Cameras for residential usage should only store footage locally. Any apps or portals to access the footage shouldn’t be able to view footage. This is one of the reasons I stopped using Nest after...
Cameras for residential usage should only store footage locally. Any apps or portals to access the footage shouldn’t be able to view footage. This is one of the reasons I stopped using Nest after Google bought them and switched to a system I had more control over.
I’ve got a camera pointed at my front porch for the express purpose of knowing when Amazon has delivered my packages. Storage is local, about a day’s worth, the angle really only covers my actual...
I’ve got a camera pointed at my front porch for the express purpose of knowing when Amazon has delivered my packages. Storage is local, about a day’s worth, the angle really only covers my actual porch, and the rest of the street is blocked by my porch’s banisters and my car. So far the only nefarious activity I pick up is that an orange and white cat likes to hang out on my porch sometimes. Small criminal.
I put up a very obvious combination spotlight camera above my garage door that only stores locally. When I first put it up but before I wired it, I failed to get footage of the hospice next door...
I put up a very obvious combination spotlight camera above my garage door that only stores locally. When I first put it up but before I wired it, I failed to get footage of the hospice next door being broken into. I'm not sure it would have mattered, it's not really targeting anything but my driveway and front yard and her front door doesn't show up in the footage.
A couple of months later I got footage of my neighbor's car being stolen from across the street. They put a lot of planning into stealing an older Civic, a group drove up in two other cars.
About a year later I got some footage I refuse to look up of a cat being killed by a garage door.
It's really only useful to find out what's happened, the police will take the footage but I've never seen anything come of it. I think of it more as an expensive deterrent than anything else, the only people walking up my driveway are solicitors, delivery people, and folks I know.
So a question then: If your camera has proven to be useless at stopping a crime, useless at providing any assistance to investigate a crime, only shows people you already know/expect to arrive,...
So a question then: If your camera has proven to be useless at stopping a crime, useless at providing any assistance to investigate a crime, only shows people you already know/expect to arrive, and has only given you animal death footage that you refuse to look at, what is the use of the camera and why do you have it?
It’s almost impossible to know if an individual deterrent has actually deterred anything, isn’t it? By the very nature you’d be measuring something that didn’t happen.
It’s almost impossible to know if an individual deterrent has actually deterred anything, isn’t it?
By the very nature you’d be measuring something that didn’t happen.
And yet with zero evidence, per your measure, it's referred to as a deterrent. So if effectiveness cannot be proven, the question remains why have it in the first place. All that's been shown so...
And yet with zero evidence, per your measure, it's referred to as a deterrent. So if effectiveness cannot be proven, the question remains why have it in the first place. All that's been shown so far is the deterrent was ineffective at stopping a car being stolen, so thus far the effectiveness of it is zero.
It's kind of odd to argue with someone else over whether a third person thinks it's an effective deterrent for themself. Like asking them makes sense, but debating it with other people doesn't....
It's kind of odd to argue with someone else over whether a third person thinks it's an effective deterrent for themself. Like asking them makes sense, but debating it with other people doesn't.
It's of course probably impossible to prove on an individual level. You cannot track what doesn't happen, and thus your standard is unrealistic. But IME most home security is vibes based for the individual and only able to be tested on a societal scale. Which hey, probably they don't do much if anything at that scale from the data we have, which is small. But people don't only operate on a pure rational basis in the first place.
For me, don't get ding dong ditched by the kids in the neighborhood so that's nice, maybe someone thinks twice about fucking with my car or something but my town is safe enough I left my tailgate open and the police knocked on my door to let me know/make sure I was ok. So probably not.
But otherwise it's a convenience/accessibility tool for me. I can't speak for them though.
They elected to interject into the discussion when it wasn't asked of them, did so without actually understanding the question asked, and then others decided to enter the fray as well, so I don't...
It's kind of odd to argue with someone else over whether a third person thinks it's an effective deterrent for themself. Like asking them makes sense, but debating it with other people doesn't.
They elected to interject into the discussion when it wasn't asked of them, did so without actually understanding the question asked, and then others decided to enter the fray as well, so I don't find it odd to do so.
Oh you can but you won't get the answer you asked for, vs talking with the new person about their situation or ignoring the unwanted interjection. That's why I find it odd.
Oh you can but you won't get the answer you asked for, vs talking with the new person about their situation or ignoring the unwanted interjection. That's why I find it odd.
Nobody has ever just tried to open the front door of my home, but I still want a lock. My house has never caught on fire, but I still want a smoke alarm. There are several studies showing CCTV...
