Say Hello to Nest Cam | Hacker News Reader

Say Hello to Nest Cam

nest.com

42 pointsrbritton53 comments

My gut reaction is that I'll be paying money to install my telescreen?

I have this slightly panicky feeling that my perception of what's acceptable sharing of private data is so disconnected from current popular sentiment that I'm becoming a bitter outsider.

I'm sure it's technically well executed as expected from Google management but I do hope it bombs as a product for (to me) obvious reasons.

It even has a mic.

IP cameras in my house recording to in-house server = OK

IP cameras uploading data to external "cloud" servers I don't own = do not want

We need a startup to build alternatives to nest products in the spirit of what lima [1] is as an alternative to dropbox & google drive.

[1] https://meetlima.com/

Do we? Nest Cam alternatives already exist - in the form of IP cameras and DVRs. Making it easier to setup one would be a good thing though.

I found the software that came with my Synology NAS to be pretty easy to set up. All GUI, does motion detection and recording, etc. The only real roadblock I could see for a tech-averse user would be having to buy the NAS enclosure and some hard drives, put it together, and make sure it's set up securely. Judging from the number of people who run their IP cameras with open ports to the WAN and no/default password, I could see people running into the same issues with a local solution.

I think the big issue is that people say "oh cool, I can use this with my iPhone" and then just set up their camera, access it on their phone, and call it a day. They never set anything up or log in on their computer so they never see the "please change your password from the default" message you get on first access.

But yeah, a package with one or two IP cameras that work with both wifi and ethernet, a modest NAS already configured with hard drives, and basic security settings in place would be nice. I just wonder how well it would sell since people seem to prefer "pay $200 now and then $10/mo with zero setup" over "pay $500 now and take 20 minutes to set things up".

It's (functionally) a Dropcam. Dropcam's been around for several years now. They're owned by Nest/Google now, so this is the first branded product from them under Nest. You can believe that they're actually encrypting the video as they say they are, or not, I suppose, but there are plenty of non-cloud-based options available. For me, this was the easiest way to get cameras up where I needed them, with a really nice mobile app and a really great recording/playback interface.

For me, this was the easiest way to get cameras up where I needed them

Why did you need cameras?

>You can believe that they're actually encrypting the video as they say they are, or not, I suppose,

I believe they encrypt the video (and audio) between the camera and their servers but they deal with the unencrypted 'goods' when they stream it back to you in real time or as a DVR.

You trust them. You can do that.

Exact reason we went for an IP cam that stores a buffer to MicroSD for our baby camera. It runs its own WiFi server rather than being connected to our router (and therefore the Internet), so we can still monitor it from other rooms from laptop/tablet/phone. This is one thing (of many) that I definitely think should not be recording to remote servers.

What model did you use? Looking to add these to my home.

> My gut reaction is that I'll be paying money to install my telescreen?

That about covers it really.

Popular sentiment isn't really a sensible thing to compare with. Most people have no idea how technology works nor a proper understanding of what they're actually exposing themselves to.

Products like this would be great if they could somehow be plugged into a user's existing, personal ecosystem (cf. concept of distributed personal cloud). I'm working towards this but it'll take time before such things are fully baked [1] (and there's also the question of business models).

Until then, we're just going to see more and more devices that require external back ends to operate and our homes/lives will become ever more porous, to (eventually) ever fewer companies.

[1] http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing-nymote/

I had the same first reaction but would you have an objection if you only turned it on when nobody was home (purely to record intrusions)?

I object.

I object because turning it on and off by hand would be a real drag, so pretty soon it would be on all the time. I object because I have cats, so motion-based recording will get a lot of cat videos.

I don't want to leave a statistical record of when I am likely to be out of my home. I don't want to have video and sound recordings of my home in a subpoenable format. I don't want Google to record my kids running around the living room naked -- instant child pornography charges. I don't want recordings of consenting adults having sex in the living room late at night. I don't want recordings of people having conversations that they didn't think were being recorded. I don't want my friends to stop visiting.

I don't want my home invaded by Google.

  I don't want my home invaded by Google.

But think of the benefits!

