9 ms·

Slightly offtopic, but it's getting harder and harder to get a surveillance equipment that's not connected to "the cloud" all I want is to be in full control of

by takeda 7y ago

Slightly offtopic, but it's getting harder and harder to get a surveillance equipment that's not connected to "the cloud" all I want is to be in full control of my own data. I would install Ring if it was closed loop system. Same thing with other technologies to make a smart home. Why so many people (especially the ones that understand technology) seem to be ok with this? This attitude causes that there are less and less options for privacy conscious people.

redwall_hp 7y ago
Raspberry Pis + cheap USB webcams or the camera module would work. (The official Pi Zero case has an optional faceplate with a cutout for the camera, so it can all go in one box.) There are existing software packages that can start taking pictures and run scripts when motion is detected.
- slap 7y ago
  Software like motioneye (motion detection) doesn't work on Rpi as it needs a lot of CPU (my experience).
  - tonylemesmer 7y ago
    I agree. It’s flaky at best. Not one to rely on which is kind of a necessity for a security product.
  - rasz 7y ago
    passthrough recording uses hardware acceleration on pee
  - newnewpdro 7y ago
    Works fine on my rpi zero w cams, I have a bunch of them in use, they've proven very reliable: PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 437 cam 20 0 120072 23352 15156 S 12.8 6.2 41:56.21 motion 3417 regusr 20 0 8128 3272 2748 R 1.6 0.9 0:00.55 top 37 root 1 -19 0 0 0 S 0.6 0.0 1:39.16 vchiq-slot/0 191 cam 20 0 59000 20040 9852 S 0.6 5.3 2:04.44 meyectl 2334 tun 20 0 9180 4948 4404 S 0.3 1.3 0:00.97 ssh 3398 regusr 20 0 11512 3780 3036 S 0.3 1.0 0:00.11 sshd 3404 root 20 0 0 0 0 I 0.3 0.0 0:00.09 kworker/u2:1 3418 root 20 0 0 0 0 I 0.3 0.0 0:00.04 kworker/0:2
    - gambiting 7y ago
      Same here - I run a Pi Zero W with motioncam and it works absolutely fine, and has been for a couple years at this point.
- srcmap 7y ago
  I set one up with R pi before. Use the ubuntu "motion" package and record pic/video when motion is detected. Use some python script to auto upload new files to google drive. I can use any google drive sw in ios/android to view pictures in some folder. The folder can be shared with family members can be view remotely. Kinda fun project. Works ok - But it used a lot space. Have to actively manage share folder. I am looking for similar setup for quite a few of old android phones laying around. Plan to write one myself when I have time.... If anyone know a good solution with old android phone HW + G Drive, please share.
koyote 7y ago
I recently looked into getting a simple camera for the balcony: mostly for creating a time lapse of the plants that are growing there. The majority of the options out there were connected to some kind of "cloud" service. I was even more surprised when I saw that a lot of popular options mandated a cloud subscription with no local storage. There is no need whatsoever to have any of this on the cloud at all. Especially with multiple hundreds of gigabytes of SD storage being so cheap these days. In the end I went with a cheap Chinese camera which has unofficial open source firmware available (Dafang). Works like a charm.
- markkanof 7y ago
  If you look into power over ethernet surveillance cameras there are lots of options that are standalone devices not associated with any specific cloud service. You then have to get some software that can receive the stream from the camera and do something with it (records, motion detection, etc.). It's not nearly as plug and play as going with something like Ring, but I also think that's expected when you are wanting something that gives the user more control.
npo9 7y ago
Cloud services are so much more profitable that a single purchase item cannot compete.
sangnoir 7y ago
> Why so many people (especially the ones that understand technology) seem to be ok with this? Because there are no viable alternative devices. It's now impossible to buy a non-smart TV because smart TVs were cheaper (due to surveillance-funded subsidies). The next best thing would probably be open-source firmware installed on these consumer device, paired with a self-hosted home-assistant.io
- ska 7y ago
  At least with a smart TV it's often quite practical to just not connect it to the internet. If your camera won't function at all without a network, it's not that useful.
  - liability 7y ago
    It's probably only a matter of time before household appliances, like cars, connect to cell networks to exfiltrate data about you.
    - jkestner 7y ago
      Lol, like years ago. https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/iot/modern-automobiles-collect-copious-amounts-of-data-ranging-from-driving-habits-to-the-weight-of-its-occupants/ https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/iot/modern-aut...
    - rodgerd 7y ago
      Hence the drive for 5G
mv 7y ago
The indiegogo funded camect is pitched as a private 'cloud optional' recorder. The beta unit I have is cloud connected but the final release has the option to be fully local. It has a lot of neat features like identifying people/ups trucks/cars/etc. It only has a webbased client, but I kind of like it and the beta version has been way better than any of the cheap dvr trash that big box stores sell. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/camect-world-s-smartest-most-private-camera-hub/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/camect-world-s-smartest-m...
ezekg 7y ago
I also encountered this rather big hole in the market. I was looking for a home security system that worked on a local private network with no outside comms, but that apparently doesn't exist. I ended up going with Abode without cameras or their monitoring service (self-monitored), but I'm still not 100% happy with that, since they still store all of your data in the cloud and have permission to disarm your home and so are then an attack vector I'd like to avoid. I've thought about this a lot and have quite a notebook full of ideas/notes on this: I think there's room in the market for a privacy-focused open-source home security system utilizing micro-controllers (Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Adafruit, etc.) and secure cryptographic protocols. You could make revenue assembling pre-built security sensors built from the micro-controller ecosystem, perhaps with good modern aesthetics, but the more security conscious of us could buy and build everything ourselves based on the spec for each sensor.
