Indoor (maybe outdoor) camera for non-tech person

Questions
1

Hi everyone,

I searched around the forum and, despite related posts (such as this one: What private and secure home security camera options exist, does one exist at all? - #12 by Satoshi ), I could not really find a suitable answer, so I am interested in additional advice.

A somewhat-elderly and non-techie person I know is looking for a camera to secure an apartment in their absence (they have two homes and want to avoid squatters while they are away from one). They use a Mac and iPhone and want something that will integrate well with those and will provide alerts in case of intrusion. An additional external camera may be considered, but the question is mostly for internal use.

The threat model is pretty limited: unless advised otherwise, they will go for convenience only, and I am trying to suggest an alternative that does the job while being more privacy-respecting.

So real-time intrusion alerts and ease-of-use are mandatory and anything not blatantly spying on people is welcome. Hope this makes sense.

2
3

For this specific use-case you could consider any HomeKit Secure Video camera too. It is not the greatest solution in general for a variety of reasons though, and it requires a HomePod or an (ideally Ethernet wired) Apple TV to function as a home hub, so there is additional upfront cost either way.

There are not any good camera solutions if you offload the processing to the cloud, so the good solutions will always cost more, but at least they are subscription-free.

4

Thanks a lot, @jonah

Maybe this is a silly question, but if one gets a Ubiquity camera with one of their NVRs, then the recording is local on the NVR, do I get this right? And therefore no subscription fees. But they do provide an app to connect the NVR to the iPhone, is that so?

5

Yes, correct.