Ask Slashdot: What Are the Best Locally-Hosted Wireless Security Cameras? 126
Longtime Slashdot reader Randseed writes: With the likes of Google Nest, Ring, and others cooperating with law enforcement, I started to look for affordable wireless IP security cameras that I can put around my house. Unfortunately, it looks like almost every thing now incorporates some kind of cloud-based slop. All I really want is to put up some cameras, hook them up to my LAN, and install something like ZoneMinder. What are the most economical, wireless IP security cameras that I can set up with my server?
WiFi cameras are not recommended (Score:4, Informative)
Check out the Frigate hardware recommendations: https://docs.frigate.video/fri... [docs.frigate.video]
For those who don't want to click through it says "WiFi cameras are not recommended as their streams are less reliable and cause connection loss and/or lost video data, especially when more than a few WiFi cameras will be used at the same time." and they link to a discussion about it here https://ipcamtalk.com/threads/... [ipcamtalk.com]
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Are you using an external detector with your setup?
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My understanding was using the CPU worked relatively poorly for Tensorflow, but I guess that too is relative ie the # of cams, resolutions, FPS, etc.
You're confused. OP said they're using the iGPU to handle it, not the CPU. I have Frigate handling 4 cameras myself and the iGPU can handle object detection with ease, the CPU sees barely any load at all.
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Re: WiFi cameras are not recommended (Score:5, Informative)
For the quick version of why you donâ(TM)t want WiFi security cameras - itâ(TM)s a very common approach already for burglars to use to fire up a WiFi jammer as they go in. You end up with your security cameras dropping out exactly when you need them.
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There is nothing you outline here that doesn't make using WIFI cameras either less effective than using wired cameras OR make it no better but more expensive. If you have two cameras covering an area than would you make
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I'm sure someone already committed multiple felonies would be deterred by that possibility.
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I'm sure someone already committed multiple felonies would be deterred by that possibility.
No one cares about FCC rules, upwards of 80% of the companies I’ve worked at, or who have done business with the companies I’ve worked at, who use radio gear break the rules. Not jamming WiFi to commit theft though, but things like attaching a high gain parabolic antenna to a modem who is only FCC licensed for a standard gain quarter wave radially symmetrical antenna which violates the energy density rules. Half of them didn’t even know they were breaking the law and I almost can’t
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Lack of information.... (Score:2, Interesting)
If there were anyone left in the FCC after getting DOGE'd, you might have a point. But I think that at this point, I could fire up a transmitter on LAX approach frequency and play "Baby Shark" on repeat, and be about 99% sure there'd be no enforcement.
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Perhaps not from the FCC, but the public can rest easy knowing that you'd have dozens of privately-funded IP lawyers trying to track you down for unauthorized public performance of copyrighted content.
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Research specs carefully first. (Score:4, Informative)
I've previously used Amcrest and Uniview wifi cameras with decent results. Hikvision and Lorex/Dahua are good bets too. All of these are Chinese and some are various levels of banned in Western countries. If you run your own NVR/analysis software and manage your own remote access this may not matter to you.
I have mostly Hikvision POE cameras. You can get them at good prices because of the ban. I keep them on a dedicated vlan with no internet access except for the NVR. I'm also currently replacing my EOL Windows box with Zoneminder myself and am very happy with it so far. Have fun!
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RTSP is certainly useful! Wyze used to offer an unsupported firmware [wyze.com] version of their -- at the time -- current firmware. But that didn't last long. I bought one and everything in my setup worked great 24/7 until the cheap camera died from the weather. The color video quality even at night, (with outdoor lights), was very, very good for such a cheap camera.
That being said, I never liked the idea of using Chinese firmware designed to phone home, (not necessarily to China, but to 'the cloud'). Since then I've
ReoLink (Score:4, Insightful)
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your experience was better than mine it seems. the false positives on our reolink setup just resulted in a crushing avalanche of garbage. no matter what the sensitivity was set to, or trying to massage the capture area seemed to help.
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Reolink here too. They support open protocols and work locally with no internet access. Picture quality is decent. You can record to your own server, or fit an SD card, or both.
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Same here, I have just one security camera to watch over a rare vehicle that I've had unsavoury individuals taking too much of an interest in. I think it also discourages cold callers.