- DickingAround 7y ago
  What are you looking for in a security system? We run both system-in-a-box sets of closed circuit cameras as well as fully controlled webcams. Are you looking for some UI or auto-alarming aspect? (e.g. face detection? threat detection?)
- gwicks56 7y ago
  How would you keep the footage secure? There is zero point in cameras if the HD's can just be carried off, a decent safe will cost > $1000 and be ugly as all hell.
  - ezekg 7y ago
    Wherever you want. That's the great thing about owning your own data.
  - Spivak 7y ago
    Just because the data flows to somewhere you control doesn’t mean it has to be local. I mean we’re firmly in hobbiest/semi-pro territory here but shipping the data encrypted to your own cloud instance or box colo’d in a local data center would be fine.
mattferderer 7y ago
A popular DIY setup: Hikvision cameras & Blue Iris software Hikvision cameras have the benefit of not being wireless and using Power over Ethernet for people who don't mind running some cable. I think that has a lot of value over a bunch of cameras killing your wifi. Off the shelf cheap routers do poor with a ton of wifi cameras it seems. Blue Iris can send you mobile alerts without a subscription. All videos are stored locally & it's very configurable. You could upload alert photos/videos to a cloud provider for cheap off-site hosting if you choose. That way if the bad people destroy your PC you still have video unless they take out your internet. One could setup limited backup internet with a mobile company for this case &/or for when your internet goes out in general. This of course applies equally to Nest/Ring etc. --- Honestly I'm surprised Ring/Nest/etc still charge for storing video footage. At this point I would have figured they would have found one of countless ways to monopolize off the video footage. Most average people seem to be fine with their data being sold if it provides them some value. I' also wondering when the first services will start to pop up that provide a marketplace for video footage.
- mindgam3 7y ago
  Hikvision is based in China and partially owned by the Chinese state. Not sure if that would be my first choice for surveillance gear.
  - jaywalk 7y ago
    Keep your cameras on an isolated VLAN with no Internet access. Backdoors are irrelevant if there's no way to get to them.
    - earleybird 7y ago
      Or perhaps the separate lan with a Pi providing a bridge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mHXwmULOvk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mHXwmULOvk Set your firewall rules as you like.
  - mattferderer 7y ago
    Fair & common argument. One would be hard to find electronics without some China influence in their build process though. Many would suggest to keep your cameras from accessing the internet or anything but your Blue Iris server. This sounds like a fairly common practice.
MisterTea 7y ago
> Why so many people (especially the ones that understand technology) seem to be ok with this? Ignorance and convenience. Most people I know who own one and are aware of the privacy issues choose to ignore them because they're easy to install and just work. Then there are people who don't know or don't care (ignorant).
bearcobra 7y ago
I've been considering a Ubiquiti UniFi Protect set up since it seems to have minimal requirements for cloud connectivity.
- hcurtiss 7y ago
  This is what I use. Eight cameras with an on-premise NVR (Cloudkey Gen2 Plus). Works great.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  Yeah, I've used the same with no issues - I don't think it has very good options for offsite backups [0] though if that link is any indication. "use rsync" is a great suggestion for this site, but not quite as great for the average users. 0: https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/235404507-UniFi-Video-Recording-Backup-Options https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/235404507-UniFi-Vide...
OrgNet 7y ago
I have some RLC-420 cameras that work pretty good and I block their access to the internet ... and they copy the files using ftp to my local server ... on the other hand, I just got a Chromecast and I'm looking for a way to block them from accessing any Google servers.
scarejunba 7y ago
IMHO the market is too small and is very price-conscious, so they'll just do it themselves if you try any margin. And you'll need the margin because the consumer who wants this is willing to put up with some error rate on things they build but not on things they buy. So they might say "Oh yeah, when the full power goes out, I have to reset it, but that almost never happens" or "Yeah, I have to type in my Google API key every two weeks but that's okay since it's only $k". Essentially, the same people who care about this are also likely to say "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem" to Dropbox. If you do succeed building and selling this I'll be very impressed. Lots of people are trying the local storage thing, though: (not customizable store-to-my-S3 stuff, but I think that's a vanishingly small market) * https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vacos-cam-smartest-ai-wire-free-security-camera#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vacos-cam-smartest-ai-wir... * https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/wuuk-the-world-s-most-advanced-smart-doorbell#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/wuuk-the-world-s-most-adv... * https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/imilab-ec2-your-life-free-24-x-7-security-guard#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/imilab-ec2-your-life-free... * https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/camect-world-s-smartest-most-private-camera-hub#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/camect-world-s-smartest-m... * https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/capsulecam-home-security-camera-made-smarter--2#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/capsulecam-home-security-... * https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/simcam-an-unparalleled-ai-home-security-camera#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/simcam-an-unparalleled-ai...