Nobody has ever just tried to open the front door of my home, but I still want a lock. My house has never caught on fire, but I still want a smoke alarm.
There are several studies showing CCTV does appear to reduce crime. I don’t think we have any studies specifically about doorbell cameras though.
Your lock and your smoke alarm don't invade the privacy of others. Lots of people, especially on this site, love to go on and on about privacy while also having cameras pointing outward (and oddly...
Your lock and your smoke alarm don't invade the privacy of others. Lots of people, especially on this site, love to go on and on about privacy while also having cameras pointing outward (and oddly enough inward) from their homes without batting an eye under the guise of "security". Privacy for me, but not for thee.
Ultimately it evolves into things like this, creation of a crowd funded surveillance state. What's the (para)phrase... Those who are willing to give up freedom for security deserve neither and will lose both.
My cameras only store footage locally and are only accessible to the people that live in my home. Only one of my cameras record outside the lines of my property - and that’s into an empty field...
My cameras only store footage locally and are only accessible to the people that live in my home. Only one of my cameras record outside the lines of my property - and that’s into an empty field that isn’t residential. The state cannot directly access my cameras. None of my cameras violate the privacy of my neighbors. I have friends with very similar setups. I think your problem may be more with Ring than with the general concept of security cameras.
I'm open to other alternatives, do you have a recommendation that meets the accessibility needs I described in another comment? I am sure none of us are perfect either in alignment with our ideals...
I'm open to other alternatives, do you have a recommendation that meets the accessibility needs I described in another comment? I am sure none of us are perfect either in alignment with our ideals or in practicality. But I'm willing to try.
However I've got a guy in a wheelchair who needs to be able to answer the door and it's very helpful for me to be able to assist with that from work when he can't.
Not the person you were replying to, but I was robbed a few years back, and a neighbour's camera footage was one of the keys in helping identify and charge the thief. Take that as you will, but I...
Not the person you were replying to, but I was robbed a few years back, and a neighbour's camera footage was one of the keys in helping identify and charge the thief. Take that as you will, but I suppose there's some use on occasion.
We have cameras now, and they've really only been helpful for us in identifying the type of activity to watch out for (eg, strangers testing car doors to see if they're unlocked, looking for packages, etc.). Nothing groundbreaking but it's a good reminder for us to keep our stuff locked up and gives a few dollars discount on insurance.
Fair question. In the case of the things that happened, I doubt the people in question looked at my house at all. If they did, they wouldn't know at a glance that the camera has infrared and an...
Fair question.
In the case of the things that happened, I doubt the people in question looked at my house at all. If they did, they wouldn't know at a glance that the camera has infrared and an extremely wide angle.
I don't think a camera by itself is a deterrent. I think the spotlight helps because it's sudden and because people who are making trouble don't like attention being drawn to them, but the spotlight only turns on if someone is in my driveway, it didn't ever turn on for the past incidents. I'm not interested in spying on my neighbors, I specifically blocked the motion sensors from alerting on their property.
In addition to the camera I have an automatic light cycle that runs on my house every day. Indoor and outdoor lights turn on automatically when it starts to get dark, it doesn't happen at exactly the same time every day and they don't all turn on at once. I don't usually futz with them because that's when I want light, so it looks the same whether I'm home or not.
My neighbors on the other side also have dogs that lose their minds if anyone enters or leaves my house.
In all this time, my house hasn't had anything sketchy happen. It's possible that nothing I'm doing makes a difference. Maybe the trouble has come from folks who my neighbors knew. Maybe I don't have anything that looks like it's worth the trouble. Maybe I'm just lucky.
However, I have a friend who is a physical security specialist, businesses hire them to break into buildings and tell them how to improve their security. I've worked on the tech side of security.
What I've learned is that you can't usually stop someone from breaking in / stealing something if they're really determined to do so. What you can do is make yourself less of a target by making it not worth their time and by making them less comfortable if they do decide to try. That means layers of solutions, not a single answer. If you do it well, you'll never know that you were successful because nothing will have happened. This is why security departments are almost always under budgeted, it's hard to convince a CEO that business as usual is a success rather than a waste of money.
Mine is useless as even a deterrent unless you’re looking at the big juicy window right in my deck you could smash and climb in through, but you’re almost certain to be greeted by the pile of...
Mine is useless as even a deterrent unless you’re looking at the big juicy window right in my deck you could smash and climb in through, but you’re almost certain to be greeted by the pile of boxes and other miscellaneous things I have piled there, or me, the guy who doesn’t even go outside for days at a time (sun is out there; we’re mortal enemies.)