I bought a Reolink POE camera through eBay, fitted it in May 2021. It looks to me to be really well made and is still working perfectly. I paid more money for the POE switch to power it than the camera itself. I use "motion" on my Linux server to monitor the camera and record movement. Only problem experienced, I initially had
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Reolink here too, and very pleased with them. They are storing to their own on-board sd card as well as streaming to a Synology NAS with Surveillance station for more permanent storage. Have the doorbell, several cams, and the elite floodlight. All top notch and problem free 2 years in.
get poe ones adn just need 1 wire no battrys at (Score:2)
get poe ones and just need 1 wire no battery at each Camera.
Lorex at least the older ones work (don't use their shit dvr) with ZoneMinder
downgraded TP Link/Tapo (Score:3, Informative)
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Seconded on the Tapo line. I got a Tapo C120 earlier this year and they are surprisingly cheap (currently $28 at B&H) and fairly easy to work with. I found that I needed to initially connect it to their cloud service to get their app working with it, but once that worked, I removed its ability to phone home by blocking the MAC address from the internet on my router. I can still connect to it with RTSP and stream with VLC, replay video with their app, etc. with no need for internet connectivity. Just be
You said "cheap" and "Wifi", but... (Score:4, Insightful)
So this isn't at all what you asked for, but I'm going to throw it out there anyway: Ubiquiti. You'll pay more and they're all PoE rather than wireless, but if you spend the money and run the wires (hey, you have to run a wire for power anyway, might as well use it for data, too) you won't regret the results.
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So this isn't at all what you asked for, but I'm going to throw it out there anyway: Ubiquiti. You'll pay more and they're all PoE rather than wireless, but if you spend the money and run the wires (hey, you have to run a wire for power anyway, might as well use it for data, too) you won't regret the results.
Axis and Avigilon if $ is no object.
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Combine them with iSpy [ispyconnect.com] and you'll have a good solution.
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I have one of their cameras that's wireless; I wouldn't recommend it. It can be flipped to a standards-based mode but it's no longer managed in their environment, has poor low light capability, and costs an ass load more than more capable cameras. Does have a nice look to it and isn't cheap plastic but it's also not weather rated.
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>"So this isn't at all what you asked for, but I'm going to throw it out there anyway: Ubiquiti. You'll pay more and they're all PoE rather than wireless, but if you spend the money and run the wires (hey, you have to run a wire for power anyway, might as well use it for data, too) you won't regret the results."
I second that. Have a system at work and was impressed and bought one for home. You can do everything with their gateway and also stream to other devices at will. Everything under your control
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The unifi stuff leans heavily towards cloud, you can force it to do direct connections but its not the default and there are some limitations, and direct access for the mobile app is a relatively new feature.
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The unifi stuff leans heavily towards cloud, you can force it to do direct connections but its not the default and there are some limitations,
That's simply not true. Ubiquiti doesn't currently even offer cloud storage for the UniFi Protect. They do offer cloud connectivity back to your local storage, and they support archiving of local storage into Google Drive or OneDrive, but in the first instance the recording always goes to local storage. The main limitation is that it requires you to use their NVR products, but IMHO these are reasonably priced and they don't have any limitations about you adding your own drives to them, so you can source the
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I have been working with Ubiquiti equipment and it needs cloud connection to be set up, and it's in general not the best equipment if you mix it with other equipment or even in some cases build a too complex network with their equipment.
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You might have to set up an account initially, I don't recall for certain, but if you do then you never have to use it again if you have an on-prem UOS, virtual network appliance, cloudkey or UDM.
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I needed to have an internet connection for the camera to be installed, something that wasn't easy at the location it was needed.
So Ubiquiti is a no go for me after that.
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I needed to have an internet connection for the camera to be installed, something that wasn't easy at the location it was needed.
Were you setting up using the app? Had you set up any other systems with the app previously? I have set up several Unifi systems using the phone app and Bluetooth without needing a functioning internet connection, but none of them were the first I'd installed.
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hey, you have to run a wire for power anyway
I just checked it's still 2025, thought I was in 1995 for a minute. No, most security cameras on the market aimed at consumers rather than commercial or professional installations do *not* need power. That said I do need to remove my cameras once every 6 months or so to charge them, a process that takes about 4 hours, but during those 4 hours I can just sit in the front yard with a shotgun in hand.
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Side note - if anyone knows how to get a cloudkey to accept and graph data from non-unifi devices, please let me know. It must be possible, it's just a little linux server. I don't want to build a graphic network monitor from scratch when Unifi already provides such a nice one.
You just have to upgrade the non-UniFi devices to UniFi ones.
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The only network hardware I have that I paid for is my U6 AP. Everything else is something a client threw out. I'm pretty cheap.
