I couldn’t find a post in this community about cameras so I figured I’d make one. Key points:

  • No “sign up” required to record video
  • Video is stored locally
  • Video is in a non-propriatary format
  • Can work offline
  • Discuss: can wireless connectivity be hardware disabled
  • Discuss: can auto-update be disabled
  • Discuss: does the device try to “phone home” if it is connected to wifi
  • Disk encryption would be nice but I doubt that’ll be an option for anything other than self-hosted stuff

I’ve seen some cameras, like Lorex, that seem more privacy centered, but they still have streaming data. So it’s not clear how actually private it is. They might ping home about security updates, and without some real effort it’s hard to tell the difference between uploading user analytics and pinging for a security update. Infinitely better than ring doorbells, but still I’d like to know what options are out there.

I’m highly technical, so feel free to mention self hosted raspberry pi soltuions as well.

  • otacon239@feddit.de
    71·
    1 year ago

    I’ve been looking for something like this as well. I’ve not bought the hardware yet, but I’m planning to track down a “dumb” IP camera and use an RPi to host a DVR software. Anything that allows you to record to anything but a home server is a service I can’t trust. Right now, the problem seems to be tracking down the camera itself. There’s tons of ~$20 cameras I’m finding but it’s hard to tell which ones phone home to the internet and which ones are local only.