m463 7y ago
I've been thinking it would be great to start a company that would create devices that customers owned, you know: make and sell things. I think the problem is if someone makes open hardware and software that people like and doesn't "lock them into your ecosystem / cloud", then another company can clone and sell the same thing with no R&D overhead to recoup. It's even easier and cheaper for a company completely based in china to do it. So it is risky for companies to do that. I would love to hear of counter-arguments and counter-examples.
- tlrobinson 7y ago
  I like the idea of open hardware/software with end-to-end encrypted cloud services that are compelling enough to be a competitive advantage. Home Assistant Cloud is one example of this: https://www.nabucasa.com/ https://www.nabucasa.com/
tech4all 7y ago
What about Axis Cameras? (https://www.axis.com/en-us/products/network-cameras https://www.axis.com/en-us/products/network-cameras) expensive but run some POE cable and you can own everything.
- jonnismash 7y ago
  I got 3 Axis cameras, they are great. Luckily they were gifted to me as it would have run me several thousand dollars to purchase myself.
tlrobinson 7y ago
It baffles me there's no (popular?) end-to-end cloud based encrypted camera system yet. If you want images/video clips in push notifications I suppose that couldn't be encrypted, but otherwise it seems like the best of both worlds.
- rodgerd 7y ago
  Apple's HomeKit Camera claims to provide just that.
newnewpdro 7y ago
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3414 https://www.adafruit.com/product/3414 + https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneye https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneye
bhauer 7y ago
UniFi gear remains optionally self-hosted. It does have the option of cloud login, but you can opt to not use that, using a self-hosted NVR and SDN controller. Almost all high-end gear (Axis, etc.) is also easily self-hostable but obviously expensive since it's high-end.
hnick 7y ago
Do you need it to contact your phone and show the video in real time? I think that's the big value prospect here for many users and why they need the cloud - it intermediates between the phone app and the home system. If not, there are some guides on YouTube (unfortunately I can't search right now on this corporate network) that involve buying old laptop cameras on ebay and stringing them up with putty to an old laptop in a closet. I'm pretty sure the man in the video I'm thinking of was from the UK since the prices were in pounds, but there would be others. It all looked fairly simple but I can't recall how sophisticated the software was re: motion detection, offsite contact, etc.
wwweston 7y ago
There really isn't any other option but to persuade enough people to be privacy conscious that we end up with public policy that enforces it. Otherwise, it's gonna be like GMail -- sure, you can run your own mail server, but 80+% of humanity will decide that they can't or have better things to do, and Google will end up with all the email between you and them anyway. You can make your own smart home camera, but 80+% of the world will install Ring or something similar, and that means you will be on their camera footage and therefore your comings and goings will be part of Amazon/SurveillanceCo (absent consistent deployment of effective countermeasures).
jjav 7y ago
I use an older Sharx camera (I hope the newer ones still have the same features). It supports all the usual cloud and remote access junk, but fortunately none of it is necessary for operation. It does motion detection internally and only records when something happens in the frame. Most importantly, it support ftp uploading these event recordings to a configurable server. I put it on a physically separate network which has nearly nothing else and certainly no internet connectivity in any direction (I see the camera attempting to contact google DNS every now and then). I would never trust any of these cameras, regardless of manufacturer, with internet access no matter how limited. The only other thing on that network is a box which exposes only ftp, so the camera uploads activity to it. Optionally, from a physically separate network you can then pull the videos to some other host which has internet access and upload them elsewhere for remote safekeeping. But yes, it is sad that one needs to know how to set this up just to preserve basic privacy.
chaostheory 7y ago
It was always hard to have a fully on premise surveillance system. It’s expensive and complicated to install. That hasn’t changed. What changed is that now it’s easy and cheap to have cloud surveillance systems
blitmap 7y ago
I'm weird. I like the data staying local, but the UI being something continually updated and improved on. You navigate to a website to enjoy a real-time updated UI, that pulls data from the local network. The local hardware just primitively collects footage and that small responsibility is something I can trust in a form of 'separation of concerns'. It would be neat to extend this further where the company behind the product distributes the codebase for this webapp that you can run locally if you choose.
nerdjon 7y ago
While it is still kinda connected to the cloud, I finally installed a security camera thanks to Apple HomeKit Secure Video. All of the processing is done on my HomePod or Apple TV and stored in my iCloud encrypted. If marketing is to be believed, Apple themselves cannot un-encrypt it. Its not perfect, but I feel mostly safe having this camera now.
GoToRO 7y ago
https://www.amazon.com/sticker-eye https://www.amazon.com/sticker-eye No monthly subscription fee. On chip AI and so on. Not sure how good they are.

