Overview

Lunetta works with any camera that can upload footage to an FTP server. It reads the files from a folder on your server — it doesn’t connect to your camera directly.

How it works

1. You configure FTP upload on your camera, pointing it to your server.
2. The camera uploads .mp4, .jpg, or similar files when it detects motion or on a schedule.
3. Lunetta scans the footage folder (automatically via cron or Lunetta Ping) and adds new files to the dashboard.

Supported file types

Files with other extensions are ignored.

How Lunetta reads timestamps

Lunetta extracts the recording time from the filename, not the file modification date. Camera clocks are the source of truth — file timestamps reflect when the file was transferred, not when it was recorded.

Supported filename formats:

If none of these match, Lunetta falls back to the file modification date.

Folder structure

Lunetta uses subfolders as camera names. Each subfolder becomes a camera in the dashboard.

footage/
├── front-door/
│   ├── 20260604_143022.mp4
│   └── 20260604_143022.jpg
└── garden/
    └── 20260604_144511.mp4

Files placed directly in the footage root (no subfolder) are grouped under a single camera named after the root folder.

Configure your camera’s FTP settings to upload into a subfolder named after that camera. See the brand-specific guides for exact steps.

Thumbnails

When a camera uploads a video alongside a matching .jpg snapshot, Lunetta uses that image as the thumbnail. If no matching image exists, the browser captures a frame from the video automatically.

Supported brands

Any other brand that supports FTP upload with a date-based filename will also work, even if not listed here.