Home automation is the residential extension of building automation.
It is automation of the home, housework or household activity.
Home automation may include centralized control of lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), appliances, security locks of gates and doors and other systems, to provide improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and security.
Warning: Working with electricity can result in injury, property damage, or even death if it is not done properly. Please keep this in mind while assisting others. If you are not sure about what you are doing, hire a licensed professional.
I have found great relief being able to remotely connect and make sure things are 'OK'. For example, we were away during a tornado. Another time, my hot water heater leak alarm went off, I was able to log in and verify that it was a false alarm.
Out of respect for my partner, I keep the mics off, unless I specifically turn them on to check.
I have 9 cameras installed around my home - with none of them pointed anywhere inside (except my garage). I simply cannot come up with good reason to have one inside except to monitor a pet. Nothing gets in or out without video. That's enough.
In my opinion, people who live there should be able to preserve their own privacy in that space.
I have exterior and interior cameras… however we have a nanny that watch our children and we like to be able to look in and see what is going on from time to time. Nanny’s are aware of the cameras and they are in public places of our house. If you don’t have in home sitters he could be suspicious about something or does he have controlling behaviors and wants to know what your doing when he’s away?
She's hiding something
Personally, I/we have cameras throughout the common areas of me and my S.O.’s home. We have people come take care of our dogs here and there, people drop off and kindly steal packages, and we are also in an “improving” neighborhood where we get to hear the occasional “firework” (gunshot). But I live in the US and “celebratory fireworks” are sadly very normal in some areas.
If he’s not sharing access to those cameras with you equally (I.e. Ring shared access), that’s very questionable. On the other end, if he’s sharing access with you and you’re questioning it (it doesn’t sound like this is the case), then that’s also questionable. So, get access if you don’t have it already. If he balks at that idea, I’d get very curious. And throw a handful of red flags into the air.
We have cameras covering the driveway, front yard, backyard, garage, family room downstairs and living room upstairs. The two inside cameras are angled to capture as much of the upper and lower living spaces as possible.
Basically, I’d only question his motives if he wants to install a camera in the bedroom or bathroom.
He's cheating and feels he needs to watch you, his guilty conscience is getting the best of him...
Indoor cameras are real weird. I have one but only set it up (take it out of a drawer and plug it in) when we are going on vacation- and it's set to monitor the cats food.
Aside from minor use cases like that, always on cameras... no. They are constantly advertised but I like everyone to have privacy!
This post isn’t really in context for this group. Maybe refer to r/homesecurity or r/relationships
I used to be the one to stick up a camera in every corner of indoor space. Then I realized, I don’t have a single blind spot outside of the house. If someone is going to break in, i have several cameras outside that will record what I need. For indoor security I have door, motion, and glass break sensors.
If we really need we have an Alexa show that has a camera, but it makes it very apparent when you’re watching and has a mechanical privacy cover.
My dad became obsessed with having cameras in every corner of the interior. Which made my mom very uncomfortable to which he would then use stuff he saw her doing or saying on camera against her later.
However, shared space decisions should be codecisions.
I'm going to flip the question a little... what are you afraid of? If it is the common area of the house, will you be naked in that area? Anyway, as long as there are no cameras in the bedrooms and bathrooms, everything is fine.
Have you talked with your husband? Do you know why he wants a camera? Ask the man you are in a relationship with before asking Reddit strangers. I’m not sure why you would be offended -
The first reason I would ever want a camera in my living area would be if I lived with someone who might potentially raise legal issues for me that I want to record to protect myself.
A secondary reason would be because it's easier to monitor the interior with a single camera than multiple cameras around the exterior.
Especially if I'm renting I would want to be able to monitor any contractors or maintenance people the landlord my grant entry to on short or no notice.
So first he said he wants to install and it's only "beacuse". Later it turns out he also said "to see his son".
Those are two very different reasons. Why wasn't the bigger reason brought up right away?
You consider it stalking and definitely leaning to the answers agreeing with you. I have not noticed you being worried about cyber crime on anyone else spying on you, only your husband.
Just from reading into this for 5 minutes you're leaving me with untrusty vibes. Cameras are always a tricky subject with cons and pros, it's understandable.
Trustworthy people don't have a problem being checked on.
If there was nothing to worry about a camera wouldn't be a problem.
You shouldn't be offended, you should question your actions.
And yes, if he really wanted to spy on you, he already did.
If you have to ask us….
We have one but it's hooked up to an automatic switch we can both turn on/off with our phones when we're not home.
I have indoor cameras but they're strictly pointing to entrances, one on each door. It actually did catch a theft but from someone we knew (multi-thousand dollar item stolen by the girlfriend of a friend).
This question belongs in r/relationships I think.
