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 been using Reolink RC-522s outside in the harsh Canadian cold winters. Even at -40 they kept working and their quality hasn’t degraded.
I tried out q few options for NVR software, and I’ve settled on Frigate NVR, it was pretty painless to setup and “just worked”.
Shinobi I found worked at first but three times it shit the bed, silently failed one day, and just stopped working. I’d wipe and re-install and it’d just fail after awhile. Frigate has never had this issue so far.
I use Power over Ethernet for the cameras, so i only had to run 1 single cable (ethernet) to each camera outside, no need to run high voltage which makes it way easier to install.
I use a small mini itx PC as the NVR with a 960ti installed in it for transcoding.
I have a fancy managed 48 port gigabit poe switch which is overkill for just cameras (I have tonnes of other PoE devices on my network as well justifying it), but any “dumb” gigabit poe switch will work for you, as long as you have enough ports for your cameras.
I personally use kubernetes for my machines running self hosted apps, but for most folks that’s overkill abd you can just use docker compose!
Second for Reolink. I’m just using local SDcard storage atm, but might consider something like Frigate, just hasn’t been needed yet. Got 3 cameras and 2 doorbells, all hooked into Home Assistant.