Your Data - That's where the money is (Score:3)
It;s getting harder and harder to find any camera which doesn't attempt to connect to the cloud in some form or another.
They want to monetize your data.
You'll have more luck going with wired cameras as these tend to have more features.
Interoperability of security cameras is also a mess, and will probably never be truly standardized. There's just too much business [profit] pressure to keep things different between vendors for vendor lock-in purposes.
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They want to monetize your data.
Ring is owned by Amazon, and they never sell customer data, ever. Nest on the other hand is an Alphabet company, and that's their entire business model.
Decent quality security cameras like Axis, Pelco, Bosch, GE, and the like, will always follow standards because they're designed to be installed in a wide variety of professional installations. Yeah, they cost more than $20.
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Don't install a Ring camera in your meth lab. Duh.
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It;s getting harder and harder to find any camera which doesn't attempt to connect to the cloud in some form or another.
They want to monetize your data.
The things you describe are not mutually exclusives. Virtually all cameras come with some kind of cloud ability. A great many of them are still none the less completely local, and a subset of those, even those which "require" a cloud may also have an RTSP stream available which you could read out via Homeassistant or some other tool while the camera flashes it's light indicating that you haven't provisioned its cloud connection.
Axis or Pelco (Score:3)
Speaking with 16 years of experience in the physical security industry I've only seen two manufacturers who really understand that security cameras should actually be secure, Axis and Pelco. Yes, they cost an arm and a leg, but this is one case where you really do get what you pay for. Neither one has much of a selection of wireless cameras, but for security you really should wire them in anyway and both have a large selection of POE cameras.
One thing that is generally left out of amateur installs is to set up an alarm if contact with the camera is interrupted (assuming your software supports it). Wireless cameras are easy to jam, and exterior cameras that aren't in a housing are easy to just plain steal. Another thing is to set an alarm on low battery (again, if supported).
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Does the Pelco brand still exist?
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>"I've only seen two manufacturers who really understand that security cameras should actually be secure, Axis and Pelco."
I would add Hanwha to that list as well. Again, not cheap, but serious stuff.
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I don't recognize that name, but I retired a few years ago and haven't really kept up with changes in the industry. Question out of random curiosity, do they have a tool for managing very large numbers of cameras? How long do they support their cameras? When I left only Axis and Pelco did. I updated firmware on ~15,000 Axis cameras in my spare time over about three months, some of them almost 10 years old, and a former coworker did the same on 1,400 Pelco cameras across an Endura system in a weekend.
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>"I don't recognize that name, but I retired a few years ago and haven't really kept up with changes in the industry."
They have been around for many years. Parent is Samsung, I think. They also market under the name Wizenet, I think
>"Question out of random curiosity, do they have a tool for managing very large numbers of cameras?"
Yes
>"How long do they support their cameras?"
Seems like many years. They use security screws, metal enclosures, have alarm contacts, good documentation, full line of ev
eBay (Score:2)
Just search for "Axis Network Dome Camera" on eBay. There's tons of cheap IP cameras for sale there that'll do exactly what you need them to do, no cloud necessary.
+1 for Reolink (Score:2)
I was using Blue Iris for monitoring, am now using Synology, both work fine.
Relatively inexpensive cameras, but much better image quality than the more-expensive Hikvision cameras that they replaced. Their Duo camera is nice for a 180 view.
All but one of mine are wired, but the one on wifi works as well as the others.
They have a simple Windows app, which I use on my laptop when I'm at home.
Away from home I use Synology's phone app, but I'm sure there are other options, they're just standard onvif cameras.
What about Aqara? (Score:2)
They would like to sell you a cloud storage subscription, but they do give you the option to use local physical storage (or iCloud) instead.
One word - ONVIF (Score:3)
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Look for ONVIF support in the specs. No ONVIF, then ignore it and keep looking. ONVIF doesn't guarantee things will be great but the lack of it is a huge warning flag.
In my experience ONVIF is most useful for cameras that also support PTZ and/or 2-way audio. If you don't need/have those features RTSP support is probably sufficient.
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eufy (Score:2)
eufy is the way to go for that. I'll say this upfront, I was given several of their cameras for free. But they've turned out to be nice.
While they do have a cloud service, you don't need to use it (I don't). With their basestation, not only is the battery life better, but I have an external hard drive connected to it, which records events locally.
