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Anyone know of self-hostable security cameras? (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by nottelling@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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Edit: ideally wifi cameras that I can solar power.

Looking to replace my Arlo cameras with something self-hostable. Arlo lets you store on a USB stick, but there's no way to get out from under their cloud, which gets more expensive all the time.

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[-] nbailey@lemmy.ca 20 points 11 months ago

You can use pretty much any camera with ZoneMinder as long as it supports ONVIF or RTSP and has the right connectivity and power inputs for you. I did something similar with some cheap TP-link cameras with pretty good results. With motion activated recording, I have just shy of 12 month of recordings stored on a 500G SSD.

https://nbailey.ca/post/nvr/

[-] dev67@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

How did you get 12 months onto just 500 Gb? I only have a couple weeks worth on a 1 Tb ☹️ I'm using wyze cams w/ agent i-spy. I assume I need to upgrade my compression skills here.

[-] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 9 points 11 months ago

Motion activated recordings.

Continuouse, even h265 recordings, can only 2 weeks or so per terabyte.

Motion activated means he is probably recording 30 minutes per day vs 24 hours.

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[-] infinitevalence@discuss.online 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Most cameras are self hosted but they are not marketed to consumers because they require running cables to them either for power and/or data.

Reolink camera with onvif so support can be connected to Frigate or Shinobi.

Hikvison and Dahua are common Chinese brands that have lots of options across lots of prices points but are treated as insecure or hostile iot devices required closed networks.

Costco often has camera and NVR packages that are passable.

Whenever possible make sure any camera you get is onvif so you can use it with any NVR or software.

[-] TheHolm@aussie.zone 5 points 11 months ago

HIkvision is great. Good value for money. Just do not use the app to configure them, use web gui. And yes, they need to be isolated from rest of network and the internet ( as pretty much any cameras).

[-] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago

I use Reolink cams with BlueIris software. None of it has access to the internet. Works fine.

[-] canthidium@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Can vouch for this. Been using a bunch of Reolink cameras with BI for years. Be careful with Reolink, though. Some cameras work fine and some don't at all, unless you use some middleman software, which is still hit or miss. Ran into this recently with a camera I got for my garage.

Edit: The Reolink Lumus line is NOT compatible. They don't broadcast rtsp.

[-] AimlessNameless@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

The wireless wifi Reolink cameras won't work the way OP wants, only the poe ones have rtsp

[-] canthidium@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

I have a mix of wifi and POE cameras and they all work for me.

[-] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

2 of my Reolinks are on Wi-Fi and work fine. It depends on the model.

[-] nottelling@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Reolink looks like a solid answer, thanks.

[-] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Do additional research on the models you’re interested in. Unfortunately they don’t all play nice with 3rd party software but the ones that use open standards are good bang for the buck.

[-] Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
AP WiFi Access Point
IP Internet Protocol
IoT Internet of Things for device controllers
NAS Network-Attached Storage
NVR Network Video Recorder (generally for CCTV)
PoE Power over Ethernet
SSD Solid State Drive mass storage
SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access
Unifi Ubiquiti WiFi hardware brand
VPN Virtual Private Network

10 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 9 acronyms.

[Thread #289 for this sub, first seen 18th Nov 2023, 23:15] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[-] nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Missed at least two of the more important ones:

Fewer Letters More Letter
RTSP Real Time Streaming Protocol
ONVIF Open Network Video Interface Forum

Still a pretty cool bit idea though. Keep at it!

[-] i_am_hungry@meganice.online 11 points 11 months ago

Frigate is amazing, that's what I'd recommend. I'm using a 5MP Amcrest camera, works very well. The dev doesn't recommend Reolink.

[-] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 2 points 11 months ago

Hikvision are also just rebranded amcrest sold cheaper for consumers. You have to isolate them from the internet, but that goes for pretty much every IP camera.

[-] abominable_panda@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Many selfhosted NVRs have been suggested. Personally ive tried:

iSpy

Frigate

Zoneminder

Shinobi

Ended up settling on zoneminder at this stage.