I did search my card one time to see if I happened to catch footage of a elderly woman with dementia who went missing from her home in the neighborhood, but of the three streets she could’ve wandered down, she didn’t wander down mine, and they found her after a couple of hours at a nearby gas station.
Not me justifying their plans, but Ring messed up from a PR perspective because they didn't cut to the chase and focus their Superbowl ad around law enforcement. A far more dramatic advert where...
Not me justifying their plans, but Ring messed up from a PR perspective because they didn't cut to the chase and focus their Superbowl ad around law enforcement.
A far more dramatic advert where Search Party helps catch a dangerous sexual predator mid-abduction, rescues his victims and lands him life in federal prison would have received far less backlash. Finding lost puppies is a weak argument for Search Party's existence, yet "think of the children" has been the strawman argument for mass surveillance.
I mean it's why my country ended up with the Online Safety Act...
But "dangerous sexual predator" is not what people want to watch during their socially acceptable gladiatorial matches. People don't buy doorbell cameras to catch violent predators. They want to...
But "dangerous sexual predator" is not what people want to watch during their socially acceptable gladiatorial matches. People don't buy doorbell cameras to catch violent predators. They want to see their family member at the door or see their package arrived. Other cameras, maybe it's fear based, but doorbells seem mostly to be convenience and utility.
That sort of language works for politicians, sometimes, but during a violent law enforcement "surge" where people are being tracked, harassed and beaten or killed not just for "being a criminal" but for saying "hey I don't like how you're doing that"... It's probably the wrong time for a "look at us helping law enforcement" ad too. I doubt it would have gone any better.
The softest sell of "helping your neighbor" with less creepiness factor than the dog search wouldn't be a compelling Superbowl ad either.
Unfortunately, the only cameras that are reasonably priced for the general consumer are going to be the smart cams, none of which are currently sold to just work locally. If there are ones like...
Unfortunately, the only cameras that are reasonably priced for the general consumer are going to be the smart cams, none of which are currently sold to just work locally. If there are ones like that, none of them are currently being displayed to the masses in targets and best buys. Sure, you can patch together a home system with cheaper parts, but that takes technical know-how.
And getting people to part with their cams and switch to alternatives is... well it's a bit of a catch 22 given they got the cheap camera because it was cheap, and probably don't want to pay for another.
The other unfortunate part is that from my experience, it seems that the cloud based ones have better 'AI' and some better features and functionality than local ones, unless you go with some...
Exemplary
The other unfortunate part is that from my experience, it seems that the cloud based ones have better 'AI' and some better features and functionality than local ones, unless you go with some absurdly expensive systems or roll your own which requires even more technical know-how than just installing them even, and more hardware.
My personal experiences with cloud based systems are Alarm.com, OpenEye (which is owned by Alarm.com) and Wyze which I am pretty sure all their smart detections are cloud based, and local systems are Hikvision, Dahua, Reolink, a few random other brands, and then beyond that my knowledge is just what I've researched online.
From what I can tell, any of the cheaper hardware that can do local is all about the same capability detection wise. Decent but not great. If you want better detection or recording capabilities, you basically have to roll your own setup for the recording system, which can mean getting a beefy PC, running a desktop OS and then installing some open source software or proprietary software to function as the recording software. Some of these like Frigate require more specialized hardware in addition, like as described below.
A detector is a device which is optimized for running inferences efficiently to detect objects. Using a recommended detector means there will be less latency between detections and more detections can be run per second. Frigate is designed around the expectation that a detector is used to achieve very low inference speeds. Offloading TensorFlow to a detector is an order of magnitude faster and will reduce your CPU load dramatically.
That's of course excluding the other big reason why people go for these cloud based cams which is initially they were targeted for DIY install which for the average home user means battery powered. Plus the networking and remote viewing aspects of these are resolved in ways that securely viewing a local system isn't without the technical know-how.
Comparing local system detection capabilities to the detections and various capabilities of the cloud-based systems I interacted with, those cloud systems were way more capable. Alarm.com detection was quite good, their platform was limited in what kind of recording setups and notification rules and stuff you could set up. OpenEye was nearly perfect from a usability standpoint. They hadn't quite gotten to the better AI detections at the point that I was working with them but I understand it to be better now. It was designed around commercial/enterprise use more so, but it had way more granular controls and one thing that bothers me that other systems don't have by default is dual recording options. Recording motion detections in the high quality main stream of the camera, and recording 24/7 in the low quality substream of the camera. OpenEye had this and made me annoyed to find hardly anything on the lower cost end has it (and OpenEye isn't on the low end of cost so it's not necessarily a fair comparison). Synology has it on their NAS systems, but Synology has come under fire for being anti-consumer in their own ways too. They also have some other software and hardware limitations.
