What are the most solid, user friendly foss options? Open to better camera suggestions as well. I do not want a Nest sub, or similar.
Don’t use any cloud connected IP cameras. Run regular CCTV cables to the cameras and terminate it to to an digital NVR that saves as video files. Keep the NVR on a security VLAN with strict network policy (no dialing out) between the security VLAN and your home network. Use a general purpose linux box on your home network to run a file pull to grab files from the NVR and dump them onto a local NAS. Once the files are on your NAS you can do what you want with the recordings, like any kind of data lifecycle you need on the files.
I use Zoneminder, it’s not flashy but it just works.
Reolink + frigate
Whatever you do, don’t buy Amcrest. Long story ending in people talking to me through the camera’s speaker.
Holy shit that’s terrifying.
I’ve heard stories of women breastfeeding and the camera talking to her and panning and tilting on its own to frame her up. Don’t touch their products with a ten foot pole and a VPN and faraday cage!
Hence wanting some FOSS to slap on a Linux laptop to record on a loop without any lack of privacy BS.
Really? Most recommendations I see for cameras suggest amcrest and reolink. Could you explain what happened?
I don’t feel like doxxing myself but Amcrest cameras have MASSIVE backdoors that are wide open and are constantly exploited.
Reolink for better cams.
I second Reolink. Their hardware is good. I’ve had mine outside for over 10 years and they work great. Still get updates.
What are the updates? I would be looking to never online them.
There seems to be a ton of open-source NVR software. Here’s one list with a bunch of them.
I went on a search a few years ago and found it to be like a rabbit hole of different choices. The one I ended up trying because it seemed relatively simple and lightweight but yet pretty obscure was called SentryShot.
Edit: you may also want to ask on !selfhost@lemmy.ml
I went down the route of twinio on their supported cameras. Mostly wyze cams. Then used frigate on Unraid.