The cameras are cheap and they've been reliable (haven't had any issues with the 6 of them in 6+ months). Have only needed to charge one of them so far, though it
This is a tough one (Score:3)
I've been using Wyze cameras and the Wyze Bridge (https://github.com/mrlt8/docker-wyze-bridge) in a container to stream standards-based traffic to NVR software. Sadly, the project appears to be abandoned and Wyze instituted some changes that made it difficult to use if the cameras weren't all on the same network as the container. There are forks but I've yet to try them and would appreciate feedback from others. Wyze reps claimed (on Reddit) that the change that broke things was a "back-end issue" and that they were working on a fix. Crickets. Older firmware worked but most of mine got flashed, it's possible to flash back with an SD card and image. If you aren't trying to record in multiple places connected with a VPN (Tailscale for instance) or have your IoT on a separate network this isn't a problem. I was recording 15 Wyze cameras to BlueIris reliably (some others too) and the cameras are dirt cheap and have EXTREMELY good light gathering for color video in low light! I also pay for their cloud service in order to get alerts and ease of access - one yearly fee for unlimited cameras so far and is a decent symbiotic relationship. Currently my system is down due to a long-distance move so I'm relying strictly on their app right now.
I had no issues with Wi-Fi congestion at the remote site that held ten cameras and a 30meg 'net service was fine over Tailscale for recording. The cameras have worked well in weather but I've not yet weather tested their V3 pan/scan unit - I will :) It tracks motion well, I have one inside a building. I am using Ubiquity APs meshed over Wi-Fi for now and am getting good distance. Weirdly some of the MAC show up as kitchen appliances
Alternately:
You can flash their cameras with open-source firmware but NOT all of them, they're locking them down in later versions like their newest flood-light cameras (dammit!). https://github.com/themactep/t... [github.com] is a project that supports this and it has a good supported hardware list worth looking at. This will remove them from the Wyze ecosystem. There's a power injector sort of adapter that will allow you to (supposedly) provide power over the USB and get IP traffic from the USB port turning it into a sort of wired camera but I've not tested it - I did buy a few of the adapters to try when time allows. IF you do this all of the alerting and remote access setup will be up to you, it's obviously no longer symbiotic. Speaking of adapters - I've had multiple USB power adapters from Wyze die, using a good Anker replacement gets them back into service easily.
I like the form factor, I like the light gathering, I love the price (!), I own many of their cameras as well as some of their other hardware. I'd love to be able to buy one that was standards based out of the box even if it cost a bit more. I do NOT like that they screwed everyone with an infrastructure change and appear to have lied about fixing it. I want "local" 24x7 recording that doesn't rely on a damn SD card that can be stolen with the camera or corrupted. Wyze had beta firmware for some cameras that produced ONVIF streams (from memory..) but it was unreliable and not kept up - NOT recommended.
I have used one of the Ubiquity indoor cameras too. NOT worth the price, not good light gathering, and to stream to another NVR it has to be removed from their environment - don't do it.
Hope that helps some, I look forward to seeing what others have used. I know there's hardware similar to Wyze out there that may be more open and I think I have one in a box somewhere but I'm not sure it's as weather resistant and you get to handle all of the alerting etc. Frigate looks like a good NVR for this. BlueIris can alert too if you can get it sorted and they now screw around with pricing yearly if you want updates and I've yet to get their AI working so buyer beware.
P.S. I like the Dahua wired cameras - great low light, weather resistant, reliable, but rough firmware support, and I'd never let them talk to the 'net only to your NVR... Buy them from the vendor recommended on IPCAMTALK straight from China.
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I see TAPO and Eufy mentioned. I do actually have a Eufy camera to test but I believe it's wired and it's pretty nice. TAPO is one I have tested but didn't deploy mostly because as I mentioned with taking a Wyze camera and flashing it - you become the entire infra for alerts. TAPO seems to have good image quality and I recall the low light was good too, price wasn't bad. Worth grabbing one to check out and test IMO. Eufy seems to make solid hardware too but I believe mine was a bit larger than the TAPO and
Also, use 5 (or 6) Ghz (Score:3)
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ZoneMinder Dev Here (Score:2)
I enjoy TP-Link Tapo cameras. They are onvif compliant (mostly) and actually put out firmware updates.
HIkVIsion clones are great.
Amcrest are the only manufacturer that has actually sent cameras to us to support.
Reolink work well.