by takeda 7y ago

redwall_hp 7y ago

Raspberry Pis + cheap USB webcams or the camera module would work. (The official Pi Zero case has an optional faceplate with a cutout for the camera, so it can all go in one box.) There are existing software packages that can start taking pictures and run scripts when motion is detected.

slap 7y ago
Software like motioneye (motion detection) doesn't work on Rpi as it needs a lot of CPU (my experience).
- tonylemesmer 7y ago
  I agree. It’s flaky at best. Not one to rely on which is kind of a necessity for a security product.
- rasz 7y ago
  passthrough recording uses hardware acceleration on pee
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  Works fine on my rpi zero w cams, I have a bunch of them in use, they've proven very reliable: PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 437 cam 20 0 120072 23352 15156 S 12.8 6.2 41:56.21 motion 3417 regusr 20 0 8128 3272 2748 R 1.6 0.9 0:00.55 top 37 root 1 -19 0 0 0 S 0.6 0.0 1:39.16 vchiq-slot/0 191 cam 20 0 59000 20040 9852 S 0.6 5.3 2:04.44 meyectl 2334 tun 20 0 9180 4948 4404 S 0.3 1.3 0:00.97 ssh 3398 regusr 20 0 11512 3780 3036 S 0.3 1.0 0:00.11 sshd 3404 root 20 0 0 0 0 I 0.3 0.0 0:00.09 kworker/u2:1 3418 root 20 0 0 0 0 I 0.3 0.0 0:00.04 kworker/0:2
  - gambiting 7y ago
    Same here - I run a Pi Zero W with motioncam and it works absolutely fine, and has been for a couple years at this point.
srcmap 7y ago
I set one up with R pi before. Use the ubuntu "motion" package and record pic/video when motion is detected. Use some python script to auto upload new files to google drive. I can use any google drive sw in ios/android to view pictures in some folder. The folder can be shared with family members can be view remotely. Kinda fun project. Works ok - But it used a lot space. Have to actively manage share folder. I am looking for similar setup for quite a few of old android phones laying around. Plan to write one myself when I have time.... If anyone know a good solution with old android phone HW + G Drive, please share.