The good news regarding Frigate is that they no longer require (or even recommend) using specific TensorFlow hardware. The latest versions all offer a variety of detectors, some of which can even...
The good news regarding Frigate is that they no longer require (or even recommend) using specific TensorFlow hardware. The latest versions all offer a variety of detectors, some of which can even use the built-in GPU in inexpensive hardware. For example, I'm running Frigate using a Beelink Mini PC which can be had for $300. The N100 and N150 intel chips have built-in GPUs which can run the OpenVino detectors and the performance is as good (and in some cases better) than the TensorFlow hardware I used before.
Admittedly, it's been at least 3 years since I used any cloud-based detection systems but the Frigate system is extremely performant (I get notification within 0.5 seconds of someone approaching my front door) and very reliable at detecting people. It's less smart about animals, but that can be improved with training a Frigate+ model. I use Home Assistant to interface with Frigate and Signal to push my notifications so all of the detection logic and data is flowing through my own hardware, except for the final notification which is sent via Signal which I trust to be private for my purposes.
The most common daily use case is I know when the mail arrives, when packages show up, and if someone is around my house (I get routine tests because of my gardener).
Yes, it's a bit of an up-front mental investment because you should install your own IP cameras on your own network so everything is local, and it does require you to understand how to do some very basic systems administration tasks. So, it's not for everybody.
How many cameras and what resolution are you able to pull off on that hardware? It's been my understanding that's where the spec requirements of the system can rise greatly. But yeah, that's what...
How many cameras and what resolution are you able to pull off on that hardware? It's been my understanding that's where the spec requirements of the system can rise greatly.
But yeah, that's what I've seen about that and similar setups, basically if you roll your own it seems to be much better performance and functionality, just too high of a barrier of entry for most people.
I'm running 9 cameras with 1080p recording resolution, but detection resolution is 720p to 480p depending on the angle of the camera. Detection is 5 frames per second, which is more than fast...
I'm running 9 cameras with 1080p recording resolution, but detection resolution is 720p to 480p depending on the angle of the camera. Detection is 5 frames per second, which is more than fast enough to spot all of the moving objects I'm interested in. Recording is just native copying the stream from the camera, which is 30 fps, and doesn't require any significant resources.
I have a smart doorbell because it lets my partner answer the door without wheeling all the way to the door for someone trying to sell us solar (that we already have) and it let's me see if his...
I have a smart doorbell because it lets my partner answer the door without wheeling all the way to the door for someone trying to sell us solar (that we already have) and it let's me see if his home care shows up as scheduled, or answer at work if he's in the hospital. We moved off Blink (that came with the home) to Nest if only because we use Google stuff already and might as well only share all that with one company?
I have it keep footage only for a short amount of time and facial recognition doesn't work in IL so I try to make it more secure without being part of Flock's nightmare. I can at least pop it off if needed in the future. But I don't have the technical knowledge, time or $ to work up a different accessibility tool. Hell, if we didn't have one, my partner could probably get one installed for free due to being disabled.
The idea of a smart home is great. The reality of the half-ass dumb-ass home is not.
As far as I know, Eufy security and doorbell cams only store footage locally by default. Granted, the app is still the primary way to interact with them, so theoretically, it would be possible for...
As far as I know, Eufy security and doorbell cams only store footage locally by default.
Granted, the app is still the primary way to interact with them, so theoretically, it would be possible for them to access your footage. But you could also just disconnect it from wifi and access footage exclusively via the microSD if that's what you wanted.
Of all the brands I whose word I wouldn’t trust on that… Admittedly that was a couple of years ago, so maybe it was high profile enough that they had to make some actual changes, but their...
Admittedly that was a couple of years ago, so maybe it was high profile enough that they had to make some actual changes, but their handling of it was bad enough that I stopped buying their cables and chargers as a matter of principle (Eufy is an Anker sub-brand). It’d take an awful lot to convince me that their cameras are a good option for privacy and security.
I dropped Anker at the same time for the same debacle. It's one thing to own your mistakes. It's entirely another to lie and gaslight your customers. I'm using Tapo at the moment, which, as far as...
I dropped Anker at the same time for the same debacle. It's one thing to own your mistakes. It's entirely another to lie and gaslight your customers.