For cameras themselves i just want to point out the OpenIPC project - opensource firmware if youre technically inclined

Edit: I'm hesitant to recomment OpenIPC now since the main streamer is closed source. Thingino is fully open and developed by some of the devs who didn't agree with the closed source portion

[-] Feliberto@programming.dev 1 points 11 months ago

Openipc looks interesting. Just did a quick search and it's kind of difficult to find a camera that specifies it's chip.

[-] smoof@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

Yeah, I'm willing to try it if I knew which cameras are supported, not just what chip.

[-] abominable_panda@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Yeah, i faced the same challenge. I understand why they do it like that (cameras potentially mixing socs)...

I think there are some make/ models on their project but its far and few. Ive flashed 1 camera so far but had to check the soc myself

I need to crack open my (cheap chinese) cameras and check them at some point. Ive noticed them pinging my pihole for secu100 for cloud services. At least theyre blocked for internet access!

[-] chasingtheflow@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

I would review https://docs.frigate.video/frigate/hardware

[-] Prizephitah@feddit.nu 8 points 11 months ago

UniFi

[-] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 9 points 11 months ago

I personally recommend against UniFi for security now. Their software just isn't great anymore, and you can't really "selfhost" the protect. You have to have one of their proprietary boxes hosting the protect software. I'm not 100% against that - but I was not aware of that when I bought the first camera and had to buy the box.

As for the software, it's honestly just buggy and laggy. I'm in their system now, but if I could do it all again I'd look at others.

[-] nottelling@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

I'm somewhat stuck on Unifi for wifi APs and Routers, because all the other consumer-grade devices can't handle the number of small IoT devices I've got. Netgear and Asus just lose connections with ESP devices and refuse to let them connect after about a dozen. The commercial grade stuff, in addition to being too expensive, is all rack mounted, high power draw and noisy af.

Aside from the fact that my stuff seems stable on the Ubiquiti hardware, I hate the products. The interface is terrible, Unifi insists on hiding the advanced networking behind a halfass gui, the SSH console lacks half the features of even that terrible gui, and every time i try to create a new routed network, the wifi devices stop connecting.

[-] randombullet@feddit.de 2 points 11 months ago

I use unifi for wifi because honestly I like the dashboard.

But.. for anything layer 3, I'm using MikroTik. It's extremely powerful without actually running your own router, and many are Poe as well. I'm running a RB5009 which is overkill for me.

I chose RB5009 because it runs DoH, ZeroTier, sub interfaces, it's rack mountable, passively cooled, poe capable, and can handle up to 2.5gb symmetrical. I just wish they had 2 x SFPs so I can use a full 10gb WAN

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[-] Toribor@corndog.social 2 points 11 months ago

You have to have one of their proprietary boxes hosting the protect software

This was the biggest bummer for me that convinced me not to get into the Unify ecosystem. I already have a robust storage solution at home, I just want to point the cameras to a docker container running on my host with all the storage.

[-] randombullet@feddit.de 2 points 11 months ago

Nah, their software is so infuriating to work with. Even when an SSD it falls to load video clips. Often I have to restart unifi protect on the console or even ssh into it to do and apt update/upgrade to get it working again.

Self hosted might be a little better, but I'm not holding my breath.

[-] GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

Frigate + reolink is a great combo.

[-] ChiefSinner@lemm.ee 6 points 11 months ago

Look for something that can do rtsp streaming. Reolink, amcrest, ect. Its all cheap Chinese cameras that almost definitely dial out to some Chinese server.

What I do is have all cameras connected on a wireless router with no internet, use zoneminder on a Linux that is connected to my home network via Ethernet and the camera network via WiFi, and allow https into my home network from my VPN

[-] CazRaX@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

I do the same but with Blue Iris and Windows but yeah I keep those cheap China cams off the Internet.

[-] DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com 5 points 11 months ago

I'm running a trio of Reolink RLC-820A cameras, over PoE. I'm recording with Frigate on a Raspberry Pi with a Google TPU USB.

Inferencing of detected objects is lightning fast, and reasonably accurate. I'm storing ~45 days of footage (motion detected - not 24x7 recording) on less than 2TB.

