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Why We're Pulling Our Recommendation of Wyze Security Cameras
- drunner 3y agoI mean, any security camera that does anything with the cloud should never make it onto a recommendation list in the first place. I'm not sure if the product exists, but something that replicates a homemade setup would be amazing. Think of a bundled camera(s) + raspberry pi + 1tb backup drive or whatever that you can only access over your own dedicated personal wireguard vpn (or tailscale, something like that), but sold as a retail bundle. Of course, that would cut out all the SaaS/app data selling aspect so it seems unlikely to happen.
- bootsmann 3y agoAn IP camera that requires the customer to set-up and secure outside access themselves will not sell to end users. The market is just too small and anyone who has the skills to secure this stuff themselves doesn't have to rely on a consumer grade product.
- asdff 3y agoMe, I am a potential customer! I have the skills to set this stuff up but don't have the $$$$$ to go with a commercial grade solution. Something more in the raspberry pi paradigm of price to performance is exactly what I'm looking for in this space. Just give me a cheap camera and access to io.
- executive 3y agoWyze offers RTSP firmware: https://support.wyze.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026245231-Wyze-Cam-RTSP https://support.wyze.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026245231-Wyze...
- gnicholas 3y agoUnless I'm misreading, it's not available at this time: > RTSP was considered a beta feature and we are currently assessing the path forward as the firmware versions have aged quite a bit. We have removed the firmware files for these versions for now and we’ll update the pages when plans are finalized. Please note that firmware files take a while to work on and test so you may not see an update in the near future.
- grvdrm 3y agoIdea: could you cut off external network access and then point a server (e.g. HomeAssistant server on RPi) to the RTSP feed from the camera within your network?
- mistrial9 3y agoyour certainty is not based on reality.. "pet rocks" sold millions; BetaMax failed; great movies went unwatched, where stupid schlock got paid. Markets are not predictable entirely at all.
- bootsmann 3y agoThis is an established market, we are looking at the the survivors. It's reasonable to assume that a product we come up with within 5 minutes has been tried and didn't make the cut.
- ynniv 3y agoThat's the architecture of Ubiquiti Protect: https://blog.ui.com/2019/01/09/introducing-unifi-protect/ https://blog.ui.com/2019/01/09/introducing-unifi-protect/
- dylan604 3y agoWhat is the current verdict on Ubiquiti being trustworthy after the incidents with Krebs?
- arwineap 3y agoUbiquiti is trustworthy. Krebs jumped the gun on that accusation and apologized https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/08/final-thoughts-on-ubiquiti/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/08/final-thoughts-on-ubiqui...
- bastardoperator 3y agoIf you're cool with the NSA backdoor that got leaked yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37570407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37570407
- dylan604 3y agoThanks. I thought I had recently seen the Ubiquity name in the headlines again after the Krebs debacle. I just didn't realize it was that recently.
- bbatha 3y agoThat’s not ubiquity specific that’s all cavium based networking gear which is a substantial fraction of all networking gear. I’d be shocked if similar back doors aren’t present in other common network chips.
- criddell 3y agoFor home security stuff? None of it will be exposed to the internet so I don't particularly care.
- cortesoft 3y agoThe market for a product that requires the buyer to setup a VPN is not going to be very large. You seriously overestimate the average tech competence of people. It needs to be something you just plug in and it works.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agocloud camera's aren't that either, most require the download of an app, signing up, configuring the camera, etc. You could just as easily give local camera's the "printer" treatment, and most people are somehow able to successfully setup printers on their PC's.
- cooper_ganglia 3y agoWyze camera setup is pretty straightforward. Add a camera in the app, it opens a QR code on the phone screen, and you just scan that with the Wyze cam. It seems fool-proof. With that being said, I did still have to setup the Wyze cameras for my 50 year old tech-inclined dad, haha.
- jszymborski 3y agoI could, however, imagine you buying a "$BRAND hub" for your "$BRAND camera" and other $BRAND IoT that ostensibly set-ups a tailscale kinda thing you can access via the $BRAND App, all while not touching the cloud. It's ostensibly the same UX as the current cloud set-up, only without the operational costs of running a cloud service.