I'm using Tapo at the moment, which, as far as I know, keeps things locally and hasn't had any shenanigans of the same kind as Eufy did.
Reolink in theory can be set up for direct access, either disabling their remote connection setup or going further and straight up blocking the hardware from connecting out on a firewall, I think...
Reolink in theory can be set up for direct access, either disabling their remote connection setup or going further and straight up blocking the hardware from connecting out on a firewall, I think Unifi can as well but not 100% on that. Eufy, I don't think so.
Unifi and Eufy I believe have both had session security problems in the past, giving people access to others systems because session tokens were swapped on the backend or something like that (I'm sure someone can correct me on the exact technical details). The only way to avoid this as far as I'm concerned is using direct connections to your equipment and not being reliant on any online accounts to sign in and view devices.
I don't see how that'd be possible depending on your config. You can literally limit access only by direct IP connect which is something they can't grant if you block external at the router (which...
Unifi
I don't see how that'd be possible depending on your config. You can literally limit access only by direct IP connect which is something they can't grant if you block external at the router (which doesn't have to be unifi).
I also can't find anything on sessions swapping failures for them at least not in the same way that Eufy fucked up.
It did happen, but they had it fixed within a few hours, were very transparent about the cause and the remediation, and only a few thousand accounts were affected total [Edit: a few thousand...
It did happen, but they had it fixed within a few hours, were very transparent about the cause and the remediation, and only a few thousand accounts were affected total [Edit: a few thousand theoretically affected, only twelve actually accessed, apparently. Not twelve thousand. Twelve.]. And, like you say, it’s not a risk at all if you disable cloud access - that doesn’t change the fact it shouldn’t have happened at all, but it does at least come down to a user driven choice on the convenience vs risk tradeoff.
Pretty much the mirror universe compared to the Eufy situation, IMO - what the handling of a fuck up says about each of them, as much if not more than the fuck up occurring in the first place, is a big reason Eufy are on my permanent blacklist while I happily recommend Ubiquiti stuff to people all the time.
I’m currently caught between this rock and hard place. Our doorbell isn’t audible from from the whole home and our HOA forbids an awning over our stoop - so after a couple of packages we weren’t...
I’m currently caught between this rock and hard place.
Our doorbell isn’t audible from from the whole home and our HOA forbids an awning over our stoop - so after a couple of packages we weren’t aware of got soaked by rain we set up a nest doorbell. As a result any time someone rings the doorbell or a package is delivered our phones buzz.
Now 5 years later we’re not comfortable with having a cloud connected doorbell camera any more but I have no idea what to do instead.
I’m not aware of any local-only camera or solution that’s set-it-and-forget it. And increasing the volume of the chime itself will make it audible everywhere but ear-damaging in the front room where we sometimes hang out.
If anyone has any thoughts or ideas please do let me know…
There are wireless doorbells, and ones with multiple chime receivers, so you could place them more strategically. I have a single-reciever wireless doorbell for my home so I could place the chime...
There are wireless doorbells, and ones with multiple chime receivers, so you could place them more strategically. I have a single-reciever wireless doorbell for my home so I could place the chime in a more central location that could reach every room with roughly equal volume. It's nothing smart, network enabled, or anything like that; just a dumb wireless bell. The receiver is even small enough that I've lowered the volume and carried it with me to avoid disturbing my kids' naps when they were infants. Only downside is replacing batteries; mine is cheap and doesn't have a low-battery indicator, so either I regularly test or wait for someone to tell me the bell didn't work.
Unfortunately my stoop is narrow such that there isn't anywhere to put a big enough box that wouldn't end up blocking the ability to open the front door. (Yes, we sometimes get partially blocked...
Unfortunately my stoop is narrow such that there isn't anywhere to put a big enough box that wouldn't end up blocking the ability to open the front door.
(Yes, we sometimes get partially blocked in by delivered packages as well).
I've intentionally not replaced the batteries in my Blink doorbell for months, due to this concern. Blink is also owned by Amazon, and while the system was originally deigned to allow local...
I've intentionally not replaced the batteries in my Blink doorbell for months, due to this concern. Blink is also owned by Amazon, and while the system was originally deigned to allow local recording with the ability to stream video from an SD card in a wireless base station, they've made that functionality increasingly broken and slow while pushing a cloud subscription that mysteriously is very fast.
The latest development in that was an email this week that their pricing model is now unlimited cameras for all of their cloud subscriptions, but you'll pay for different "AI" features, such as notifications describing people or vehicles the cameras pick up. So it's safe to say they're doing the same things with video harvested from the Blink products.
