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Comment by cnst | Hacker News Reader

The prior OpenIPC thread from earlier today is literally 75% about thingino:

OpenIPC: Open IP Camera Firmware — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44758463 — Aug 2025 (106 comments)

The cheapest camera that you can install this onto, is Cinnado D1, which retails at under $14.99 USD FBA on Amazon Prime in the US:

https://github.com/wltechblog/thingino-installers/tree/main/...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CBBT5RMP — ≤ $14.99 FBA for Cinnado D1, #3 best-seller in "Dome Surveillance Cameras"

Some older Wansview, TP-Link, Wyze and Imou are also supported.

Part of the reason these cams are sold so cheap, and are directly imported into the US by the brand owners, is because they're making all of their money from the subscriptions. It's also the reason why buying a single camera is actually cheaper than buying a pack.

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That does seem to be Ingenic SoC based (which is what Thingino supports).

One neat thing about openipc is that it supports a huge range of SoC. Example link. https://openipc.org/cameras/vendors/hisilicon

Since Thingino targets retail devices at the top level rather than components, when you install our firmware you get an image made specifically for your device. We can give you easier installation methods than using a flash programming in many cases, and once your camera is flashed, all of its functions work out of the box.

Also, by focusing on the Ingenic platform, you can be assured that your camera will actually work once installed. That was not my experience with OpenIPC.

I think the biggest difference I could see is that OpenIPC targets Europe as its main market, whereas thingino is US/Canada and is easier to get started with.

Honestly, I couldn't find a single Amazon ASIN for anything listed on OpenIPC.

It's not much help for them to support more devices if none of those are being imported into the US.

Compare to thingino, which has support for Wyze, Eufy, Wansview, Cinnado, Imou, TP-Link and lots of other brands which are officially imported into the US and are best-sellers in their respective categories on Amazon, with the free Fulfilled-by-Amazon shipping.

OpenIPC notably doesn't list products & things you can buy.

Their "supported hardware" is what chipsets they support! It's up to you to go "do the research" or whatever to find out what cameras that might be!

I've bounced hard off OpenIPC in the past for this reason. That said I think the hikvision I bought a couple years ago is supported.

I've looked at the OpenIPC sponsors. It looks like there's a huge market in Eastern Europe to install a camera at the entrance to your apartment building, and then charge your neighbours for camera access as a value-added service, e.g., a shared intercom. Also, to keep an eye on the shared courtyard (dvor24). Pretty ingenious, if you ask me!

OpenIPC lists SoCs, and it lists SoCs used by the Wyze cameras. I just looked mine up.

The cheapest supported camera, aside from a given you as a gift, is Jooan A2R from Temu. It is like $3 per piece, brand new. It is a nice little pan/tilt model with a low-end 720p sensor. But it is fast, nice looking, snappy and dirt cheap.

I'm seeing $9.66 on Temu. The description update on this video explains that it's due to tariffs (is it cheaper outside the US?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfeA8wOEe34

The price fluctuates for sure. I bought 9 of these cams and my average price was right at $4... but now I'm seeing them closer to $10 and i can't recommend them over the Cinnado which you can often get for $10.

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