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Comment by stevenpetryk | Hacker News Reader

Have you found cameras you’re happy with? That’s the main thing holding me back is not knowing a good PoE camera to use.

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Hikvision and reolink are highly rated onvif ones that support poe, but as long as the camera support ONVIF from there just compare as normal

I can second Frigate and welcome any work in this space, so nice work OP will have a look. For others asking, I have found so far Hikvision POE PTZ domes like DS-2DE2A404IW-DE3 have been reliable, depends on your budget. I have cams themselves fully locked down from internet and on a separate subnet on the local net. OPNSense is also a friend here. I would love some OSS firmware for these cams. For remote, I find ZeroTier to Frigate & Home Assistant machines is all I need. I get why others WireGuard too. YMMV

Oh wire guard is a requirement imo, regardless of NVR or camera vendor. I'm less worried about a nation on the other side of the Pacific getting a livestream of my property than I am someone social engineering some rando employee at Ring/whereever and figuring out the best time to rob me or whatever.

Also set up alerts on shodan opencve etc. If you have anything but a phone and personal computer on your home network, assume they're hacked and treat it like you would coffee shop wifi during defcon.

Because... Well they are. Zero days are a thing, and by definition by the time you learn of one it's too late.

Honestly I'm more concerned about the compromised device being an attack vector for network sniffing etc moreso than the video itself... Which is yet another reason why I try to 100% VPN even at home, but man okta doesn't play well with VPNs.

Search for "Hikvision compromised" though. The results are damning. I suppose there's not much of a concern if using a proper firewall on a managed network, however.

Aren't HikVision the ones banned by many governments because they have dodgy "call home to China" firmware?

Persoanlly I go with the Eyeball Entities Omnicam with an Omniscient Systems Xcam-REAM control centre [0].

[0] https://cybershow.uk/media/ads/cctv-ads.mp3

Even if it does have phone-home functions, why does the camera itself need internet access?

IMO, audit the hardware for wireless radios (PoE cameras shouldn't have them), and put them on a camera-only VLAN that can only talk to the video server.

Maybe not suitable for super secure TS locations, but in general should be fine for 99% of situations.

I think if you've got total control over them, not a problem compartmentalising. Problem is, they're like loitering munitions, next person comes along and connectes them up to a router or misconfigures a firewall... Much as I hate e-waste sadly best place is in the bin. They're cheap but, easy come easy go.

Reolink have not disappointed me so far. I am using a duo 2 cam watching over the front of the property and a collection of their bullet cams. There's a lot of recommendations on frigate github discussions. Some models indeed have quirks.

On top of decent cameras they also have pretty well-documented API.

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