> I wonder how hard it would be to run your own streamer pipeline or whatnot on these things?
Agree with the_biot: The actual streaming component is not too hard. If this were the biggest problem, I'd be thrilled to contribute to (or just write) an open source streaming server to complement my open source NVR. [1] The driver situation is indeed a bit harder—these things don't just have mainline Linux support with v4l2 for the video capture and encoding. Or open source drivers of any kind to crib from AFAIK.
The biggest problem IMHO is that there just aren't any good cameras to buy, even completely ignoring the software aspect. I want a camera that:
1. doesn't support genocide. Nothing that involves Dahua, Hikvision, or Huawei. See IPVM articles on the subject. And a lot of available cameras are relabeled Dahua/Hikvision stuff and/or use Huawei components.
2. is legal for sale / authorized for use in the US. (See the Secure Equipment Act of 2021.) Mostly this excludes the same companies.
3. has good night mode performance: IR/day switch, a sensor that is at least 1/1.8", reasonable resolution (somewhere from HD to 4k).
4. has an "eyeball" or "turret" form factor rather than "bullet". The latter seems to really attract spiders, so you end up with a really nice video of a web...
5. supports PoE.
6. is weatherized (IP54 or so).
7. is reasonably priced.
If you ignore #1 and #2, there's some nice hardware out there, but I'm not willing to do that. If you ignore #3, there are a few options (GeoVision, maybe Reolink, maybe Hanwha.) If you ignore #4 and #7, there might be a couple (Axis, maybe Hanwha.) Nothing that ticks all the boxes.
Hard to get excited about investing a lot in the software when the hardware isn't there.
I expect you'll get flak for #1, but the morality aspect of it bothers me a great deal as well. Not just supporting products of companies that contribute to China's surveillance state, but I worry that writing open source software contributes to surveillance everywhere as well. I don't have an answer :-(
> Not just supporting products of companies that contribute to China's surveillance state, but I worry that writing open source software contributes to surveillance everywhere as well.
This part doesn't bother me. Making open source software available for general purpose needs equalizes things, which I consider an improvement. See e.g. what happens when folks have cameras pointed at the cops slowly murdering George Flynn.
But directly giving my money to the companies that are writing software specifically to support genocide (e.g. Uighur classification) and are doing the installations for contract at what's essentially concentration camps...that's way over my personal ethical line, even if my few dollars are insignificant.
For me, I want cameras that will meet most of these same requirements, but are battery powered WiFi cameras, and don't require the use of a cloud service to operate.
Reolink makes decent cameras, but their battery models don't work with the Reolink NVR.
Arlo requires a cloud service.
Eufy has a home hub, but I don't know yet how well it actually works. I've seen some reviews, and I've actually bought a hub plus a couple of cameras, but I haven't tried to put it into actual use yet.
And I want this system to also support regular WiFi cameras, as well as PoE cameras.
Eufy has been a pretty great experience for me. Except for the fact that they recently used their notifications (normally used for camera/motion events) to push a marketing message[1], which really ticked me off. Hence my interest in these threads now :-)
Agree with the_biot: The actual streaming component is not too hard. If this were the biggest problem, I'd be thrilled to contribute to (or just write) an open source streaming server to complement my open source NVR. [1] The driver situation is indeed a bit harder—these things don't just have mainline Linux support with v4l2 for the video capture and encoding. Or open source drivers of any kind to crib from AFAIK.
The biggest problem IMHO is that there just aren't any good cameras to buy, even completely ignoring the software aspect. I want a camera that:
1. doesn't support genocide. Nothing that involves Dahua, Hikvision, or Huawei. See IPVM articles on the subject. And a lot of available cameras are relabeled Dahua/Hikvision stuff and/or use Huawei components.
2. is legal for sale / authorized for use in the US. (See the Secure Equipment Act of 2021.) Mostly this excludes the same companies.
3. has good night mode performance: IR/day switch, a sensor that is at least 1/1.8", reasonable resolution (somewhere from HD to 4k).
4. has an "eyeball" or "turret" form factor rather than "bullet". The latter seems to really attract spiders, so you end up with a really nice video of a web...
5. supports PoE.
6. is weatherized (IP54 or so).
7. is reasonably priced.
If you ignore #1 and #2, there's some nice hardware out there, but I'm not willing to do that. If you ignore #3, there are a few options (GeoVision, maybe Reolink, maybe Hanwha.) If you ignore #4 and #7, there might be a couple (Axis, maybe Hanwha.) Nothing that ticks all the boxes.
Hard to get excited about investing a lot in the software when the hardware isn't there.
[1] https://github.com/scottlamb/moonfire-nvr