There are a few options for local NVRs such as Blue Iris or Frigate. Both can do facial/object recognition. They'll work with any camera that supports direct access.
this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
1 points (100.0% liked)
Home Automation
79 readers
2 users here now
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.
Rules
- No abusive behaviour. This is a forum for friendly discussion; personal attacks will not be tolerated and you will be banned without warning.
- Referral/affiliate links are NOT ALLOWED!
- NO POLITICS! There are plenty of other communities to discuss them; this is not one.
- When posting project details must be included. Posting a video or image without detail will result in a removed post and may result in a ban.
- Crowdfunding links are not allowed.
- Reposts, low-effort content and karma farming may be removed at the discretion of the mods. Posters may be banned without warning.
founded 11 months ago
MODERATORS
I've used Foscam/Amcrest wifi cams on their own vlan with no outside access with zoneminder for years.
I have it setup to record 30 seconds of motion to my local drive.
For outside access I just vpn in. They are tied to my Homeassistant but can be viewed many different, all free and no cloud access, ways.
Any questions just ask.
I use Reolink cameras and Blue Iris as an NVR. Works very well. The Reolink cameras aren't as cheap as the generic cloud based ones, but not horrible either.
Blue Iris is about $80
Blue Iris integrates nicely with Home Assistant.
My reolinks upload their recordings to my local ftp server so you don’t even need an NVR
I would second this. I am always a proponent of PoE cameras, but if you can get an RTSP IP camera that's wifi then really all that's changing is the physical layer and it'll work like a Ethernet cameras. Then it's just LAN traffic. Block if from hitting the internet in your VLAN/firewall rules and call it a day.
If you're really strapped for cash you can hack the firmware on a few of the Wyze cams to get RTSP out of them, but MAKE SURE you block them as they will CONSTANLY phone home and make sure you block via MAC not IP as I've watched mine pull different IPs in an attempt to get around IP level WAN blocks.
Blue Iris is about $80
And is also a yearly subscription if you want things like push notifications to still work.
I've currently got 2 solutions in use. (I focused heavily on keeping the price as low as I could for both)
4 wireless cameras on a cheap NVR I got from Amazon. It works but I keep it in it's own VLAN meaning it doesn't back up to anything.
2 home built using a RPi 0w, camera, and NAS. The RPIs are running open media vault and use the NAS for storage.
Two notes for this setup, I also have a script scheduled weekly on my PC that deletes any footage more than a month old from the NAS, and I'd recommended against using the local storage on the pi as along with degrading the SD card faster, if the storage fills completely then the camera quietly locks up and stops recording all together.
I use Synology security center on their NAS.. works nicely with a large range of cameras.
Here too, very solid and reliable. I believe this info is still accurate:
By default, every Synology NAS device you purchase allows you to link up two different cameras to the device for free. For a small home setup, that might be ok, but if you need to add more cameras to the system, you need to purchase licenses and they run roughly $50 per extra camera.
I have three cameras and so had to purchase an additional license. But it was just one-time, fairly painless.
Does the camera have a companion app?
I bought one and there was a setting in the app to enable rstp.
Amcrest, Reolink, and wired Eufy cams here, all recording to my storage. Synology surveillance station and Scrypted nvr.
Any camera that supports RTSP protocol can be connected to a local NVR for local storage. Look at brands designed for CCTV security instead of the consumer brands that focus on ease of use with cloud storage. I currently buy WiseNet cameras, but you have to buy their commercial line (not the stuff they sell on Amazon).
A wireless cammera will be more trouble than a wired one, and it will be more trouble than you think. That said, if it supports rtsp, there is a lot of DVR software that will work with it. Blue Iris was mentioned. ISpyConnect also is solid. I use Zoneminder.
You need an ONVIF supporting camera to get away from proprietary clouds. Just search ONVIF on Amazon, many cams support it.
The two terms I have learned to look for when searching for cameras are ONVIF and RTSP.
(Open network video interface and real time streaming protocol) https://bas-ip.com/articles/onvif-ip-camera-tech/#:~:text=Difference%20between%20ONVIF%20and%20RTSP&text=In%20the%20context%20of%20IP,used%20for%20transmitting%20video%20data.
I was able to find onvif cameras on amazon pretty cheap and they connect to homeassistant and do what I want without cloud connections.
Blue iris with amcrest cameras here, most are poe but I have a wireless one I plug into a battery pack when I need to see something anywhere else on wifi. Like which breaker turns off that light sort of stuff. I have no issue believing wireless would be very reliable full time here and plan to add a wireless camera to my detached garage soon.
Cameras are on their own lan, plugged into a second network card in my PC, the cameras are not reachable from wan or the main network. Everything is fixed IP to keep it simple and reliable.
Blue iris webserver is accessible from lan on my main network, which also has a VPN server in the router. The webserver is not accessible to wan. This way with openvpn on my phone I can see the cameras from anywhere in the world, very safely and completely free except blue iris 1 time purchase and cost of the equipment.
Email notifications from blue iris work well, but I have not set up any of the AI stuff so I get false notifications for rain and clouds frequently unfortunately, everything else about this setup will last the test of time and is to my knowledge about as secure as possible while still maintaining access remotely.
Ubiquiti..unifiprotect.
You'll thank me later.
Edit: I can't tell if you're talking for your personal use, or to be a hardware provider of sorts...