https://www.ispyconnect.com/ https://www.ispyconnect.com/ I've used this with cheap ($100-150) IP cameras and I believe there are mobile applications that can

https://www.ispyconnect.com/ https://www.ispyconnect.com/ I've used this with cheap ($100-150) IP cameras and I believe there are mobile applications that can make a smartphone act as an IP camera as well, although I'd imagine they may not always be ideal since they're not meant to be running/recording like that all the time. Still, I've done exactly what you describe before getting a NAS with surveillance/IPCam monitoring software. Run iSpy on an old computer in a closet, set it up so the recordings go in your Drive/Dropbox/etc. folder and set the max archive size depending on your available storage or how much you want to eat up. That way your stuff if stored locally and you can still access recent recordings elsewhere via your online storage. You can skip the online storage part if you want, or I believe there is a "pro" service with iSpy that gives online options but I never used them. On its own, it's a great bit of software and once you tweak the settings a bit (recording quality/format, motion detection sensitivity, etc) it's pretty flexible and you should be able to get it working reasonably well on even older hardware. I've run it on old Core2Duo laptops as well as my more modern desktop. Encoding lots of streams can get demanding on the old gear but for a cam or two it's not too bad.