The model runs inside a dedicated Proxmox container with GPU passthrough enabled for faster inference.

I specifically chose E2B variant because:

• it is lightweight enough for local deployment


• inference latency is low


• it works well for concise visual summarization tasks

Without Gemma 4, the system would only know:

“A person was detected.”

With Gemma 4, the system understands and communicates:

• what the person is doing


• where they moved


• how long they stayed


• and whether the event is important

That dramatically improves the usefulness of camera notifications.