They can see what you watch on TV and use that to tailer offerings and discounts. They can see what brands you wear. They can see what you read. They can transcribe what you talk about.

All of this is about to immensely improve their ability to offer you relevant brands and services. Yay!

A side effect if you're going to use a video recording device as a baby monitor is that you then need to make sure that your children are clothed at all times while in its field of view.

Otherwise you're committing a very serious offence, especially if you're uploading those images to the internet.

Apropos acceptable sharing of private data, I too felt the bile rise in response to this product announcement .. the idea that there are generations of consumers who are perfectly willing to have days and days of video of their personal spaces available with little oversight to a third party, well .. its just too much to bear.

I think that the reason its happening, though, is because of a failure of OS producers to solve a couple of problems: one big one is that people just don't like having to maintain a filesystem - and more often than not, don't understand how to do it, either. Another problem is that the OS vendors are asleep at the wheel and have let parties such as Dropbox and so on basically eat their lunch on area's that should really, arguably, have been features of the personal computer operating system world. Peer to peer should be a built-in feature by now. Distributed filesystems which allow full control by the end user: likewise. These should be up-front services of the OS, and not some back-end monstrosity which execution as a market force is leading, directly it seems, to people who just don't care where their data are stored, as long as they can see it now and then themselves ..

I hope we will see some response to this soon - certainly actors like the IPFS group (http://ipfs.io/) have some interesting approaches to the problem. I'd love to see the expectation of built-in, de-centralized, peer-based-filesharing to take off, and we can put and end to all these inter-connected violations of human rights otherwise dressed up as fancy Web 2.0 operations of value ..

> Nest Cam has a beautiful, completely redesigned stand.

I guess that depends on who you ask. I guess most non-technies would just find it ugly. Especially the cord that comes out of it.

Continuous household video surveillance trips my creep meter. For my door/yard/exterior, yeah, but internally?

(The issue of cloud uploads is of concern, but even non-Cloud WebCams have been owned or had backdoors in the past, and your home server could be hijacked -- there are hundreds of YouTube videos of people whose laptop webcams got hacked)

I could see it being useful as a baby monitor inside.

You can get two Ubiquiti UniFi micro cameras for that price: https://www.ubnt.com/unifi-video/unifi-video-camera-micro/

What do they record to?

There's UniFi NVR for Linux and Windows [1] or you can buy preinstalled pc [2]. Cameras have an SD card slot, but with current firmware it's not used. Might be supported in future [3].

[1] https://www.ubnt.com/download/?group=unifi-nvr [2] https://www.ubnt.com/unifi-video/unifi-nvr/ [3] https://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Video/UVC-camera-sd-card...

This is definitely a product there's a need for, but the creepy component is there for sure. Fortunately, there are cameras that run their own servers, without a cloud component. Plus, it's easy to firewall everything going in/out of their IP and put them behind a reverse proxy.

I mean easy for me, not the general public.

What is the need? I can only think of reasons it might be 'nice to have' if someone was giving me it for free - and even then I would think twice. What are the real broad needs it's solving for a lot of people? (serious question)

I like to monitor my house and yard when I'm not there, so I can see what's going on, if the dog is fine, if someone's in, etc.

Interesting but in all the years you haven't been able to monitor it has it been a problem not knowing who is home? Has your dog ever not been fine? It sounds like this product gives you information you want but don't actually need. Kind of one of those things you keep around in case of an emergency situation that never happens (or if it does the product doesn't really make any difference in the outcome).

No, but I've never needed to use my backups either.

I'm not sure how useful this would be with regards to break-ins (one of their selling points it seems). Uploading/Streaming 1080p video on a slow to moderate connection? Plenty of time for the thief to unplug and take that nice shiny PC with the video stored, and the nest cam with it.

>Plenty of time for the thief to unplug and take that nice shiny PC with the video stored, and the nest cam with it.

That's the awesome part! You don't even need a local PC to store the video. It all gets sent to a remote Secure Server where it gets stored (and is accessible, if you purchase that add-on) and streamed!

most people I know would find the idea of their living room being streamed to a remote server "creepy" rather than "awesome".

Me too.

