I couldn’t find a post in this community about cameras so I figured I’d make one. Requirements:

  • No “sign up” required to record video
  • Video is stored locally
  • Video is in a non-propriatary format
  • Can work offline

Optional/Discussion Points:

  • Can wireless connectivity be hardware disabled
  • Can auto-update be disabled
  • Does the device try to “phone home” if it is connected to wifi
  • Disk encryption would be nice but I doubt that’ll be an option for anything other than self-hosted stuff

Does anyone know about Lorex (it seems more privacy centered)?

I’m highly technical, so feel free to mention self hosted raspberry pi soltuions as well.

  • TrenchcoatFullOfBats@belfry.rip
    1·
    1 year ago

    You don't have to give up privacy for this, or voluntarily give your data to a giant corporation with a track record of abusing their customer's privacy and giving your video footage to police without your consent.

    I have 5 Amcrest PoE cameras that have been configured to not "call home". The cameras have built-in web servers that allow you to configure them without being forced to install an app or make a cloud account.

    All of the built in detection stuff has been turned off because the feeds from the cameras go to Frigate NVR, which does all of the detection stuff with the help of a Coral TPU. I have it running as an add-on to Home Assistant OS, but it can also run separately in a docker container.

    Frigate is set to detect certain things, like "person", "car", "dog", etc. If it detects those things, it records a clip and takes a snapshot. Both are sent as notifications to my phone via a Home Assistant automation. If I'm not at home, I pay $65/year for Nabu Casa, which gives me secure remote access to my Home Assistant install and also helps fund Home Assistant development.

    • CmdrShepard@lemmy.oneEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Are you running the cameras by themselves or do you also use the Amcrest NVR? I bought a PoE kit with the NVR but find it very clunky to use and have yet to figure out how to transfer video clips off of it (USB flashdrive only?). I've been interested in Frigate and the like but have yet to really dig into it. I'm also running a server with Plex and HA with lots of storage which would work for storage provided I buy a PoE switch.

      • TrenchcoatFullOfBats@belfry.rip
        1·
        1 year ago

        I only use Frigate. All of the Amcrest stuff is turned off.

        Each of the cameras have two video streams. The "live" stream is set to 1080p, and the "sub" stream is set to 720p. The sub stream is what Frigate uses for detection. Here is a sample of what a camera config would look like in the frigate.yml file:

        cameras:
  back:
    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://camera-username:camera-password@camera-ip-address:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=2
          roles:
            - detect
            - record
    detect:
      width: 1280
      height: 720

        My HA runs in a Proxmox VM with 4 vCPUs, 4GB of RAM and 128GB storage. The VM also has access to a network drive, which is where nightly backups are stored.

        By default, the HAOS Frigate addon will store recordings on the host machine (you can define any volume if you're running Frigate in docker), and you can set "event" retention in the frigate config file - default is 10 days. You can download any clip or snapshot directly from the Frigate UI to whatever device you are using. OR, if your setup is similar to mine, you can pull from backup.

        My nightly backup to my network drive includes the frigate folder with the recordings and snapshots, which is also set to retain 10 days/backups, and finally there is a weekly Borgbase backup of that network folder to a server on another continent, so I don't feel like I need any kind of dedicated storage hardware - normal backup procedures work just fine!

        With this setup, CPU usage never goes above around 35% (keep in mind that I have a Coral TPU, which takes all the detection load off of the CPU) and with the configured Frigate retention policy, storage usage for the entire VM never exceeds 50% of the total available space.

        This setup has been running flawlessly for almost 3 years now. Detection is immediate, as are the push notifications. Very happy with it!