Is there a WiFi camera with an app for viewing when away from home, that has decent privacy? Plug and play would be nice. Limited time to do major setup as in 2 hours tops. Cost is fine nothing into 4 digits. Recording not neccesary. No storage is needed. Simple live viewing is all.
It always seems simplest to do this stuff with raspberry pi cameras or cheap webcams, and wired networks if feasible. Then use ffmpeg and icecast to stream through a VPS. Anything made as a consumer product is likely a shambles of crap software and security holes.
I dont have a vps though currently. I do have a webcam. No idea how to set it up to or viewing and to run 24/7. I can port forward though and am pretty network/software literate.
If you have enough upload bandwidth I guess you don’t need the vps.
How much we bandwidth we talking? I have the top package internet I can get in the area.
It’s a trade off between video quality and bandwidth but you can set the ffmpeg parameters to the bandwidth you want, more or less. If you have 2mbits up you can do ok. Motion detection can help if it’s for security and not much is happening most of the time.
If you currently have an IP camera setup, add Tailscale to your network with the Subnet Routing feature enabled.
You can then access that camera from anywhere.
Optionally also enable the Funnel feature, and you won’t even need the Tailscale client.
When you say “app” do you mean something that will let you view remotely through a residential NAT connection with no port forwarding or hole punching? Because 99.9% of those options are inherently not private.
If you only need the camera itself to have a local feed i.e. you already have some kind of VPN/tunnel/etc. into your home network, then something like a cheap Amcrest works fine and does not require Internet access for the camera itself.
Out of town viewing through tailscale or something similar. The feed needs to remain private from the LAN/WIFI. Only access is through me from outside the network.
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Buy a cheap wyze camera (theyre like 20 bucks) and put wz_mini_hacks on an SD card. Its very easy.
And then setup an rtsp aggregator (there’s some foss ones that are lightweight all the way up to fully functional nvr like shinobi) and make it local access only and vpn in
Thanks for mentioning Wyze… looks awesome.
I ended up with a shitty Arlo set that I overpaid for, and the worst part is that they no longer sell the station where you can save video to the local network, meaning I’d have to pay for a subscription
Do you have any smart home setup as of now? Asking because if you have a Hue Bridge or Home assistant running at homefor example, that could narrow the results.
No nothing. I’ve been busy so setting up home assistant hasn’t happened. I have a server PC but haven’t done anything with it yet. Currently dont have the time. I just need to pop in install live feed and pop out the next day. So something live only and quick is what I need. I’m familiar with tailscale.
i personally stay away of any “cloud” connection like hik connect…
By cloud connection I mean that the device connects to the provider’s cloud (vpn) and you(end user) connect to the provider to view your OWN video footage.
In terms of privacy this is disaster because the provider can view/process as in AI all your video footage in real time. Further the provider can track the shit out of us and do many other nasty things…
Hope it helps!
Reolink and one other I can’t remember seem to be the most consistently recommended hardware (actual security companies rather than cheap Chinese hardware rebranded by hundreds of drop shipping start ups). They only need internet access for the initial activation, and can be connected to home assistant or ftp server. I created an account with an alias email, then blocked its internet access from the router. It works fine on LAN and via tailscale.
https://reolink.com/product/e1-zoom/
NOTE: these wifi cams are not a “security” system. They’re for basic monitoring and scaring your cat.
I will check this out. I need it today. So I’m not sure if this is possible. Its very short notice. I had an unexpected trip.
As far as easy, commercially available stuff I like UniFi. You can set custom recording schedules, or never record. Or only record motion. You can also set privacy zones which are blacked out and not visible or recorded.
You do need one of their consoles or NVRs to manage them though, and they aren’t super cheap.
Raspberry pi and motioneyeOS. Getting to a state where you have a live view of the camera shouldn’t take more than an hour.
I don’t have a pi but I have a mini nuc like server PC. With mint installed.
That’ll work too, along with any USB webcam
You could install OctoPi and use that camera feed. It’s a little overkill compared to motioneyeOS since it’s originally meant for monitoring and controlling 3D printers, but I’ve had better luck getting OctoPi to set up a camera feed than motioneyeOS, which was abandoned by the developer years ago.
You could install it on the NUC, plug in a camera, and it should just work. Then use whatever remote access method you want, i.e. tailscale, port forwarding, VPN, etc.
How is your Linux foo?