I've had much hiking EZviz products up to my Blue Iris PC based PoE system for monitoring, but rely on each camera to record locally to its own micro SD. It's the best of both worlds - they have a...
I've had much hiking EZviz products up to my Blue Iris PC based PoE system for monitoring, but rely on each camera to record locally to its own micro SD. It's the best of both worlds - they have a capable app, can be integrated with larger systems and come in at a good price point.
Cameras for residential usage should only store footage locally. Any apps or portals to access the footage shouldn’t be able to view footage. This is one of the reasons I stopped using Nest after Google bought them and switched to a system I had more control over.
I’ve got a camera pointed at my front porch for the express purpose of knowing when Amazon has delivered my packages. Storage is local, about a day’s worth, the angle really only covers my actual porch, and the rest of the street is blocked by my porch’s banisters and my car. So far the only nefarious activity I pick up is that an orange and white cat likes to hang out on my porch sometimes. Small criminal.
I put up a very obvious combination spotlight camera above my garage door that only stores locally. When I first put it up but before I wired it, I failed to get footage of the hospice next door being broken into. I'm not sure it would have mattered, it's not really targeting anything but my driveway and front yard and her front door doesn't show up in the footage.
A couple of months later I got footage of my neighbor's car being stolen from across the street. They put a lot of planning into stealing an older Civic, a group drove up in two other cars.
About a year later I got some footage I refuse to look up of a cat being killed by a garage door.
It's really only useful to find out what's happened, the police will take the footage but I've never seen anything come of it. I think of it more as an expensive deterrent than anything else, the only people walking up my driveway are solicitors, delivery people, and folks I know.
So a question then: If your camera has proven to be useless at stopping a crime, useless at providing any assistance to investigate a crime, only shows people you already know/expect to arrive, and has only given you animal death footage that you refuse to look at, what is the use of the camera and why do you have it?
They answered it in the last sentence.
Expensive deterrent, yet admitted it deterred nothing. So the question remains.
It’s almost impossible to know if an individual deterrent has actually deterred anything, isn’t it?
By the very nature you’d be measuring something that didn’t happen.
And yet with zero evidence, per your measure, it's referred to as a deterrent. So if effectiveness cannot be proven, the question remains why have it in the first place. All that's been shown so far is the deterrent was ineffective at stopping a car being stolen, so thus far the effectiveness of it is zero.
It's kind of odd to argue with someone else over whether a third person thinks it's an effective deterrent for themself. Like asking them makes sense, but debating it with other people doesn't.
It's of course probably impossible to prove on an individual level. You cannot track what doesn't happen, and thus your standard is unrealistic. But IME most home security is vibes based for the individual and only able to be tested on a societal scale. Which hey, probably they don't do much if anything at that scale from the data we have, which is small. But people don't only operate on a pure rational basis in the first place.
For me, don't get ding dong ditched by the kids in the neighborhood so that's nice, maybe someone thinks twice about fucking with my car or something but my town is safe enough I left my tailgate open and the police knocked on my door to let me know/make sure I was ok. So probably not.
But otherwise it's a convenience/accessibility tool for me. I can't speak for them though.
They elected to interject into the discussion when it wasn't asked of them, did so without actually understanding the question asked, and then others decided to enter the fray as well, so I don't find it odd to do so.
Oh you can but you won't get the answer you asked for, vs talking with the new person about their situation or ignoring the unwanted interjection. That's why I find it odd.
Nobody has ever just tried to open the front door of my home, but I still want a lock. My house has never caught on fire, but I still want a smoke alarm.
There are several studies showing CCTV does appear to reduce crime. I don’t think we have any studies specifically about doorbell cameras though.
Your lock and your smoke alarm don't invade the privacy of others. Lots of people, especially on this site, love to go on and on about privacy while also having cameras pointing outward (and oddly enough inward) from their homes without batting an eye under the guise of "security".
Privacy for me, but not for thee.
Ultimately it evolves into things like this, creation of a crowd funded surveillance state. What's the (para)phrase... Those who are willing to give up freedom for security deserve neither and will lose both.
My cameras only store footage locally and are only accessible to the people that live in my home. Only one of my cameras record outside the lines of my property - and that’s into an empty field that isn’t residential. The state cannot directly access my cameras. None of my cameras violate the privacy of my neighbors. I have friends with very similar setups. I think your problem may be more with Ring than with the general concept of security cameras.