Having bootstrapped Google seems unwilling to switch to a business model not predicated on storing personal/private user data. What's up with that?

This business model _in the long run_ strikes me as untenable. Initially I thought that connecting search terms to ads was a viable model. Bootstrap with that, and sell software and hardware. I hate to say it but I think Apple's model is best. You get software tailored to your platform. Android and ChromeOS should cost a bit of money the same way Windows does. It was better when Apple charged 20/25 dollars or euros because it at least acknowledges that the software costs _something_. Microsoft has started making hardware.

Or we should be paying for support. Basically, we should be paying somewhere in the software chain. You know? As software developers we should be encouraging people to not see bits when encoded as information (be they source, binary data (songs, movies), binary code) as free.

What we need is an open-source Apple. I've been saying it for a while. You buy a nice piece of hardware (phone, laptop, desktop, server) and you get an open OS with it that works with the hardware out of the box. Crucially it comes with email software (and accounts) that are secure and private and lets you use your own domain. Social media and audio/video/messaging software needs to become federated ASAP. I know we have XMPP, how do we _force_ all comms/messaging platforms to support a minimum XMPP level?

I'd buy this for my parents. Been looking for a software company that will do something like this instead of all the other crap that's out there. You won't believe the low quality crap my dad has been asking me to take a look at for their house.

If people got alternatives (decent software startups/companies), please post them :)

That way my first reaction.

My grandparents are very worried because of all the burglaries in their neighborhood. I know that cameras do not add security but they make them feel saver. This camera looks like the first simple solution which stores the records online and dont need any maintenance.

If someone got an alternative. Post it please.

Check out Homeboy - https://www.homeboy.com

- completely cordless (battery powered, rechargeable, lasts up to 3 months on a charge)

- not continuously recording video but clip based, armed like a security alarm, video recordings are triggered by infrared motion sensor

- intelligent automatic arm/disarm based on smartphone geofences

- request a clip capture any time for peace of mind

Disclaimer: I work at Homeboy :) We've just made our second batch of cameras so they're ready for shipping very soon!

Is it indoor-only?

For now yes it is indoor-only but we are working on plans for a weather-proof outdoor version.

And there is https://github.com/ccrisan/motionPie

Easy to install

Cheap because the hardware you need for that is a RasPi

...and you are in control of your data.

I'll stay with that. Even if the picture is not fullHD. I don't need that for the purposes described in the video.

So I guess Nests servers will become a very interesting hacker target.

I think Google's severs already are an interesting target.

$199? Wow. Xiaomi's IP cam costs around $30 and does all the same, except it's 720p.

This is creepy as hell. Video saved to the cloud, owned/processed by Google? Yeah nope.

Do you really need 1080p for detecting that a breakin is in progress?

By the way, as a geek, I am more interested in hearing more about the back end detection algorithm. I guess that the linked page is a marketing blub...

No, but the higher resolution is useful for seeing the details of the person doing it, like possibly the face.

Enhance!

Did they fix the issue I heard of where it uploaded those massive files to the cloud with no bandwidth limiting, effectively killing connections with a slower upstream?

http://www.mi.com/xiaoyi/param/

$24 for the night vision edition

I remember seeing a really similar project a couple of weeks ago and I can't remember the name. Any help?

Does it have a local, i.e. 'save to NAS' option?

Are there ongoing costs like the Logitech Alert system?

No and yes.

Plenty of "buy once" IP cameras out there in prices ranging from $100 up to $500+ for the fancier Axis cameras and the like. They save to local storage like a NAS or an old PC in the closet running iSpy (and saving to Drive or Dropbox if you want online backups). And most importantly for me: they have no recurring costs other than electricity.

I don't want online storage to be the only option because network connectivity drops sometimes. Not too often but more often than I lose power. And I certainly don't want yet another monthly bill. I understand that there are plenty of customers who would rather pay $10-15/mo for something they can just plug in rather than spending $300+ on a NAS or low powered PC. I'm just not one of them.

I was half expecting to see a stream of a guy stuck in a cave.

Say hello to NSA

But the burglars!!!! And bad nannies!!!! And bad housekeepers!!!! And I have nothing to hide!!!!

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