[-] tvcvt@lemmy.ml 4 points 11 months ago

If you’re looking for something more or less in the same footprint, I understand those cheap Wyze cameras can be used. There are alternative firmwares available that can be flashed to them to open up the rtsp stream to whatever self-hosted recorder you’d like. Haven’t tried it, but have heard it mentioned on the Self Hosted podcast.

[-] zampson@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Not sure about wifi cameras, I have a mix of Trendnet and Hikivision POE, sitting on a Vlan with no internet access. For the software I use Blue Iris. Where I have a need for cameras I have only a Windows server and I have found this software to be the best for me.

[-] TheRealCharlesEames@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago

Does Ubiquiti qualify?

[-] infinitevalence@discuss.online 4 points 11 months ago

They do but are a poor value next to most other options.

[-] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 11 months ago

You can use Zoneminder with pretty much any cameras that work with Linux.

[-] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 3 points 11 months ago

I've been running https://demo.scrypted.app for a few months. It's pretty slick.

[-] falcon15500@lemmy.nine-hells.net 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah it looks pretty slick but not so much slicker than Frigate that I will pay to be in the beta. :)

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[-] WindowsEnjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

What do you mean "self-hosted security camera" exactly? Open source camera? DIY camera?

Or are you looking for self-hosted NVR software? If so, many people already gave you suggestions. My recommendation - don't focus on ZoneMinder. It's ugly software. Instead, use Shinobi for more classic software or Frigate with Google TPU accelerator. Both lightweight enough.

Myself I have a mix of HikVision and Dahua, recorded/analyzed by Frugate. Everything works like a charm.

And also, I've disabled internet access for all the cameras, so they couldn't call home. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[-] nottelling@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

I had no real idea how to phrase it, but all these posts have helped. What I was actually focused on when I posted was mainly hardware that can do what the Arlo cameras do:

  • Wifi + battery/solar my house is old and hardwires are a pain in the ass.
  • High def, preferably 4k, but 1080 is ok.
  • Night vision, color or not doesn't matter
  • Motion-activated, and preferably some way to filter out and not trigger on things like passing traffic cars.
  • As small a form-factor as possible.

The Reolink hardware mentioned below seems to fit the bill hardware-wise.

I hadn't even really considered the software, as I don't need a lot of features. All I need is to use motion-activated capture to stream to some local storage, and an ability to view a live-stream when I want one. But it looks like there's a lot of options I need to consider.

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

You're looking for a self-hosted NVR (Network Video Recorder). The best I've found and use in a number of customer's is Blue Iris, and it'll work with any ONVIF-enabled cameras, but it costs 100/yr and only runs on a windows machine. I have desperately tried open-source NVRs that will work on Linux but none of them are even in the same universe as Blue Iris for functionality and ease of use.

Wireless cameras are generally terrible so if you can hardwire them in any way, I would go with that. People have had fairly good luck with Wyse cameras for wireless, I can't speak to it. See the Selfhosted Podcast for various discussions on cameras to use with NVRs, with a focus on Blue Iris.

[-] WindowsEnjoyer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 months ago

I have desperately tried open-source NVRs that will work on Linux but none of them are even in the same universe as Blue Iris for functionality and ease of use.

Have you tried Shinobi? I've used it for quite some time until I switched to Frigate. It isn't broken tho.

Also, anything special with Blue Iris? Note that it can be ran on Linux because there is Docker image that uses wine.

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I did have it working under Wine myself, not with docker. The docker image is news to me, I might have to give it a try. What I did notice about running under Wine was that the web interface wouldn't load the good quality version, just the basic HTML version with the sad camera controls and interface. It worked, but wasn't great.

I did try Shinobi, it had a really odd interface. While it worked, I did not find it enjoyable to use and it was pretty rudimentary compared to BI.

[-] WindowsEnjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago

For NVR - it looks like you are after Frigate with object detection.

For cameras - as long as it has RTSP support, then you should be fine. Doesn't really matter of what kind of brand it is. You can always block internet access for a camera in your router.

[-] NixDev@programming.dev 2 points 11 months ago

This might not be 100% what you're looking for but I am running Reolink cameras and a Qnap NAS with QVR PRO. The reolink cameras are accessible through IP and some protocol I can't remember right now. So you might be able to get them to work with your setup

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this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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