3mo ago

Hi Lemmy, what's a good IP camera with night vision and no vendor lock-in?

It would be amazing if it doesn't disintegrate if it rains, too.

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The comments here are interesting, as I'm helping with a project developing the software stack for mini servers we hope to sell that are preconfigured with Home Assistant (home automation) and Frigate NVR (camera control and recording) with local storage, local control, and no cloud component.
The hardware we're using for prototyping are off-lease Dell 7050 Micros running Proxmox, with 500gb Crucial MX500 ssds and an NVME Coral TPU that Frigate uses for object detection, which reduces CPU usage. 500gb is enough, because Frigate can be set to auto delete recorded clips after a set period of time, and clips can easily be saved.
Frigate can be installed via docker or as an add-on to Home Assistant. If you want to use Home Assistant, you can install Home Assistant OS directly on the SSD via these instructions.
We're using Amcrest WiFi cameras (IP4M-1041B) that connect to an on-board WiFi network controlled by an OpenWRT VM that uses the WiFi card in the system (not the ones that come with the Dells). Everything on our systems is locked down by an Opnsense firewall vm, so it should be safe to use even in an existing unsecured network.
Personally, for my own system, I've been running 4 Amcrest ethernet turret cameras (IP5M-T1179EW) for about 4 years now with no problems. You just need a cheap PoE switch (mine was $20) and then run some cables.
To use Frigate, the cameras must support both ONVIF and RTSP. Pro tip: the Amcrest Smart Home line of cameras won't work - you need a camera with a built-in web server for direct configuration.
For remote access, you could set up Wireguard (via an official Home Assistant add-on), or you could pay Nabu Casa (Home Assistant's parent company) $65/year (or 75 EUR), enter your credentials in the Home Assistant app and you're good to go, while helping fund future Home Assistant development.
- Kudos to the guy sharing his expertise for free while working on something similar they're trying to profit from
  
  Thanks! Since our entire software stack is open source, and since open source software has been so transformative for our lives in general, it's a priority for us to give back where we can.
  The profit will come from labor involved in assembling the hardware, pre-configuring the software for each customer, and providing personalized support via a set of subscription support plans at various prices, including individual one-offs.
  We'll be dedicating a set amount of time every day to read support forums for the software we use (and places like Lemmy) and provide help where we can.
  
  Very refreshing to see.
- What is the name or your project? I'm interested in being a customer. When do you hope to have the first product released?
  
  We are not quite ready to roll everything out yet -it'll probably be another 2 or 3 months, but I'd be happy to shoot you a message when we go live if you'd like.
- You are my kind of admin, so, any suggestions on hardware that use starlight sensors? Or anything comparable in low light with color?
  
  Good question! starlight/night color cameras generally just have larger CMOS sensors to capture more light, OR they integrate an LED "spotlight" into the camera housing to increase the amount of light available to the sensor, and if that's not enough, the IR will kick in. Sometimes the sensor IS actually larger, and sometimes it isn't.
  We've standardized on Amcrest cameras, and while we haven't actually tested it, Amcrest does have a "night color" outdoor turret camera that appears to support both ONVIF and RTSP, for the same price as the "regular" turret camera. The model number is IP5M-T1277EW-AI.
  If it's like other similar Amcrest cameras, you can likely disable the AI stuff via the built-in configuration, especially if you have Frigate doing that for you.
  Personally, I prefer a solution that uses a regular IP camera and a separate smart light (or regular light on a smart plug) that kicks on when motion or a tagged object is detected, which will then cause the camera to switch from black and white IR to color, usually in about a second. The separate light will give you a much better image than anything you'll get from a built-in LED or slightly larger sensor, in my opinion.
  Home Assistant and Frigate make it easy to set up this kind of automation, and the "regular" Amcrest cameras have pretty good IR, so Frigate has no problem running detection on those feeds. The automation is basically "if a cat is detected on the garage camera, turn on the garage lights for x minutes".
  Hope that helps!

If you consider alternatives beyond out-of-the-shelf, I'd recommend your own DIY IP camera. A Raspberry Pi (or something similar, such as Orange Pi), an IR camera module, an UPS and a protective shell case are the minimal hardware requirements for a cheap camera built by yourself. You'll have total control over the software, you'll be allowed to choose the OS, the software, every aspect of the camera, something that's not possible with out-of-the-shelf IP cameras.
- Yes, this.
  And prob not what op is looking for but I also have a bunch of esp32 cams, different PCBs and with different sensors/lenses.
  They ain't much but also cost like 3 monies with shipping (and is enough to eg normally recognise people etc).
- I've had four cameras running for a few years, streaming over RTSP and powered over ethernet. Works well!
  