I had the desire for cameras inside and outside cause live in not the worst but not the greatest area. My SO had no real issues with it so we went for it. A few weeks later I noticed myself going into a deep state of depression and it took me a while to realize that the inside cameras was making me very uneasy, feeling like I was being watched. Being a veteran with PTSD there were likely other things that contributed and made the matter even worse but really I felt like I wasn’t even living in my own home. I started tip-toeing, opening/closing doors slowly, and being as quiet as possible just for example. In retrospect this all feels a little dramatic but beforehand I never considered any of that being a possibility and it ended up making me feel a way I didn’t like of course. You need to talk with (not “at”) your SO about what they want and why they want it and then express your concerns whether that’s your feelings, emotions, safety, and/or something different with your SO. Discuss how there could be impacts not yet realized too. There is compromise here if some level of psychological safety is practiced on both ends.
I understand OPs hesitations.
I have done the following
Maybe OP would be OK with a similar setup. I had wanted to use cams for presence and person detection but my partner vetoed that pretty quick.
“What do you have to hide?” should be canceled out by “What are you trying to see?”
I balanced my desires for privacy and security by adding power controls to smart cameras.
When I’m home and awake, the cameras get deprived of electricity.
When I’m asleep upstairs or out of the house, power is restored for extra protection.
We have camera's in our home. They're only pointed places where you need to pass by to get inside the home, but specifically not at places where we actually live. They also don't record audio.
And none of the cameras are connected via a public cloud.
Why?
Most cameras with their standard settings are simply too easy to hack, and we want whatever private things we choose to do in our own house to stay private. And even if it's secure, I don't want to be showing off my home automation app to one of my nerd friends and accidentally show them something I shouldn't have, hence the specific placement.
A romantic partner demanding to install a nanny cam to watch me would be an immediate dealbreaker, I couldn’t care less what his reasons are. Even the ask screams abusive control. They’d lose whatever trust I had in them both for the absurd question and their reaction to my resounding hell no.
Imagine a life where you have to comb your own home for hidden cameras daily as though you’re staying in a shoddy Airbnb because that’s the life you’ll have with this person. Imagine what happens to those images when you’ve finally had enough of this type of treatment. Are you sure he hasn’t secretly installed one already? I’d nope out of that relationship at the speed of light.
The only I would trust is the eve HomeKit hksv camera and set it to off when anyone is home. Video data is encrypted on device before it sent to the internet and can only be accessed via your devices.
Without providing a compelling reason this would be highly suspect to me.
We had a camera in our home for a while because we got a puppy. It was our way to keep an eye on him early on when we first started leaving him home alone.
We talked about it first, both agreed to do it after I explained why I wanted to and it was local only, no video or audio sent out of the house.
Once the dog got older I took it down and repurposed, now it’s the inside of the garage camera.
I would set them up to cover ingress/egress points, so doors and windows, which will catch a good image of any intruder coming or going. You should be able to adjust most cameras so that they only cover the doorway, or windows, and not your living space.
Me and my fiance ended up getting cameras, and she was intially uncomfortable with them, so we agreed that as long as they were only covering ingress/egrees she was fine with it. Eventually, we ended up getting Cats and have changed our cameras so they cover most of our main living areas. We do not, and will not put cameras in bedrooms/bathrooms.
Also if you do come to an agreement with him regarding cameras, make sure he shares access with you, and has them set up through a VPN...if he is not familiar with networking/network secruity, go through a professional installer that can set up the network secruity for the cameras properly, and it will be ok.
Honestly, this sounds more like a r/relationship_advice post than r/homeautomation.
When we installed our cameras (some internal, most external) my wife and I talked about camera placement and what the cameras were monitoring and what we wanted to monitor. We established that bedrooms and bathrooms were no-camera zones and that we wanted to monitor primarily doors and windows. Finally, I made sure that my wife has access to the NVR so she can review the cameras as well (equal access == equal trust). The important bit is communication and information are key for something like this.
Our primary non-security use for the cameras is checking in on the house when we travel or when I want to see if the trash can needs to be pulled from the street. Do you use at-home babysitting? Perhaps that's why he wants an interior camera?
As far as acting silly or whatnot, I don't even really think about the cameras anymore. My wife and I both have walked through the living room in our underwear or less to get something out of the kitchen.
I would highly encourage the two of you to talk through the trust issue that has been found here. Something's not right and if the camera is installed anyways, it could backfire spectacularly and sow discontent between the two of you.
My guess? He likes to wait. Seriously, he probably just wants to see you undress.
I have a camera in my house and everyone knows it. It records 24/7 and saves several months back. I almost never check the recordings unless I’m trying to figure out which cat is knocking the lamp over. It’s too complicated to pull up footage for just casual viewing. I like being able to check on my home when I’m gone. Plus due to my professional experiences, it’s great evidence when someone breaks into your home. You think your outside cameras are enough to convict? Lmao nope! “Just because they broke in doesn’t mean my client stolen anything from the property”. It’s also great to check when a kid breaks their nose when you were only gone long enough to pee. Like how the f*ck did you break your nose in less than 1 min of me being gone?
