5 ms·

A broader question I've had as I've been looking into these is: are there any low-cost alternative is that do NOT involve the cloud? I really don't want to sen

A broader question I've had as I've been looking into these is: are there any low-cost alternative is that do NOT involve the cloud? I really don't want to send video from inside and outside my home across the Internet. I don't mind that I can't check it remotely. I'm more interested in giving my wife the ability to see what's outside without spending an arm and a leg or letting it go out onto the Internet.

raesene6 10y ago
I've used Foscam's for wildlife watching round our house. they have outdoor cameras that seem pretty robust and aren't too expensive, although their software is a bit basic. They work reasonbly over wireless or Powerline networking. To overcome the software problems we use Sighthound to do the image recognition + storage. It's a local install on a PC/Mac no cloud needed. One trick to note is that newer Foscam's send some telemetry stuff to the cloud but that's easily blocked with an outbound firewall rule.
mseebach 10y ago
Pretty much any other IP camera? D-Link has a range.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  And that range dips down into the valley of crap. The smartphone software that came with the camera will frequently lock up, so it's nearly impossible to tell whether our baby is actually sleeping quietly or the image has just frozen. Ditto for the browser-based cloud garbage. I've resorted to just accessing the feed directly (via http://192.168.1.xx/video.cgi http://192.168.1.xx/video.cgi, which is a streaming jpeg) but that tends to lock up as well.
  - knz 10y ago
    That has been my experience with foscam IP cameras as well. The UI was horrible, they routinely lost the static IP's I had assigned, and it reached the territory of being something that caused more stress than it was worth. The only appeal of Nest for me would be a potentially more reliable experience.
- goldenkey 10y ago
  Ive owned both dlink and a dropcams. The dlink cameras are absolute shit. Often disconnecting from wifi. Unable to handle the bandwidth to upload good quality video. Firmware and software along with admin web panel is absolute junk, poorly translated as if foreign contractors made it as hasty as they could. Dlink cameras are also cheap plastic crap and easily topple over. Dropcam has worked great for me even with Nest taking over. I have a server that I connected hackable cameras to, but multiple 1080p streams is not the easiest to handle affordably. As a hacker, even dropcam offers a pretty decently priced service for peace of mind. Dont get dlink tho whatever you do. EDIT: I should mention I even bought the mydlink Camera Video Recorder (DNR-202L) and what a heap of shit. Clogged up my LAN somehow, despite the fact that dropcams have 1080p and don't have any effect. Cameras often lost connection to the DNR-202, and the quality that it could support had to be severely downgraded. D-links solutions are atrocious. Please, save yourself the money and time. The dlink stuff is cheap for a reason -- and well, not all of it is even cheap. I bought the wide angle rotating cam and it ran me $200. And it was just as terrible as the little dinky $50 dlink cameras. Ugh.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dmm 10y ago
There are lots of inexpensive ip cameras on the market. I use several to watch my animals from work. There's a specification called ONVIF that most of them more-or-less implement that allows applications to discover cameras features like how to get the video stream and PTZ. I use a Foscam 8921, which is a pan-tilt 720p camera and a Crenova something which is a 720 fixed dome. The Crenova is flaky, dropping frames but that may be because of the cable. The foscam was ~$70 and the crenova was ~$40. The 8921 is technically a indoor-only camera but it's lived in my chicken coop for over a year without an issue. It's away from rain but not hot and cold temperatures and dust. So it would probably work on a sheltered porch. As far as software goes you can use an android app called "Onvifer" that discovers onvif cameras and let you view and control them. Or you can use zoneminder if you have lots of free time ;). I wasn't too happy with what I could find so I put together some hacks with ffmpeg, a setup that is slowly evolving into a custom video surveillance system. I keep my cameras on a separate network without internet access. They all run linux and have open telnet ports. I treat them as hostile outsiders and only allow access from one machine that sucks video out of them but it's up to how paranoid you want to be. Anyway in conclusion there are definitely low-cost options that don't involve the cloud. EDIT: Also amazon sucks. You have no idea what you're getting when order from them with these types of products. Be prepared to return things.
- EA 10y ago
  It's offline now, but I mounted a 8918 to the bottom of a deerfeeder in our backyard. http://deercam.tumblr.com/about/ http://deercam.tumblr.com/about/ The cam lasted about a year out there until it quit working after an electrical storm. It lived through a lot of rain, wind, and Alabama humidity.
IshKebab 10y ago
A pretty big benefit of the cloud is that intruders can't just destroy your recordings. That said, the subscription prices are rather insane.
Mister_Snuggles 10y ago
I've cobbled together a solution involving D-Link cameras and a fork of motion[0], plus some scripts to move files around, that works really well for me. Remote access is handled by running a VPN server, but that's a general infrastructure thing, not anything specific to the cameras. The D-Link cameras, at least the ones I use, all have a cloud service available, but they work just fine if you put them on a separate network that isn't able to access the internet. They all present what they see as an MJPEG stream that motion can consume, plus they have a built in web server to do the configuration. [0] https://github.com/Mr-Dave/motion https://github.com/Mr-Dave/motion
jfoytik 10y ago
Yes, there are other inexpensive options that are not cloud-based? As other users mentioned you could get a cheap ONVIF-compatible camera from Dahua or Hikvision for around $100. This can be paired with an inexpensive VMS. Check out http://www.ipconfigure.com/products/orchid http://www.ipconfigure.com/products/orchid - They provide a Free community edition of Orchid that runs on Raspberry Pi, or $69 per camera if you want to run on your own server/pc (Linux/Windows).
heywire 10y ago
I'm pretty happy with a Raspberry Pi running RPi-Cam-Web-Interface (plus a few custom scripts). http://elinux.org/RPi-Cam-Web-Interface http://elinux.org/RPi-Cam-Web-Interface

raesene6 10y ago

I've used Foscam's for wildlife watching round our house. they have outdoor cameras that seem pretty robust and aren't too expensive, although their software is a bit basic. They work reasonbly over wireless or Powerline networking. To overcome the software problems we use Sighthound to do the image recognition + storage. It's a local install on a PC/Mac no cloud needed. One trick to note is that newer Foscam's send some telemetry stuff to the cloud but that's easily blocked with an outbound firewall rule.

