Hello all, I’m in the market for a privacy-respecting security doorbell camera and a wide view camera with the following features: (not all of them are required, however)

-Motion detection

-Decent sized local storage*( I saw one that came with a 2TB drive but I don’t think they had a cloud storage)

-Cloud storage* (no subscriptions would be great)

I briefly looked at the r/privacy and a lot of recommendations have third parties like Amazon web services for their cloud storage which I don’t feel very comfortable with. I’m looking forward to hearing about the products you guys swear by.

Thanks.

“privacy friendly” and “free cloud storage” are oxymorons. If you aren’t paying for a product, you ARE the product

Ubiquiti NVR Instant kit is a great value, and you get 24h local recording without a subscription. And it is well supported with Home Assistant.

Some of the UniFi cameras are amazingly expensive though, $500 for an outdoor 4K camera is hard to swallow. But if you can swing it, you will not regret the investment.

I already have other UniFi gear for networking and it was natural to add cameras to the system.

Apparently UniFi Protect works with 3rd party cameras if they support ONVIF but I don’t know of any yet.

Have a look at Reolink.

Unfortunately, you need the app to set it up the first time, which you can only get on Google Play or the iOS App Store, but I don’t think you need an account for them at all.

Note: I do not own any, but I was doing some research to see about using them with Home Assistant.

I think some of the newer stuff needs an app but the older stuff doesn’t.

I think.

Can confirm, I have older Reolink cameras and didn’t know they did this! No app to set them up

I use tapo cameras that I connect through ethernet cable to an old laptop.

The camera itself never sees the internet.

I use “motion” for motion detection and recording

nixus
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21d

+1 for motion, it works great.

Can you set up tapo cameras without using the app?

I saw an article before about a guy who reverse engineered the app and figured out default camera’s admin password so probably possible but I think not worth the effort.

what I did was

  1. Installing the app
  2. Create a hotspot that provides no internet.
  3. Connect to that hotspot so now my phone has no internet
  4. Open tapo app and setup the camera
  5. Allow the camera to connect to the internetless hotspot to finish the setup and enable rtsp
  6. Uninstsll the app
nixus
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120h

Ah, lame, but thanks.

I did something similar: I have a burner-phone, that is only used for dumb apps, and a wifi point that can’t reach the internet. But I was hoping to avoid having to do that dance.

scytale
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21d

I use Eufy with local storage that you can expand with your own hard drive. They had some controversy before with how thumbnails are temporarily stored in their cloud, but if you select notifications without thumbnails/preview, you should be ok. Cloud storage will never be privacy-friendly unless you encrypt the videos yourself before they are uploaded.

Check out Eve Home. I have a bunch of their stuff specifically because of the privacy aspect.

https://www.evehome.com/en-us/eve-outdoor-cam

SecurityPro
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11d

Do these work with Home Assistant? I’m not an Apple user. Anyone know if video can be stored locally instead of Apple servers?

m-p{3}
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Eufy cameras linked to their HomeBase for storage, or you can send the cameras recording to your own NAS through RTSP.

I would advise against using surveillance cameras, because they violate others’ privacy. However, if you must, you can use hardware compatible with Frigate and upload it to whichever encrypted cloud server you wish.

irmadlad
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112d

I would advise against using surveillance cameras, because they violate others’ privacy.

That’s a curious take. I’m keen to know your angle. If you are within range of my surveillance cameras, you’re on my property and are not afforded any privacy. I don’t care what happens out in the street, so I have none that cover the street. However, when it bleeds over onto my square, then I do care.

I’m keen to know your angle.

Certainly! My threat model is mainly against mass surveillance, so this is my view: If there is a surveillance camera recording in a place where there is reasonable expectation of having no strangers, I am mostly fine with that. As you mentioned, if it is only recording your own private property where no strangers are meant to be, that is your business.

However, if it is recording a space where there is reason to expect strangers to be there without violating private property (e.g. stores, doorsteps, sidewalks) that is not ok. Simply, I should not be in the crossfire of your surveillance. I don’t know your intentions with the footage, and I don’t know who else may have access to it. It shouldn’t be my job to cover up just because you want to violate the public’s right to privacy.

You can see this post of mine about my views on the expectation of privacy in public. I made it about a year ago, and I haven’t read back over it, so it may be outdated or less refined than I’d prefer.

I am a huge advocate for the right to privacy, so I don’t have any surveillance cameras of my own. When I have friends over, I want to lead by example and make my space a private space for them too. Instead of funding more surveillance, we should be funding stronger locks and better deterrents that don’t violate human rights.

irmadlad
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31d

Well, that certainly is a different take than I’m used to. I sometimes fail to realize that most of the population live in fairly tight quarters, especially in housing developments, etc. Their coverage would entail an acre maybe a little more or a little less and even a doorbell cam has a pretty wide field of vision. So I could understand that concern. Where as, I have some acreage to mother hen. Barns, equipment, etc. and I have zero tolerance for a person who would walk onto my property and steal from me. I’ll help a brother out as best I can, but if you steal from me that’s going to get you in some troubled water.

Anyways, thanks for the explanation. Always down to be educated. Thanks for the link as well. I’ll hit it in a bit.

you know that suit from A Scanner Darkly? I think about that suit a lot…

@PiraHxCx@lemmy.ml
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I guess a lot of cameras cover sidewalks and so. I have one pointing at my front door and one at my garage door and both show the sidewalk… I never gave much thought about it until I saw that article about Amazon’s Ring cameras recording passerby faces and putting it into their database.

irmadlad
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22d

Huh. I guess I have gotten used to living in farming country. Not too many people out here walking, but that concern seems valid.

I share a similar stance on general street surveillance by the likes of Ring. But on the flip side I understand that people may want to extend the scope of security cameras onto the street due to vehicle vandalism for example, so I make sure to smile my sweet smile when I notice them.

Thanks to @Charger8232@lemmy.ml & @irmadlad@lemmyis.fun for yet another perfect example of what I love about Fediverse, this is why it’s so much better than “the other place”

irmadlad
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  • Eufy
  • Arlo Pro
  • Blink Outdoor
  • Amcrest Ultra

I am assuming you are covering something like residential property.

These come to mind. I think all of those have offline and online storage, so storage capacity would be dictated by what you choose. All four of those manufacturers have doorbell cams as well. All four have motion detection.

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