It's pretty cool! But homebridge is another service to run in a Docker container.. so even less user friendly. But it's definitely the primary way everyone that's not me accesses the baby camera. The out-of-home access requires a "HomeKit Hub" which can just be an Apple TV that's always plugged in. And HomeKit also has "HomeKit Secure Video" feature which is cloud based video storage, but with E2EE. But don't recommend their video storage really.

I have a bunch of cameras from various vendors, some with open FW, some with their original FW, all cut off from the internet. They used to be connected to Frigate but due to performance issues I offloaded the work to Scrypted on a RPi and an AppleTV and the setup works great. It was easy to set up and it's easier to use than any other app, assuming you are into the Apple Home ecosystem.

It's not really self hosted since it relies on Apple but it's the least evil at this point. Giving unencrypted video and audio to some company (if what OP says is right) would be way beyond my risk tolerance point.

I have a smarthome setup I built myself using Lua and a Raspberry Pi. Anything it can do locally can be securely exposed on the internet via a service like netbird , which I use for free and is literally a command to get running, or tail-scale which I believe is harder to use. I don’t have video but I think that would work in that scenario as well.

I used to use the docker + homebridge route but it became tedious to maintain. Instead, I connected it via the Google Home integration (requires an Insights plan) and then use my existing Starling Home hub to access it via HomeKit. This seems to be more reliable and less work than before.

Alternatively you can setup a vpn with rules that automatically enable vpn when you try to connect to specific addresses. Works with Tailscale and on-demand VPN for me. This will work with any IP webcam.