We have recently begun crowd sourcing a camera database so you can see what others are using successfully. https://cloud.zoneminder.com/c... [zoneminder.com]
ReoLink (Score:2)
I've tested many of the PoE and WiFi models and they all work well with an internal Micro-SD card and ReoLink's RLN36 NVR (Network Video Recorder), with on-device human/animal/vehicle detection. I don't care for the battery-powered or solar-powered models because of the power drop-outs and they don't survive cold weather well. I love ReoLink for its "Cost-to-Value" ratio, which is much more affordable and reliable than the Amcrest, HIKVision, and Rando-Brand Chineseum variants that cost $400-800 or more p
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Ah glad someone went down the Emby path! I tried doing this streaming from a Wyzebridge container but never got it working and gave up. I only wanted it to be able to quickly check certain cameras and will try it again in the future. It's a shame the Devs aren't more receptive :(
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Reolink is great. I've built a couple of systems with their cameras and as you say, good value for the money.
I rolled my own (Score:2)
I use a Raspberry Pi 4 running motion [github.io] and this USB camera [webcamerausb.com]. The camera uses visible light when there's enough light and switches to IR automatically when there isn't.
This setup also lets me use wired Ethernet (though you could still use WiFi if you prefer that route.) I have a post-motion-detection script that automatically copies the footage to an off-site server so even if a burglar destroys my pi4, the pictures are safely preserved.
For what? (Score:2)
To watch your dogs a wifi device is OK but if real security is a concern understand that home invasion gangs use ~10W wifi jammers as standard practice now.
Amcrest supports RTSP pull and SFTP push which is handy.
Feit (Score:2)
Don't see another comment but they record to a card in the camera so there's data if no wifi.
We've had a couple a few years now and are satisfied with them.
With some tinkering : Arlo Pro (Score:2)
Arlo Pro cameras (with a basestation) allow for local recording but you do need the app to set up everything once.
After the set up is done, you can use a project like this to allow access to your data.
https://github.com/VincePuc99/... [github.com]
There is no OpenSource app / frontend yet.
Arlo Pro and newer cameras work great for me.
The have been hanging outside all year long for +7 years now.
I do have them connected to a USB power supply because the batteries were all worn out.
Don't bother with the old 'Arlo' cameras be
Eufy stays on local Wifi with Home base... (Score:2)
Ubiquiti (Score:2)
I've done several now, here's what I found (Score:3)
Hello-
I've set up self-hosted cameras for myself and several others now, here is what I found:
Don't go wireless, even if it's not jammed, it's not reliable. I can turn on an old 2.4G video sender from the '90s and knock out everything. Thieves do this now.
Running the wires is a pain, but worth it. PoE, power over ethernet, is very important. Trying to do without it is a pain, and devices get unplugged. I've also had times where all the cameras act strangely and need to be restarted, so PoE was fantastic. Also you can use a UPS.
Inexpensive cameras are fine if they have RTSP. They WILL try to 'phone home'! I have them on a subnet where outgoing is blocked. When you look at the traffic it's unreal. Block their IP from outgoing. Mine are isolated from the net, and they work fine. RTSP cameras work with open source stuff. Finding the right strings for the streams can be a pain.
They keep coming out with higher resolution cameras. It's a waste, it only increases the load on the video server. I use the low-res stream anyway, it's fine.
ZoneMinder works and looks nice but it's very CPU intensive. You have to mess with the settings a lot, and they're not easy to figure out. Getting recording to work well is tricky. Save still images. Between the cheap cameras and Zoneminder, the delay can be pretty long. Something that does less processing on the streams would be better, maybe Motion, but I haven't used it much. Despite this, Zoneminder is nice, even supports PTZ on strange thrift store IP cams!
My ZoneMinder box has VPN to my small cloud VPS, and there is URL that proxies to it, behind a password. We can look at it on our phones from anywhere, and we have control and final say, and no monthly bill other than the VPS that we had anyway.
I've used the SV3C outdoor, non-wireless PoE units in the lowest resolution that they still sell. This is not an endorsement, they are constantly trying to send packets to strange places, so they're blocked. But they're inexpensive, (2 pack for $100) weatherproof, support open standards and once they're set up they just work, some of them for many years now. I don't bother with things like 'alerts' because like most cameras, they use email or FTP! (can't we just hit a URL?) Internally, they're running linux, but it's locked down and crippled and not worth the effort to hack. Just use 'em for what they're good for, and block the traffic.
P.S. for some things, a webcam on a raspberry pi will do, and you can get it to work with Zoneminder. It's not actually any cheaper, but you might have the stuff laying around. It's great for stuff like bird's nests and pets. However you will find that such things and cameras with cords tend to get unplugged somehow. The mounted PoE ones just always work.