mseebach 10y ago

Pretty much any other IP camera? D-Link has a range.

pavel_lishin 10y ago
And that range dips down into the valley of crap. The smartphone software that came with the camera will frequently lock up, so it's nearly impossible to tell whether our baby is actually sleeping quietly or the image has just frozen. Ditto for the browser-based cloud garbage. I've resorted to just accessing the feed directly (via http://192.168.1.xx/video.cgi http://192.168.1.xx/video.cgi, which is a streaming jpeg) but that tends to lock up as well.
- knz 10y ago
  That has been my experience with foscam IP cameras as well. The UI was horrible, they routinely lost the static IP's I had assigned, and it reached the territory of being something that caused more stress than it was worth. The only appeal of Nest for me would be a potentially more reliable experience.
goldenkey 10y ago
Ive owned both dlink and a dropcams. The dlink cameras are absolute shit. Often disconnecting from wifi. Unable to handle the bandwidth to upload good quality video. Firmware and software along with admin web panel is absolute junk, poorly translated as if foreign contractors made it as hasty as they could. Dlink cameras are also cheap plastic crap and easily topple over. Dropcam has worked great for me even with Nest taking over. I have a server that I connected hackable cameras to, but multiple 1080p streams is not the easiest to handle affordably. As a hacker, even dropcam offers a pretty decently priced service for peace of mind. Dont get dlink tho whatever you do. EDIT: I should mention I even bought the mydlink Camera Video Recorder (DNR-202L) and what a heap of shit. Clogged up my LAN somehow, despite the fact that dropcams have 1080p and don't have any effect. Cameras often lost connection to the DNR-202, and the quality that it could support had to be severely downgraded. D-links solutions are atrocious. Please, save yourself the money and time. The dlink stuff is cheap for a reason -- and well, not all of it is even cheap. I bought the wide angle rotating cam and it ran me $200. And it was just as terrible as the little dinky $50 dlink cameras. Ugh.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

dmm 10y ago

There are lots of inexpensive ip cameras on the market. I use several to watch my animals from work. There's a specification called ONVIF that most of them more-or-less implement that allows applications to discover cameras features like how to get the video stream and PTZ. I use a Foscam 8921, which is a pan-tilt 720p camera and a Crenova something which is a 720 fixed dome. The Crenova is flaky, dropping frames but that may be because of the cable. The foscam was ~$70 and the crenova was ~$40. The 8921 is technically a indoor-only camera but it's lived in my chicken coop for over a year without an issue. It's away from rain but not hot and cold temperatures and dust. So it would probably work on a sheltered porch. As far as software goes you can use an android app called "Onvifer" that discovers onvif cameras and let you view and control them. Or you can use zoneminder if you have lots of free time ;). I wasn't too happy with what I could find so I put together some hacks with ffmpeg, a setup that is slowly evolving into a custom video surveillance system. I keep my cameras on a separate network without internet access. They all run linux and have open telnet ports. I treat them as hostile outsiders and only allow access from one machine that sucks video out of them but it's up to how paranoid you want to be. Anyway in conclusion there are definitely low-cost options that don't involve the cloud. EDIT: Also amazon sucks. You have no idea what you're getting when order from them with these types of products. Be prepared to return things.

EA 10y ago
It's offline now, but I mounted a 8918 to the bottom of a deerfeeder in our backyard. http://deercam.tumblr.com/about/ http://deercam.tumblr.com/about/ The cam lasted about a year out there until it quit working after an electrical storm. It lived through a lot of rain, wind, and Alabama humidity.

IshKebab 10y ago

A pretty big benefit of the cloud is that intruders can't just destroy your recordings. That said, the subscription prices are rather insane.

Mister_Snuggles 10y ago

I've cobbled together a solution involving D-Link cameras and a fork of motion[0], plus some scripts to move files around, that works really well for me. Remote access is handled by running a VPN server, but that's a general infrastructure thing, not anything specific to the cameras. The D-Link cameras, at least the ones I use, all have a cloud service available, but they work just fine if you put them on a separate network that isn't able to access the internet. They all present what they see as an MJPEG stream that motion can consume, plus they have a built in web server to do the configuration. [0] https://github.com/Mr-Dave/motion https://github.com/Mr-Dave/motion

jfoytik 10y ago

Yes, there are other inexpensive options that are not cloud-based? As other users mentioned you could get a cheap ONVIF-compatible camera from Dahua or Hikvision for around $100. This can be paired with an inexpensive VMS. Check out http://www.ipconfigure.com/products/orchid http://www.ipconfigure.com/products/orchid - They provide a Free community edition of Orchid that runs on Raspberry Pi, or $69 per camera if you want to run on your own server/pc (Linux/Windows).

heywire 10y ago

I'm pretty happy with a Raspberry Pi running RPi-Cam-Web-Interface (plus a few custom scripts). http://elinux.org/RPi-Cam-Web-Interface http://elinux.org/RPi-Cam-Web-Interface