Ubiquiti
UniFi Protect G4 Instant
- Wi-Fi
Verified September 2026
The cheap way into UniFi Protect: a £75 wire-free 2K camera that runs off its own rechargeable battery and pulls off HA's unifiprotect integration just as well as the £300+ PoE cameras — same local streams, same instant smart-detection events. The real caveat is who this is for: existing UniFi network owners only, since you still need a Dream Machine or Protect console before it records anything. Battery life shrinks fast in busy spots — every motion event wakes it from sleep — and the modest ~6m IR range suits a porch or hallway, not a driveway. Skip it if you're starting from zero.
In Home Assistant
| Control | Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Talk-back speaker | Media player | Pushes audio out through the camera's built-in speaker for two-way audio; requires Home Assistant to reach the camera directly, which VLAN-segmented Wi-Fi IoT networks commonly block. |
| Animal/person detected | Binary sensor | Smart-detection classification entity; on this battery/PIR-wake camera it lags slightly behind PoE UniFi cams that stream continuously. |
| Battery | Sensor (%) | The only UniFi Protect camera family exposing this in HA, since the G4 Instant has no PoE and runs on an internal cell recharged via the magnetic dock. |
| Signal strength | Sensor | Worth watching given the camera is 2.4GHz-only and frequently relocated thanks to the magnetic mount, so signal can drift after a repositioning. |
| Status light | Switch | Toggles the camera's front LED indicator on/off, useful for discreet placement given the magnetic mount's flexibility for indoor privacy-sensitive spots. |
Two-way audio surfaces as a media player entity you can push audio to, but it only works if Home Assistant can reach the camera directly on the Protect talk-back port — since the G4 Instant is 2.4GHz Wi-Fi only and often sits on a separate IoT VLAN from the Protect console, that direct path is the thing that actually breaks talk-back, not the integration. Being battery-powered rather than PoE, it wakes on PIR before running smart detection, so person/animal binary sensors update a beat later than on always-streaming PoE UniFi cams, and HA also gets a diagnostic battery-percentage sensor since there's no continuous power draw to mask a dying cell. A solid automation pairs the animal-detected smart-detection sensor with the media player: trigger a short deterrent clip when the camera flags a pet on a counter or in a restricted room, exploiting the speaker this plain cube actually has.
Specs
- wifi
- dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi + Bluetooth (setup only)
- extras
- two-way audio, magnetic mount
- battery
- Rechargeable internal battery, magnetically detachable for USB-C charging; optional Instant PoE Adapter accessory trickle-charges it in place. Runtime drops fastest in high-motion spots since every event wakes it from PIR sleep
- ip rating
- IPX5 weather-resistant (not rated for full outdoor exposure — matches sheltered placement guidance)
- placement
- indoor / sheltered outdoor
- streaming
- local via UniFi Protect (RTSPS re-stream available); HA native unifiprotect integration
- dimensions
- ~81.6 x 50 x 47.2mm, ~163g with mount
- resolution
- 4MP (2688x1512), marketed as 2K; up to 30fps
- requirement
- UniFi Protect console required (UDM/UDM-Pro/UNVR/CloudKey+)
- night vision
- ~6m (20ft) IR range