I'm open to other alternatives, do you have a recommendation that meets the accessibility needs I described in another comment? I am sure none of us are perfect either in alignment with our ideals or in practicality. But I'm willing to try.
However I've got a guy in a wheelchair who needs to be able to answer the door and it's very helpful for me to be able to assist with that from work when he can't.
Not the person you were replying to, but I was robbed a few years back, and a neighbour's camera footage was one of the keys in helping identify and charge the thief. Take that as you will, but I suppose there's some use on occasion.
We have cameras now, and they've really only been helpful for us in identifying the type of activity to watch out for (eg, strangers testing car doors to see if they're unlocked, looking for packages, etc.). Nothing groundbreaking but it's a good reminder for us to keep our stuff locked up and gives a few dollars discount on insurance.
Fair question.
In the case of the things that happened, I doubt the people in question looked at my house at all. If they did, they wouldn't know at a glance that the camera has infrared and an extremely wide angle.
I don't think a camera by itself is a deterrent. I think the spotlight helps because it's sudden and because people who are making trouble don't like attention being drawn to them, but the spotlight only turns on if someone is in my driveway, it didn't ever turn on for the past incidents. I'm not interested in spying on my neighbors, I specifically blocked the motion sensors from alerting on their property.
In addition to the camera I have an automatic light cycle that runs on my house every day. Indoor and outdoor lights turn on automatically when it starts to get dark, it doesn't happen at exactly the same time every day and they don't all turn on at once. I don't usually futz with them because that's when I want light, so it looks the same whether I'm home or not.
My neighbors on the other side also have dogs that lose their minds if anyone enters or leaves my house.
In all this time, my house hasn't had anything sketchy happen. It's possible that nothing I'm doing makes a difference. Maybe the trouble has come from folks who my neighbors knew. Maybe I don't have anything that looks like it's worth the trouble. Maybe I'm just lucky.
However, I have a friend who is a physical security specialist, businesses hire them to break into buildings and tell them how to improve their security. I've worked on the tech side of security.
What I've learned is that you can't usually stop someone from breaking in / stealing something if they're really determined to do so. What you can do is make yourself less of a target by making it not worth their time and by making them less comfortable if they do decide to try. That means layers of solutions, not a single answer. If you do it well, you'll never know that you were successful because nothing will have happened. This is why security departments are almost always under budgeted, it's hard to convince a CEO that business as usual is a success rather than a waste of money.
Mine is useless as even a deterrent unless you’re looking at the big juicy window right in my deck you could smash and climb in through, but you’re almost certain to be greeted by the pile of boxes and other miscellaneous things I have piled there, or me, the guy who doesn’t even go outside for days at a time (sun is out there; we’re mortal enemies.)
I did search my card one time to see if I happened to catch footage of a elderly woman with dementia who went missing from her home in the neighborhood, but of the three streets she could’ve wandered down, she didn’t wander down mine, and they found her after a couple of hours at a nearby gas station.
Not me justifying their plans, but Ring messed up from a PR perspective because they didn't cut to the chase and focus their Superbowl ad around law enforcement.
A far more dramatic advert where Search Party helps catch a dangerous sexual predator mid-abduction, rescues his victims and lands him life in federal prison would have received far less backlash. Finding lost puppies is a weak argument for Search Party's existence, yet "think of the children" has been the strawman argument for mass surveillance.
I mean it's why my country ended up with the Online Safety Act...
But "dangerous sexual predator" is not what people want to watch during their socially acceptable gladiatorial matches. People don't buy doorbell cameras to catch violent predators. They want to see their family member at the door or see their package arrived. Other cameras, maybe it's fear based, but doorbells seem mostly to be convenience and utility.
That sort of language works for politicians, sometimes, but during a violent law enforcement "surge" where people are being tracked, harassed and beaten or killed not just for "being a criminal" but for saying "hey I don't like how you're doing that"... It's probably the wrong time for a "look at us helping law enforcement" ad too. I doubt it would have gone any better.
The softest sell of "helping your neighbor" with less creepiness factor than the dog search wouldn't be a compelling Superbowl ad either.
Unfortunately, the only cameras that are reasonably priced for the general consumer are going to be the smart cams, none of which are currently sold to just work locally. If there are ones like that, none of them are currently being displayed to the masses in targets and best buys. Sure, you can patch together a home system with cheaper parts, but that takes technical know-how.
And getting people to part with their cams and switch to alternatives is... well it's a bit of a catch 22 given they got the cheap camera because it was cheap, and probably don't want to pay for another.