Also check state laws. In my state it’s perfectly legal to have a camera in a public space in the house without consent to others. It’s illegal in private areas without consent
Btw you should post this to r/privacy
I have two cameras in my living space. One is in my utility room/mud room that covers by back door/dog door. The other is in my living room. It covers my front door and sliding glass door. If someone takes the time to hack my very secure setup, then they are going to be very bored with what they see. When we are not home, I use the living room one to help keep an eye on my dogs, they tend to get into mischief when we are gone.
I am a professional CCTV installer and I would recommend against this.
Consumer grade home tech products are way too easy to hack (there are a few darknet diaries episodes about this but a quick Google will show you plenty of examples)
In the rare occasion that we install cameras indoors, we generally wire their video feed via the intruder alarm which means when the alarm is unset (i.e you're at home) - the camera is off. Not just 'not being watched' but completely powered down and disconnected from everything.
I work in the industry and I wouldn't have one inside.
It would be interesting to know why he wants one, there may be other solutions for him...
Out of curiosity 'cause I've been thinking about this stuff for awhile (I'm going to be living alone soon and am a bit scared about it so was thinking of setting up a motion perimeter with human recognition) - what if it was a closed system with no Bluetooth or WiFi based cameras? All wired into a blackbox running a custom built service manager, no WiFi recievers on it, inside a literal locked box.
Still hackable?
Then it’s a useless system, though what’s it going to do for you?
If you’re concerned about living alone, and want cameras for security, first of all, you should have a comprehensive security system, and it should be professionally monitored, which means that there does need to be outside access .
The monitoring service will attempt to contact you, and then contact police or fire as appropriate.
alarm systems, generally have off, away, and home modes. In home mode indoor cameras should be disabled.
The main way that these cameras get hacked is that they arrive with well-known admin user/pass combinations and use uPNP to request port forwarding on your router. Search engines crawling the web find your camera so it becomes searchable on Google and Shodan which is when it becomes a problem.
Now someone has access to what is essentially a small linux server, often with well-known exploits, sitting inside your network.
Following some basic security steps ike changing the admin user/pass, disabling uPNP and blocking external traffic to/from your webcam will greatly reduce the risk.
The next risk comes from buying cameras that are designed to use an app as they'll call home directly to enable you to connect without setting up port forwading or dynamic DNS. These ones are then at risk of your account and/or their home server being hacked and again gaining access to your camera.
I had multiple cameras indoors (nursery, lounge and kitchen) when our son was born as it allowed either of us to drop-in and say hi without having to disturb the other half e.g. when feeding or in the middle of play. These cameras were all standard IP cameras without fancy apps, on the same network as the rest of my devices but specifically blacklisted for external access in the firewall so only accessible via VPN.
Once he started nursery we took the cameras out of the lounge and his bedroom but left the one in the kitchen to keep an eye on the cooker and back door.
I got a couple cheap ones that call home to some Chinese server. I set them up when traveling to watch certain things. I don't trust em lol
We have cameras all over our house. But, whenever anyone is home, they have no power. We physically cut the power to all cameras.
We use the cameras for monitoring our home while away, mainly to detect fires or water leaks.
I once had a neighbor who would set up a camera on his kitchen counter when away on long trips. Pointing at the sink bowl. To detect backups. Which were frequent in our building. And he lived on the lowest floor.
Better than coming home to brown sludge.
I would be against it personally. That said one that covers the entry way might be acceptable but would be better if it was out side.
Now if you had it installed and only used it when everyone was out side of the house that could be reasonable as well. Personally I doubt it's to spy on you just wants a way to know whats going on when no one is home.
Too bad for the poster with the water leak concerns.
They would only find out once the water starts pouring out under the doors.
You could put a water sensor down there and keep your privacy in tact.
Outside cameras are easier to mess with though.
Like I’ve got one inside me office that sits in the window facing outside. Everyone outside can very easily see it and I’ve literally watched people notice it and then leave our property. The cameras outside are much easier to block, break, or steal to avoid being seen…
Same. We have an indoor camera sitting on the ledge of a big ass window AND a doorbell camera. The doorbell cam doesn't phase many people but the little blue light that came on the indoor cam definitely alerted someone who was coming to look into our living room while we were sleeping. She signaled her friends in the bushes and took off running.
This is the wrong subreddit for this. You need to talk to your husband and probably marriage counselling. This is gaslighting from your husband for your very valid concern.
I don't feel like this is the wrong subreddit. Our subreddit should not only talk about how to enable everything automation, but also about the valid concerns of doing so in some cases.
I don’t think anyone reasonable would say this is not a valid concern. Hence this is a relationship problem, not a tech problem.
You can add as many kill switch as you want, but that doesn’t mitigate the risk of being video in your own home.
I absolutely agree. It is a relationship problem in the end. But what I find quite enlightening about this discussion here is the clear reasoning why it is not a good idea for many reasons. The advantage of "why not" just doesn't even technically hold up compared to all the problems of "not secure against hacks", "not really covering classical home security" or "just one person in control" and all the other ones I forgot. If the guy does not listen to his wife's feelings (which is terrible...), then maybe at least when she has great arguments against it.