- rimunroe 3y ago> I could, however, imagine you buying a "$BRAND hub" for your "$BRAND camera" and other $BRAND IoT that ostensibly set-ups a tailscale kinda thing you can access via the $BRAND App, all while not touching the cloud. I'm confused by the use of the word "ostensibly" there. Do you mean that the makers would claim that it would set up a tailscale kinda thing for you while doing something completely different to avoid the cloud?
- GauntletWizard 3y agoI consider offsite storage a must-have feature for surveillance equipment, because one of the prime threats is that the thieves carry off the surveillance equipment itself. With modern WiFi cameras without mounting wires and cheap plastic mounting points, that's real easy, and if you had a physical server to store the recordings it would be a target as well; the history of surveillance systems is littered with examples of "The thieves stole the tapes, too". Finding someone trustworthy enough to store your offsite footage, though, is a real problem. If only there were some sort of union of peoples capable of causing consequences for companies that act as poor stewards of data.
- mptest 3y ago>If only there were some sort of union of peoples capable of causing consequences for companies that act as poor stewards of data. Would be a great idea! Your wish is granted! Only one catch. The only consequence they can actually level is an insignificant fine ~ 1% of the profit they've made violating the law. Oh, plus a pinky pwomise to not do it again after a finger wag, or they'll get real angry, and the fine will be UP TO a whopping FOUR percent of profits!!! Seriously though, re offsite storage, one could encrypt all data locally and then offsite anywhere, right? Could be google drive for all you care.
- sbarre 3y agoMost thieves are smash-and-grab, and not smart or motivated enough to go seek out your NAS to take with them. Danny Ocean is not breaking into your house. Besides, if the thieves were savvy enough to find and take your surveillance gear with them, they'd be unlikely to expose anything meaningful (like their faces) on your video feeds anyways, right?
- dangus 3y agoWhat about cloud services that offer end to end encryption? It seems like HomeKit Secure Video has pretty good security design: https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/icloud-homekit-secure-video-mme054c72692/icloud https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/icloud-homekit-secure...
- pj_mukh 3y agoNoob question: Is it possible to stream video to a device outside your WiFi without needing a third party server in the middle? How does one do that?
- ssklash 3y agoA VPN tunnel into your home network is one way, or a VPS you control that has a similar connection into your home network is another.
- rolph 3y agoyes its possible, but a few things generate friction, major one is ISP based filtering. often you have to use port forwrding to connect, on ports not recognized for protocols your ISP filters out.
- asdff 3y agoYou can own the server yourself. Ask a buddy if you can plug in a box in their garage, now you have an off site solution.
- callalex 3y agoThere are two ways to accomplish this: poke a hole in your home firewall and expose the camera feed to the entire open internet, then attempt to add some kind of authentication system. This is very very hard to get right, don’t do it. The other option is to tunnel your internet connection on the remote device back into your home network so it looks to your remote device like it’s still at home. That’s called a VPN.
- packetlost 3y agoNeither of these options are great, IMO. I'd prefer to have a proxy that transparently forwards e2e encrypted traffic with out of band key exchange. You can blast video over a 3rd party if you trust the software on either end to not leak your encryption keys. Sadly I think few services care much about this.
- weeblewobble 3y ago
- mikecoles 3y agoFrigate, Coral TPU, and Tailscale/Headscale form a reasonable local solution for those who want to explore setting up their own system. NTFY and Node-Red, with a dash of MQTT, can be bolted on for remote alerting.
- gh02t 3y agoLots of vendors sell something like that you just need to look for an NVR. Ubiquiti, Synology, Reolink, Amcrest etc all sell products like this to varying extents, but other companies have realized you can make better money selling outrageous cloud subscriptions for subsidized hardware.
- briffle 3y agoImagine the customer support costs of trying too help users troubleshoot VPN connection issues to their phones when they don't get their alerts. And the huge mess of bad publicity, when someone breaks into a home, and as part of the theft, steals the device that has all the video of their crime.
