When LPR is enabled in Home Assistant and my driveway PIR detects motion, I send a snapshot from my driveway camera to api.platerecognizer.com via Node-RED and get back the result. If the license plate is in my database, my smart speakers will announce “[Name]’s car is in the driveway”.

If the license plate is unknown, they will announce “Unknown car with license plate [number] is in the driveway,” and Home Assistant saves the snapshot to the archive for future registration and security.

I have also set a number of conditions in my Node-RED flow to avoid the same car being announced multiple times while remaining stationary.

Has been working well for a few years now!

(Obviously, local LPR would be even cooler, but that may be a future project. I’m not sure if it is worth it for me since it requires additional/better server hardware and higher power consumption. As for privacy concerns, I can toggle LPR on and off… and honestly don’t really care if platerecognizer.com knows when different cars are in my driveway).

Unpolished Node-RED flow: https://pastebin.com/qH4y6avB