  Is this something a complete novice could do, with reasonable effort and cost? If so would you be able to eli5, or point me in the direction of somewhere that does?
  Ideally, for my current situation anyway, I'd like to set up a camera indoors by a window (with IR switched off and a proper mount) and be able to see what it sees from a device (phone pc or even dedicated pad if it helps with security) in the other room, and if it can also record and save the video locally for me to be able to access from the remote device, that'd be good too. Privacy and security of the data are top priority.
  Every time I start looking in to it my brain gets completely overwhelmed by options and information and scrambles, and I have to back away 😑 I'd love for there to be a way to set this up that was near as straightforward as the privacy abusing options..

I use cheap and cheerful cameras with Ingenic SOCs and flash an open source firmware thingino on them.
List of supported cameras increases fairly rapidly

Axis makes good (the best) IP cams, I use them commercially, they're pretty much the gold standard. Super fucking expensive though so probably not worth it for home use but you might be able to pick up something 2nd hand.
- I've had great experience with Axis in the past. However in the past they used to have planned obsolescence where the flash they used had a very limited number of write cycles. With the Linux based OS they run it writes to the flash all the time. This would cause the thing to start dropping writes and misbehave. When ran 24/7 they usually died after about 4 years. The place I worked at just threw them away and replaced them whenever that happened, to not have downtime for cameras. Once I asked if I could have a couple to diagnose the fault and I found out the flash was out of write cycles on all of them. Maybe they are better nowadays, but it was pretty fucked up to see such expensive cameras be destroyed because of a few cents of flash.
  
  I haven't run into that particular issue (I wish I could replace some old ones) but we stream back to a Linux box and then out to cloud storage for archival purposes so maybe we aren't hitting the onboard stuff as hard.

I only have the indoor one, but Reolink is fine. Used it as a baby cam. No cloud bs, supports an rtsp stream. App has gone downhill, but due to rtsp I sort of don't care.
- Similar product, different experience: I tried their doorbell and found it to be way underpowered once I turned on ONVIF. Huge, expanding lag between real world and camera feed. 20fps max is very oof too, even if you are going to use their protocol and software. And it doesn't work with physical chime boxes, so you have to use their plug-in chime or botch a converter together yourself.
  Was really excited (trying to replace a nest doorbell) and then so, so disappointed once I got it. Their other cams might be fine but oof, the experience put me off.

Dahua makes good stuff. Their products are commonly sold under different generic brand names too, but they're all good

Probably look to secondhand commercial stuff, anything with ONVIF support should be fine.
Picked up some domed outdoor Cisco IP6630s awhile back off eBay for cheap and while not the best image wise they're built like tanks AND they give you full root access lol

I've used a ton of ubiquity unifi cameras and they have a solid range on pricing. I think you need the unifi software to commission them though. For what it's worth they don't use the cloud for storage and don't require any sort of subscription.
- Ubiquity is the definition of vendor lock in.
  
  Right. I only mentioned them because they don't require a sub and you can store everything locally.
  
  But there is an option in the UniFi software to have the cameras output an RTSP stream. It’s not bad if you already have some UniFi gear.

All my cameras are reolink. I have their duo2 which is super wide so it captures everything, I use the doorbells and have the 360 camera in my garage. They all work with frigate and blue iris.

I have reolink and use them with my NAS. Been happy with them!

Anything that supports ONVIF. I like Hikvision for their quality, price, and web interface for setup. But don't trust any IP camera. Make sure the Mac and or IP address is blocked at your router.
There are different night visions to pick from. There's ir night vision and white led lit night vision. I prefer ir night vision because I don't want visible led lights on all night. You get a better picture at night although its black and white.
However many color night vision cameras do really well without any light source at all. I tried both and it's more of a preference so I can't say which one will work for you.
- Reconsider hikvision: they were recently dropped as an option for many organizations due to some new data leak, and removed from gov buildings in a number of countries.
  
  And that's why you don't let them contact the Internet.
  Managing IoT risk is an easy no brainer if people bother to try.
  
  That's why I said don't trust it and block them at your router.
  As long as you block them at your router Hikvision and Dahau are much better than the other brands at the same price. I've tried 6 different brands. I've been slowly moving them to all Hikvision.
- you shouldn't block them by MAC. you should put them on a VLAN dedicated to cams, with no route to the internet. only computer connected to it is your NVR
  
  Yes vlan is best.

I've been looking for the same thing, everything usually points to frigate being the answer, but it seems like a bit of work to get everything set up.

Axis have some really good ones. Most of them support RTSP, and many have PTZ as a bonus.
Source: I've installed a lot of them onboard ships. Axis and Samsung are the ones that handle the environment best.

Another vote for Reolink, especially the models with ONVIF support.

The only outdoor camera I have is an Amcrest AD110 doorbell camera and it is ok. Has some network connectivity issues occasionally but a restart seems to fix them. I plan on eventually getting some Amcrest IP8M-T2599EW when my budget allows.
As far as indoor cameras I use 4332027115 and they work very well. Both the AD110 and my indoor cameras are in blue iris and home assistant.
- I had one of these years ago. I used it as a baby monitor and got a full refund when I discovered that the camera had security issues that caused the whole internet to be able to watch, pan/tilt, talk back, etc to my (now ex wife) when she was breast feeding.

66 comments