- robertlagrant 3y agoIt would be nice to just have a data service you sign up to personally that basically just gives you an AWS bucket, and products such as this just takes a key and URL to upload/download with.
- wombat-man 3y agoYeah I would love something I update occasionally and just hook up to my aws account. probably a small market though.
- callalex 3y agoWhat a strange take. You are saying that we probably shouldn’t use the internet at all, because there is potential for something to go wrong. You probably shouldn’t live in a house either, because someone might break in. We should probably stop using bicycles or even walking because you might fall and hit your head…
- Spivak 3y agoI think the take is far far narrower than that. Although there is no practical/technological problem of hosting your security cam videos on 3rd party servers there is a legal problem which is once you do that data is no longer legally yours and can be silently used without your permission. I think the minimum requirement for a legally secure cloud hosted camera is E2EE and the camera can't upload unencrypted video at all without the decryption key from the owner.
- wombat-man 3y agoWell I mostly use my security camera to watch my cat stretch. For this, I'm pretty happy with nest cams.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoWell, look who's just made themselves a major target for hackers
- wombat-man 3y agothey're going to see so many cat stretches
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoI just hope they follow the protocol of saying "big stretch" each time they see one
- adamredwoods 3y agoI'm confused. Wyze cameras offer cloud-free operation, storing to an SD card, is the vulnerability still there even without cloud hookup?
- nunez 3y agoI mean, you’re not wrong, but the family of five that just moved into $SUBURB and demands max safety for some reason is definitely not gonna do all of that and will just buy Ring or Arlo.
- VHRanger 3y agoIoT provider has shitty security, more at 11
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago> The fundamental relationship between smart-home companies and their customers is founded on trust. Sadly, very few companies are trustworthy. Not all of them are evil; wanting to get into their users' data; many are just cheap and lazy. They don't want to spend money on the types of employees and process that will result in trustworthy kit. It's actually not hard to understand (less easy to forgive). The device market is crazy cutthroat. Margins are razor-thin, support costs can be high, and competition (especially with nation-state-funded competitors) is savage. But I don't know how many times I have had one of my friends proudly whip out their smartphone, showing me live video of their kids playing at home, not realizing that their ultra-secure password ("fuckyouhacker") is no impediment to lots of others, getting the same feed.
- mistrial9 3y agosure, but you skipped a beat there .. you setup the context of device companies (agree btw), then skip right to a particular instance of security video use with a giant emotional content. But that usecase is "keep me safe from random unsafe other humans" .. when talking about the intentions and actions of companies you, the customer, are trying to use to keep you safe, you miss the part about trivial betrayal of trust as a company. The betrayal of trust by the company you partner with, due to low-cost, convenience and attractive tech, is what a third of YNews headlines are about today. Random predatory individuals are bad, so are zombie apocolypse denizens.. but the subject of lawful-in-name-only betrayal, in very large commercial markets, seems much more to the point today, here.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago> The betrayal of trust by the company you partner with, due to low-cost, convenience and attractive tech, is what a third of YNews headlines are about today. Good point.
- m463 3y ago> Not all of them are evil; wanting to get into their users' data; never underestimate the power of a post-sales revenue stream. (a business model which may take place in a software update after your purchase)
- rolph 3y ago>>On September 8, 2023, The Verge reported an incident in which some Wyze customers were able to access live video from other users’ cameras through the Wyze web portal.<< an unintentional, adult, video shareing platform, sounds like something a sector of society would consider a feature.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nickthegreek 3y agoAnyone have a recommendation for the an affordable security cameras that would works without a cloud? I want to replace a collection of Blink cameras. Looking for doorbell cam, indoor and outdoor. Home Automation integration a plus.
- etchalon 3y agoUbiquiti is the best in the market in terms of breadth and capabilities.