koyote 7y ago

I recently looked into getting a simple camera for the balcony: mostly for creating a time lapse of the plants that are growing there. The majority of the options out there were connected to some kind of "cloud" service. I was even more surprised when I saw that a lot of popular options mandated a cloud subscription with no local storage. There is no need whatsoever to have any of this on the cloud at all. Especially with multiple hundreds of gigabytes of SD storage being so cheap these days. In the end I went with a cheap Chinese camera which has unofficial open source firmware available (Dafang). Works like a charm.

markkanof 7y ago
If you look into power over ethernet surveillance cameras there are lots of options that are standalone devices not associated with any specific cloud service. You then have to get some software that can receive the stream from the camera and do something with it (records, motion detection, etc.). It's not nearly as plug and play as going with something like Ring, but I also think that's expected when you are wanting something that gives the user more control.

npo9 7y ago

Cloud services are so much more profitable that a single purchase item cannot compete.

sangnoir 7y ago

> Why so many people (especially the ones that understand technology) seem to be ok with this? Because there are no viable alternative devices. It's now impossible to buy a non-smart TV because smart TVs were cheaper (due to surveillance-funded subsidies). The next best thing would probably be open-source firmware installed on these consumer device, paired with a self-hosted home-assistant.io

ska 7y ago
At least with a smart TV it's often quite practical to just not connect it to the internet. If your camera won't function at all without a network, it's not that useful.
- liability 7y ago
  It's probably only a matter of time before household appliances, like cars, connect to cell networks to exfiltrate data about you.
  - jkestner 7y ago
    Lol, like years ago. https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/iot/modern-automobiles-collect-copious-amounts-of-data-ranging-from-driving-habits-to-the-weight-of-its-occupants/ https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/iot/modern-aut...
  - rodgerd 7y ago
    Hence the drive for 5G

mv 7y ago

The indiegogo funded camect is pitched as a private 'cloud optional' recorder. The beta unit I have is cloud connected but the final release has the option to be fully local. It has a lot of neat features like identifying people/ups trucks/cars/etc. It only has a webbased client, but I kind of like it and the beta version has been way better than any of the cheap dvr trash that big box stores sell. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/camect-world-s-smartest-most-private-camera-hub/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/camect-world-s-smartest-m...

ezekg 7y ago

I also encountered this rather big hole in the market. I was looking for a home security system that worked on a local private network with no outside comms, but that apparently doesn't exist. I ended up going with Abode without cameras or their monitoring service (self-monitored), but I'm still not 100% happy with that, since they still store all of your data in the cloud and have permission to disarm your home and so are then an attack vector I'd like to avoid. I've thought about this a lot and have quite a notebook full of ideas/notes on this: I think there's room in the market for a privacy-focused open-source home security system utilizing micro-controllers (Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Adafruit, etc.) and secure cryptographic protocols. You could make revenue assembling pre-built security sensors built from the micro-controller ecosystem, perhaps with good modern aesthetics, but the more security conscious of us could buy and build everything ourselves based on the spec for each sensor.

DickingAround 7y ago
What are you looking for in a security system? We run both system-in-a-box sets of closed circuit cameras as well as fully controlled webcams. Are you looking for some UI or auto-alarming aspect? (e.g. face detection? threat detection?)
gwicks56 7y ago
How would you keep the footage secure? There is zero point in cameras if the HD's can just be carried off, a decent safe will cost > $1000 and be ugly as all hell.
- ezekg 7y ago
  Wherever you want. That's the great thing about owning your own data.
- Spivak 7y ago
  Just because the data flows to somewhere you control doesn’t mean it has to be local. I mean we’re firmly in hobbiest/semi-pro territory here but shipping the data encrypted to your own cloud instance or box colo’d in a local data center would be fine.

