Is there an actual, simple, private, secure outdoor home security camera or doorbell camera? I knew finding one would be more difficult than buying a Nest, but I never thought it would be impossible.
Every time I think I find something, it won’t work. Eufy was my first choice, but that plan died for the obvious reasons. Then I looked to build something, but that became more complicated and expensive (thousands of dollars) than it needs to be for what really is a simple doorbell camera, and it still had security problems.
I found UCam, a “blockchain camera” which had good reports when it was first released, and is still around. UCam is cheap, but it is only an indoor camera. Even if I could put it in a weather resistant case, it won’t withstand the temperatures outside.
Has anyone used UCam anyway?
Am I really out of luck and what I want does not exist? I know there will be tradeoffs and I can’t have everything at the perfect price, but right now I am coming up with almost nothing.
Honestly I don’t know, it depends on your threat model and what you are trying to protect with the cameras. I don’t have any experience in home surveillance but maybe confining your IOTs behind a firewall could help? I don’t know, it seems quite tricky to set up an entire system if you want to have total control.
I looked into the Ubiquti and a UNVR a while ago, but I need simple and that system does a lot more than I need. Take that it has a lot of extra features and combine that with the high price, and it cost too much to justify for this project.
I checked out those links and there are some possible options, especially if I keep the system behind my firewall. But looking at the other options in those links, I think my choices might be to buy Ubiquti/UNVR for about $1,000 or to build my own solution to “save money” and have it cost $2,500.
Forgive me for not knowing your local context or reasons to install cameras, and technical considerations aside, I sincerely hope you as a privacy-conscious person don’t intend to point home security cameras towards your street or public space.
There are already far far too many cameras in society. Doorbell cameras (Ring comes to my mind) and car-mounted cameras also violate the privacy of home visitors and passers-by.
I’ve heard some FOSS podcaster preach to use Axis Cameras and just use RTSP.
Its not going to be simple to set it up though. I think Synology Surveillance station could be the turnkey solution you want. It wont be cheap but with some setup, you could even use your Dahuas and HikVision cameras because it uses a separate/isolated network for it. Probably worth looking into.
If privacy and security are your biggest concern, none of the mainstream brands like Ring, Eufy, Arlo, etc. are going to be both private and secure. Your best bet would be to take the time to configure your own home security system similar to what @HauntSanctuary mentioned above. It’s going to expensive but it’s going to be lightyears ahead in quality and capability, not to mention more secure and private.
You could do something like an AXIS S3008 (2tb) with 4 M3046-V IP cameras cameras. That’ll give you an enterprise grade system for less than $2500. That might seem steep but again, the quality and capability of those cameras will blow those cheap “home security” brands listed above out of the water.
I have a Ring video doorbell that “came with the house”. I enabled E2EE for the video and never subscribed to cloud storage (there’s no option of having local storage / SD card for Ring). So I’m not sure what the “problem” is. Assuming they don’t lie about the E2EE, I am the only one who can access the videos. I guess another issue is the fact that it’s connected to my Internet, but I’m also not exactly sure what the threat of that is (besides the risk of hacking).
The basic question you should answer is: where am I comfortable sending these videos, encrypted or not? If you aren’t self-hosting the videos, then you are at the discretion of sending video information to third party servers to view via their web portal. Perhaps its encrypted, perhaps its not, and has a risk of being hijacked. Read the TOS on what they can and can’t do.
Regarding Ring being E2EE, I don’t believe this is rock solid pertaining to the police. Personally, I won’t ever support Ring for their strong ties with authority.
I have a camera now that I really want to replace as it not secure, but it points outside and I have less concern than if it pointed inside my home + I have had several incidences of package theft and an altercation.
Regardless, this is definitely one of the tougher areas for privacy, and there isn’t a goto out of the box solution if you want to avoid the big brands. I plan on doing the Axis Camera and RTSP with my home server at some point, but that is a big ask for those wanting a quick setup.
I had the same question a while ago. My use case probably has similar criteria to yours which includes the following:
Local storage attached to the camera (optional)
Accessible live stream via home network
Accessible live stream via the internet outside of my home network
E2EE cloud storage support
Self-hosted cloud software with real-time upload
All open-source software
Relatively affordable
Optional motion tracking alerts
The use cases and threat models include:
No unauthorized access, including the manufacturer/developer, malicious actors, and LE/Gov.
Real-time footage upload required in the event of a disaster, fire, or a burglary, otherwise the footage is lost.
Accessing footage from wherever, in order to keep an eye on what is happening in and around my home.
Based on my research and asking for advice on forums and chat rooms, I found that there is currently no out-of-the-box solution for this. It would be great if there was, but there isn’t.
You can create your own IP Cam using a raspberry Pi with a camera and connect it with Home Assistant (https://www.home-assistant.io/). Unfortunately, uploading the footage to a server is a different challenge and is a bit too technical and time intensive for me. You can find other integrations at Generic Camera - Home Assistant.
One thing I’ve been thinking of, but haven’t tried it, is whether it might be possible to just run Syncthing or Etesync on the raspberry Pi and thereby sync any of the currently saved footage. See here for Pi video recording: Image and video recording | The Raspberry Pi Guide
I’ll give this a try when I have some time, unless someone else beats me to it.
I opened a new thread about this cause I didn’t see this one. Based on what I’ve read, it sounds like people have had success using the Reolink video doorbell (and perhaps other Reolink camera products?) with Home Assistant. Have you considered/tried this?
clearly there’s a gap for it