Hello selfhosters!

I have what is hopefully a simple ask. I am looking for some outdoor cameras for my sister, who is not at all tech savvy. I am, to an extent, and I’d like to get her set up with a small, remotely-manageable system to view and record the outside of her home. I’d wager there’s a plethora of selfhost software that can be run on a number of systems (I’m thinking something cheap like a Raspberry Pi), to connect to an external HDD for camera storage.

I’m also looking for camera suggestions for this purpose. Wi-Fi cameras are ideal, since we don’t have the means to run ethernet for PoE.

Thank you for your time, and I hope you all have a wonderful week :)

  • salacious_coaster@infosec.pubEnglish
    11·
    14 hours ago

    Reolink sells reasonably priced PoE camera and NVR kits. Check their official store on eBay for deals. Last I checked it was all local, no cloud BS. I’d still isolate it though.

    • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      13 hours ago

      This is not inexpensive ($500-1300+ easily depending on number of and quality of cameras) but it’s what I use and can recommend

      Also no cloud with reolink is an asterisk situation. Out of the box with the reolink app for several of their cameras it will contact reolink servers for things like notifications. However you can config with app and then never use again. If you have some of the fancier cameras like the e2 pro or whatever the notification processing is thankfully not server sided but occurs on the camera so you can roll it into home assistant and do everything locally

      To OP keep in mind this gets computationally expensive as well depending on your goals. If you just want 1-3 720p streams in the home assistant app then a pi is probably fine, especially if it’s like a pi 5. But if you want to encrypt those streams and forward them to homebridge so that less tech savvy users in your home can just view the streams on the home app in their iphone, you have like 10+ streams that are 4k, etc you’ll find the pi will choke and it may make sense to offload to a more powerful server or NVR (but if you want the homebridge thing even the nvr won’t save you)

    • Brkdncr@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      13 hours ago

      Reolink includes a cloud service but it’s not required. They do save video locally on camera, but you connect the camera and mobile app to their cloud service for authentication , config, and viewing.

    • Thatoneguy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      21·
      13 hours ago

      I would hesitate to buy another realink camera. I recently bought an eo2 pro so I could keep an eye on my dogs while I was working. The thought was to just have it open on my second screen but in a recent firmware update they disabled the http and https capabilities. Also no native Linux app so I could only use it on the app on my phone. I did find a github with all the firmware back ports but that behavior is pretty scummy imo

      • Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        6 hours ago

        I’ll be fucked if I ever use a camera app only. I need to set my network to black hole outgoing traffic from the one reolink camera I have before I plug it back in.

      • Showroom7561@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        12 hours ago

        Also no native Linux app so I could only use it on the app on my phone.

        You can use their web interface to view/control certain models on your local network: https://support.reolink.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003981973-How-to-Remotely-Access-Reolink-Cameras-NVRs-via-a-Web-Browser/

        I have the Reolink Home Hub (doesn’t support all my Reolink cameras, but enough), and I’m able to use the browser interface on Linux no problem. Of course, the app is more feature rich, but that depends on your needs, too.

        I’m sure you can even access this interface through the net via remote proxy or something similar.

        but in a recent firmware update they disabled the http and https capabilities

        Yeah, they suck with their firmware. One of my cameras was locked out… literally unable to view, playback, or control it until I got in touch with Reolink tech support so they could force an update through. It took several days and a lot of effort to clear that up. Not cool!