mattferderer 7y ago

A popular DIY setup: Hikvision cameras & Blue Iris software Hikvision cameras have the benefit of not being wireless and using Power over Ethernet for people who don't mind running some cable. I think that has a lot of value over a bunch of cameras killing your wifi. Off the shelf cheap routers do poor with a ton of wifi cameras it seems. Blue Iris can send you mobile alerts without a subscription. All videos are stored locally & it's very configurable. You could upload alert photos/videos to a cloud provider for cheap off-site hosting if you choose. That way if the bad people destroy your PC you still have video unless they take out your internet. One could setup limited backup internet with a mobile company for this case &/or for when your internet goes out in general. This of course applies equally to Nest/Ring etc. --- Honestly I'm surprised Ring/Nest/etc still charge for storing video footage. At this point I would have figured they would have found one of countless ways to monopolize off the video footage. Most average people seem to be fine with their data being sold if it provides them some value. I' also wondering when the first services will start to pop up that provide a marketplace for video footage.

mindgam3 7y ago
Hikvision is based in China and partially owned by the Chinese state. Not sure if that would be my first choice for surveillance gear.
- jaywalk 7y ago
  Keep your cameras on an isolated VLAN with no Internet access. Backdoors are irrelevant if there's no way to get to them.
  - earleybird 7y ago
    Or perhaps the separate lan with a Pi providing a bridge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mHXwmULOvk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mHXwmULOvk Set your firewall rules as you like.
- mattferderer 7y ago
  Fair & common argument. One would be hard to find electronics without some China influence in their build process though. Many would suggest to keep your cameras from accessing the internet or anything but your Blue Iris server. This sounds like a fairly common practice.

MisterTea 7y ago

> Why so many people (especially the ones that understand technology) seem to be ok with this? Ignorance and convenience. Most people I know who own one and are aware of the privacy issues choose to ignore them because they're easy to install and just work. Then there are people who don't know or don't care (ignorant).

bearcobra 7y ago

I've been considering a Ubiquiti UniFi Protect set up since it seems to have minimal requirements for cloud connectivity.

hcurtiss 7y ago
This is what I use. Eight cameras with an on-premise NVR (Cloudkey Gen2 Plus). Works great.
DuskStar 7y ago
Yeah, I've used the same with no issues - I don't think it has very good options for offsite backups [0] though if that link is any indication. "use rsync" is a great suggestion for this site, but not quite as great for the average users. 0: https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/235404507-UniFi-Video-Recording-Backup-Options https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/235404507-UniFi-Vide...

OrgNet 7y ago

I have some RLC-420 cameras that work pretty good and I block their access to the internet ... and they copy the files using ftp to my local server ... on the other hand, I just got a Chromecast and I'm looking for a way to block them from accessing any Google servers.

scarejunba 7y ago

IMHO the market is too small and is very price-conscious, so they'll just do it themselves if you try any margin. And you'll need the margin because the consumer who wants this is willing to put up with some error rate on things they build but not on things they buy. So they might say "Oh yeah, when the full power goes out, I have to reset it, but that almost never happens" or "Yeah, I have to type in my Google API key every two weeks but that's okay since it's only $k". Essentially, the same people who care about this are also likely to say "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem" to Dropbox. If you do succeed building and selling this I'll be very impressed. Lots of people are trying the local storage thing, though: (not customizable store-to-my-S3 stuff, but I think that's a vanishingly small market) * https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vacos-cam-smartest-ai-wire-free-security-camera#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vacos-cam-smartest-ai-wir... * https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/wuuk-the-world-s-most-advanced-smart-doorbell#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/wuuk-the-world-s-most-adv... * https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/imilab-ec2-your-life-free-24-x-7-security-guard#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/imilab-ec2-your-life-free... * https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/camect-world-s-smartest-most-private-camera-hub#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/camect-world-s-smartest-m... * https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/capsulecam-home-security-camera-made-smarter--2#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/capsulecam-home-security-... * https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/simcam-an-unparalleled-ai-home-security-camera#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/simcam-an-unparalleled-ai...

m463 7y ago

I've been thinking it would be great to start a company that would create devices that customers owned, you know: make and sell things. I think the problem is if someone makes open hardware and software that people like and doesn't "lock them into your ecosystem / cloud", then another company can clone and sell the same thing with no R&D overhead to recoup. It's even easier and cheaper for a company completely based in china to do it. So it is risky for companies to do that. I would love to hear of counter-arguments and counter-examples.

