Most IP cameras support standard methods of accessing their video feeds. A program like iSpy will work fine, you just want to also have a firewall that will block your cameras' attempts to call home and not set up any cloud access.
Is that still true? I wanted to buy an IP camera to monitor our puppy's crate a few months back and I was shocked to find that pretty much all the cheapish IP cameras that used to support this a few years back have all moved to a cloud-only offering where you have to access your video via their app which streams your video to their cloud service (hard no).
I was amazed that not a single product in the sub $100 range on Amazon seemed to support direct LAN access. I ended up going with the Wyze cam, which still has that issue, but I'd trust a bit more over the no-name Chinese brands still running 10 year old Linux kernels on their cameras.
I referred to iSpy both because it's a great free/open product, but it also has an excellent camera database with all of the video feed URLs for different model cameras. Check it out: https://www.ispyconnect.com/sources.aspx
From my experience, many cameras won't publicize/document this information, but it's still available/possible for almost every one.
Ah I see. Thanks for replying. It unfortunately looks like iSpy doesn't have a mobile client? Many years ago I used to use Robert Chou's "IP Cam Viewer" which was a no-nonsense app to connect to different IP cameras, but unfortunately that doesn't work with a lot of the changes that camera makers have made on their end to prevent direct IP connections.
In my case, I'd strongly want to avoid direct IP connections to my cameras from a smartphone. That'd suggest very easy outside access to devices that have questionable security.