- bilal4hmed 3y agoA key thing with ubiquiti is that you need all ubiquiti hardware for the cameras. It's an expensive affair
- kawfey 3y agoit's one of the few walled gardens that i'm actually happy with
- criddell 3y agoIf they work, are easy to setup and configure, and are reliable, I have no problem paying a hefty premium. I'm tired of trying to get cheap garbage to work (I'm currently struggling with Hikvision cameras and a QNAP NAS).
- arwineap 3y agoIf you are looking for interpretability look for onvif compatible cameras which will be usable by everything I use standard cameras so I can write my own software. It's been a fun project but it's still pretty rough around the edges
- windows_sucks 3y agoI've really enjoyed using Reolink + Blue Iris.
- lfmunoz4 3y ago
- modzu 3y agoa newspaper is dictating a specific security incident response plan for a company to follow? why not. oh, and please pay for the affiliate links
- LTL_FTC 3y agoSynology’s new cameras seem pretty solid and they’re NDAA & TAA compliant.
- m463 3y agothat's interesting. I wonder if this is just excluding countries or has some technical requirements as well. NDAA - National Defense Authorization Act TAA - Trade Agreements Act
- shanusmagnus 3y agoI hate Wyze so bad. They sell this really lovely and cheap IP-enabled camera, perfect for figuring out which cat was pissing in the basement. But to activate it requires your phone number, and then they spam you, forever after, with text messages from different numbers advertising their shit. Hate hate hate.
- carom 3y agoI have 6 of these and can't recall ever being texted. Just send STOP or update your preferences.
- bastardoperator 3y agoSame...
- shanusmagnus 3y agoI have sent so many permutations of that, but I'll try against next time.
- bastardoperator 3y agoI have a bunch of wyze gear, given the price I never assumed they were meant to replace a security system. What I have been doing with these cheap little cameras is getting me closer to nature. We have a bunch of these outside and we've been watching the cats, possums, raccoons, and even turkeys frolic as they cross through our property. We even set up a little victorian style dog hours with solar panels in the backyard and the wild animals have been using it to rest. We have a ton of video of these little animals just relaxing and stretching out in the dog house too. The family loves it, every morning we get to see what the critters were up to. Before that we were doing hydroponics and we had cameras on the fruits, the instruments for things like ph, ec, and a camera in the reservoir so we could monitor water levels. I don't use them to watch my home, but they have been pretty solid in terms of watching other things that aren't security related or sensitive.
- asdff 3y agoI did use my wyze cams like that for a while (surveilling the garden pests mainly) but then wyze cut out that functionality. It used to record a little video clip when it detected motion, now wyze wants $5 a month for that.
- caned 3y agoYou can still achieve this by saving video (configured either to be continuous or triggered by motion) to a micro SD card.
- carom 3y agoWyze is honestly great. These cameras are a fraction of the price of everyone else. Their cloud service is a couple dollars a month per camera. I have 2 looking out my windows at the front door and car. I move those to watch the dog when she stays home. I have one over my pool table to record shots. I've used them in the past to watch stray cats outside. I am least happy with their outdoor cam since it doesn't do continuous recording and it requires a separate hub. I recommend the plugged in ones to everyone though.
- Springtime 3y agoThey mention a 2023 report about unintentional access of others' cameras but this dates back to 2019 (I know this since I saved a video about it from an owner who demonstrated it, which is no longer on Youtube afaict). The video showed that while the official app couldn't display the feed if they asked Amazon Alexa to, it would.
- asdff 3y agoEven the cameras like REOlink 2e are $75. This seems absurd to me. A wifi camera can't be more than what, $5 of hardware? Who is selling the cheapest, most bare bones, raw, wifi camera? Does it even exist or is every single one packaged with crapware software or sexed up by some company to over $75? Do I order direct from China for these?
- erikcw 3y agoI'd love something like dd-wrt but for these cloud cameras. I have some Arlo cameras that I'd love to re-flash and run without the cloud service.
- flxfxp 3y agoFor anyone looking to shut these from internet access, install this custom firmware hack and use a local NVR: https://github.com/gtxaspec/wz_mini_hacks https://github.com/gtxaspec/wz_mini_hacks