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Comment by tokamak-teapot | Hacker News Reader

Is there a cheap alternative to Ring that is easy to set up , cheap and can store on a local Linux server / but is also private and doesn’t have any data leaving my network unless it’s direct to an app on my phone?

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I now use a piece of software called Frigate, alongside Home Assistant, to do this. It works extremely well, surprisingly. I can watch clips and live streams via the Home Assistant apps on my phone, and for outside the house I have a Wireguard VPN to connect back. Works with any camera models with RTSP streams, which I put on a subnet with no internet access in case they phone home.

I wrote a little about my switch to this setup, if it's useful: https://senryu.pub/afternoonrobot/articles/replacing-unifi-v...

Edit: doorbell-wise there are a few models that would work with this setup but I don’t have one at the moment - my doorbell wiring is a really weird voltage and I haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet.

"Works with any camera models with RTSP streams, which I put on a subnet with no internet access in case they phone home."

This is great info, thanks!

You have to remember that Ring has outdoor battery-operated stickup cams. When you compare this with what else is available on the market, where often times you have to run a hard wire and have a proprietary NVR then Ring is a great option. Some devices like Swann will go on sale that are wireless or PoE and allow you to use open source applications, but running a wire through the wall in my apartment was a non-starter... the convenience/price of alternatives to Ring isn't that great.

"convenience/price of alternatives" - blinkxt is pretty great - but I think they also go to amazon's servers? so in the context of the discussion I guess it's not really alternative.

Arlo does good from videos I've seen shared - I had the V1 they came out with and the battery life was terrible - but I did notice some sort of open source license on the router thing. Not sure it's still a thing, and I think the price is higher, and the battery life is better, with newer versions - but may not be amazon servers?

I initially tried Blink, but video quality was substantially worse than the Ring cameras I ended up replacing them with and you couldn't view the videos on a desktop computer without removing the USB drive. I had to use a mobile app for Blink. Blink is also owned by Amazon as you noted so if you use their cloud service then the videos are stored on Amazon servers, but they do have an option to save to USB drive.

Arlo looked good too but they were pretty pricey compared to Ring. I'm not that happy that Ring is associated with Amazon, but they do have quite a few privacy settings when configuring them. I download my videos from Ring almost daily and store them in my own encrypted cloud storage, so unless Ring keeps a copy after they are deleted then law enforcement would likely need to ask me for a copy.

I've personally had a mostly good experience with Ring. If you want 4k videos and long-distance night mode then I would avoid them and go with Swann PoE 4k bullet cameras if you can find them on sale, or another brand since they are just re-branded cameras.

Foscam http://foscam.us

Years ago my extended family bought one to monitor a remote camp. I created a little PHP script that would grab the latest images uploaded via FTP and make a photo gallery. Set up was difficult but it worked reliably. They have a Ring now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Clicking that link I get a Chrome warning for malware with a reference to bfc.adsprofitnetwork.com.

Sorry about that. That's the first result both DDG and Google are giving me. The website does look super old so maybe it's been neglected and compromised? No warnings for me.

I did a quick search for a doorbell solution for the home automation system of my choice and it seems like people came up with solutions [1]. It doesn't look trivial to set up but definitely possible.

[1] https://kleypot.com/fully-offline-video-doorbell-for-home-as...

Amcres/Foscam with some configuration changes

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