Hope that helps!
=rMortyH
Amcrest Cameras (Score:2)
Stay away from Zoneminder (Score:2)
Stay away from Zoneminder- it's a cobbled-together hack that is a nightmare to properly configure and maintain. It's written in 4 or 5 different languages all slammed together in a shaky framework built from band-aids and spackle.
I've tried most of the NVR apps out there and the only one I think is fairly well done is Blue Iris. It's not perfect but I think it's far better than Zoneminder, iSpy (now part of iSpyConnect), and motionEye.
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I'm glad it works for you- when I tried it (albeit a few years ago) it was a tangled, dodgy mess written in perl, php, javascript, and a ton of config issues all mixed into a blob of frustration. Sounds like it's better now.
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more that they can legally get the footage without your explicit permission and then use it as a fishing expedition to implicate you in all sorts of other stuff. Obviously, if someone is committing property crime against me or my neighbors, is breaking into houses, or anything like that, I'd turn over the footage. I just object to them sidestepping the Fourth Amendment.
Re:Honest question (Score:5)
Why is "cooperating with law enforcement" a problem? Isn't the whole point of putting up a security camera so you can give evidence to the cops if someone is messing with your property?
I prefer to cooperate voluntarily than have everything done opaquely behind my back, just as a matter of principle. That anyone can access your footage beside you and do so without your knowledge is a basic security failure to begin with.
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4th amendment baby!
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The key here is so that I can give evidence. I don't want 3rd parties providing my data without my explicit consent and I want to personally be served by a warrant and not find out 3rd hand.
My data under my control.
Re: Honest question (Score:4, Insightful)
You are hinting at the nothing to hide position which states that law enforcement should be an all knowing panopticon because the honest have nothing to hide. But given the rise of authoritarianism worldwide, you need to be more vigilant than ever to prevent government from surveilling you.
https://youtu.be/3e62270w7LI [youtu.be]
Re: Honest question (Score:2)
You should never provide any information to law enforcement without legal council. It doesn't matter if you don't see how it can be used against you. People have gone to prison just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Unless you called the police, they should be treated as potential adversaries.
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I'm happy to provide them with the footage - after they ask and give me a reason to, perhaps even a warrant. I do not appreciate efforts to simply take footage from cloud providers for fishing expeditions.
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If you want to cooperate with law enforcement you can always CHOOSE to do it yourself.
The problem is RING and a lot of others do not really give you the choice - they make you cooperate with them, taking control of it - even against you. You get into a fight with your neighbor on your doorstep, they will get the footage and use it against you. Your daughter comes home drunk and the cops use the footage in her DWI case.
It's not about doing things illegal, it's about YOUR rights. The cops love to ignore
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Your daughter comes home drunk and the cops use the footage in her DWI case.
Or your daughter comes home sober with her boyfriend. And her ex-boyfriend who just happens to be a cop uses your cameras to keep track of who she's dating and when.
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Do you really want the corruptocracy to have full access to footage from your cameras whenever they want?
Big Tech has already been shown it cannot be trusted when employees accessed celebrity intimate pictures that had been uploaded via phones onboard backup systems, same with Tesla laughing at the various things they saw via peoples Tesla Cams - you can bet they will be viewing peoples home security footage as well.
You know I doubted we would ever get 1984 style Telescreens but it seems people are now wil
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It's one thing for Law Enforcement to come and ask for video recordings from your camera regarding a recent crime. I would almost certainly comply if asked. It's an entirely different thing to just give access without scrutiny.
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It's a data ownership issue. if you own the data, you can chose to cooperate (or not) by providing your footage. If you can't say "no", you don't own the data.
With the cloud providers, there are multiple layers of you not owning the data. Maybe that means they'll share it with law enforcement, maybe they'll share it with employees and contractors, maybe they unintentionally share it with hackers. People put ip cameras in sensitive places on the assumption that their data is safe, but history suggests otherw
Re: (Score:2)
If someone commits a crime on my property I am more than capable of agreeing to release the footage to law enforcement myself
The choice should be yours Re:Law enforcement (Score:3)
>I would cooperate with law enforcement if they're investigating serious (violent) crime.
The choice to cooperate or not should be yours, not the camera vendor's.
Re: Law enforcement (Score:2)
Talk to your lawyer and see what they think of this idea.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Wifi is not actually optimal (Score:2)