tlrobinson 7y ago
I like the idea of open hardware/software with end-to-end encrypted cloud services that are compelling enough to be a competitive advantage. Home Assistant Cloud is one example of this: https://www.nabucasa.com/ https://www.nabucasa.com/

tech4all 7y ago

What about Axis Cameras? (https://www.axis.com/en-us/products/network-cameras https://www.axis.com/en-us/products/network-cameras) expensive but run some POE cable and you can own everything.

jonnismash 7y ago
I got 3 Axis cameras, they are great. Luckily they were gifted to me as it would have run me several thousand dollars to purchase myself.

tlrobinson 7y ago

It baffles me there's no (popular?) end-to-end cloud based encrypted camera system yet. If you want images/video clips in push notifications I suppose that couldn't be encrypted, but otherwise it seems like the best of both worlds.

rodgerd 7y ago
Apple's HomeKit Camera claims to provide just that.

newnewpdro 7y ago

https://www.adafruit.com/product/3414 https://www.adafruit.com/product/3414 + https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneye https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneye

bhauer 7y ago

UniFi gear remains optionally self-hosted. It does have the option of cloud login, but you can opt to not use that, using a self-hosted NVR and SDN controller. Almost all high-end gear (Axis, etc.) is also easily self-hostable but obviously expensive since it's high-end.

hnick 7y ago

Do you need it to contact your phone and show the video in real time? I think that's the big value prospect here for many users and why they need the cloud - it intermediates between the phone app and the home system. If not, there are some guides on YouTube (unfortunately I can't search right now on this corporate network) that involve buying old laptop cameras on ebay and stringing them up with putty to an old laptop in a closet. I'm pretty sure the man in the video I'm thinking of was from the UK since the prices were in pounds, but there would be others. It all looked fairly simple but I can't recall how sophisticated the software was re: motion detection, offsite contact, etc.

wwweston 7y ago

There really isn't any other option but to persuade enough people to be privacy conscious that we end up with public policy that enforces it. Otherwise, it's gonna be like GMail -- sure, you can run your own mail server, but 80+% of humanity will decide that they can't or have better things to do, and Google will end up with all the email between you and them anyway. You can make your own smart home camera, but 80+% of the world will install Ring or something similar, and that means you will be on their camera footage and therefore your comings and goings will be part of Amazon/SurveillanceCo (absent consistent deployment of effective countermeasures).

jjav 7y ago

I use an older Sharx camera (I hope the newer ones still have the same features). It supports all the usual cloud and remote access junk, but fortunately none of it is necessary for operation. It does motion detection internally and only records when something happens in the frame. Most importantly, it support ftp uploading these event recordings to a configurable server. I put it on a physically separate network which has nearly nothing else and certainly no internet connectivity in any direction (I see the camera attempting to contact google DNS every now and then). I would never trust any of these cameras, regardless of manufacturer, with internet access no matter how limited. The only other thing on that network is a box which exposes only ftp, so the camera uploads activity to it. Optionally, from a physically separate network you can then pull the videos to some other host which has internet access and upload them elsewhere for remote safekeeping. But yes, it is sad that one needs to know how to set this up just to preserve basic privacy.

chaostheory 7y ago

It was always hard to have a fully on premise surveillance system. It’s expensive and complicated to install. That hasn’t changed. What changed is that now it’s easy and cheap to have cloud surveillance systems

blitmap 7y ago

I'm weird. I like the data staying local, but the UI being something continually updated and improved on. You navigate to a website to enjoy a real-time updated UI, that pulls data from the local network. The local hardware just primitively collects footage and that small responsibility is something I can trust in a form of 'separation of concerns'. It would be neat to extend this further where the company behind the product distributes the codebase for this webapp that you can run locally if you choose.

nerdjon 7y ago

While it is still kinda connected to the cloud, I finally installed a security camera thanks to Apple HomeKit Secure Video. All of the processing is done on my HomePod or Apple TV and stored in my iCloud encrypted. If marketing is to be believed, Apple themselves cannot un-encrypt it. Its not perfect, but I feel mostly safe having this camera now.

GoToRO 7y ago

https://www.amazon.com/sticker-eye https://www.amazon.com/sticker-eye No monthly subscription fee. On chip AI and so on. Not sure how good they are.