My girlfriend is be very interested in putting Blink (Amazon) cameras up around our property. I am not interested in paying Amazon to keep our security footage.
What I’d like to do is have motion activated internet connected cameras around the property that somehow send footage to a server (I don’t know if that’s the correct term, I’m kind of an idiot) that I keep on the property.
So I have three questions:
- is this the right forum to be asking about self hosting security footage?
- does anyone here have experience doing this and would they be willing to send some pointers my way?
- is this a feasible DIY project or am I better served paying for a service?
I’ve done a little digging into self hosting and it’s not cheap, but I think it will be cheaper than paying a subscription. And safer too, which is rad.
Thank you all!
I have thought about this from time to time. I want good surveillance, but I also don’t want to lose control of the video.
I think that the solution that I favor right now is a Wyze cam V2 or similar flashed with openmiko. edit:(I had to buy wyze v2 cameras from the US on ebay to get v2 versions, user:@ashok36@[email protected] suggests in this comment to use v3 and Wyzemini firmware - this might do the job.)
These can be attached via USB or wifi interface to a server with zoneminder (https://zoneminder.com/) From there you could think about offsite records too and motion detection etc.
Having said this, the setup is just fiddly enough that I keep to finding myself finding other stuff to do…
edit:clarity/details
I wanted to add that while Zoneminder isn’t going to be as easy or feature-rich as some of the commercial solutions recommended in this thread, this is the only solution that you can trust will remain privacy-respecting. GPL software isn’t going to sell you out.
All that can be said about the rest is that they haven’t sold their customers out yet.