The other unfortunate part is that from my experience, it seems that the cloud based ones have better 'AI' and some better features and functionality than local ones, unless you go with some absurdly expensive systems or roll your own which requires even more technical know-how than just installing them even, and more hardware.
My personal experiences with cloud based systems are Alarm.com, OpenEye (which is owned by Alarm.com) and Wyze which I am pretty sure all their smart detections are cloud based, and local systems are Hikvision, Dahua, Reolink, a few random other brands, and then beyond that my knowledge is just what I've researched online.
From what I can tell, any of the cheaper hardware that can do local is all about the same capability detection wise. Decent but not great. If you want better detection or recording capabilities, you basically have to roll your own setup for the recording system, which can mean getting a beefy PC, running a desktop OS and then installing some open source software or proprietary software to function as the recording software. Some of these like Frigate require more specialized hardware in addition, like as described below.
That's of course excluding the other big reason why people go for these cloud based cams which is initially they were targeted for DIY install which for the average home user means battery powered. Plus the networking and remote viewing aspects of these are resolved in ways that securely viewing a local system isn't without the technical know-how.
Comparing local system detection capabilities to the detections and various capabilities of the cloud-based systems I interacted with, those cloud systems were way more capable. Alarm.com detection was quite good, their platform was limited in what kind of recording setups and notification rules and stuff you could set up. OpenEye was nearly perfect from a usability standpoint. They hadn't quite gotten to the better AI detections at the point that I was working with them but I understand it to be better now. It was designed around commercial/enterprise use more so, but it had way more granular controls and one thing that bothers me that other systems don't have by default is dual recording options. Recording motion detections in the high quality main stream of the camera, and recording 24/7 in the low quality substream of the camera. OpenEye had this and made me annoyed to find hardly anything on the lower cost end has it (and OpenEye isn't on the low end of cost so it's not necessarily a fair comparison). Synology has it on their NAS systems, but Synology has come under fire for being anti-consumer in their own ways too. They also have some other software and hardware limitations.
The good news regarding Frigate is that they no longer require (or even recommend) using specific TensorFlow hardware. The latest versions all offer a variety of detectors, some of which can even use the built-in GPU in inexpensive hardware. For example, I'm running Frigate using a Beelink Mini PC which can be had for $300. The N100 and N150 intel chips have built-in GPUs which can run the OpenVino detectors and the performance is as good (and in some cases better) than the TensorFlow hardware I used before.
https://docs.frigate.video/configuration/object_detectors/
Admittedly, it's been at least 3 years since I used any cloud-based detection systems but the Frigate system is extremely performant (I get notification within 0.5 seconds of someone approaching my front door) and very reliable at detecting people. It's less smart about animals, but that can be improved with training a Frigate+ model. I use Home Assistant to interface with Frigate and Signal to push my notifications so all of the detection logic and data is flowing through my own hardware, except for the final notification which is sent via Signal which I trust to be private for my purposes.
The most common daily use case is I know when the mail arrives, when packages show up, and if someone is around my house (I get routine tests because of my gardener).
Yes, it's a bit of an up-front mental investment because you should install your own IP cameras on your own network so everything is local, and it does require you to understand how to do some very basic systems administration tasks. So, it's not for everybody.
How many cameras and what resolution are you able to pull off on that hardware? It's been my understanding that's where the spec requirements of the system can rise greatly.
But yeah, that's what I've seen about that and similar setups, basically if you roll your own it seems to be much better performance and functionality, just too high of a barrier of entry for most people.
I'm running 9 cameras with 1080p recording resolution, but detection resolution is 720p to 480p depending on the angle of the camera. Detection is 5 frames per second, which is more than fast enough to spot all of the moving objects I'm interested in. Recording is just native copying the stream from the camera, which is 30 fps, and doesn't require any significant resources.
I have a smart doorbell because it lets my partner answer the door without wheeling all the way to the door for someone trying to sell us solar (that we already have) and it let's me see if his home care shows up as scheduled, or answer at work if he's in the hospital. We moved off Blink (that came with the home) to Nest if only because we use Google stuff already and might as well only share all that with one company?
I have it keep footage only for a short amount of time and facial recognition doesn't work in IL so I try to make it more secure without being part of Flock's nightmare. I can at least pop it off if needed in the future. But I don't have the technical knowledge, time or $ to work up a different accessibility tool. Hell, if we didn't have one, my partner could probably get one installed for free due to being disabled.
The idea of a smart home is great. The reality of the half-ass dumb-ass home is not.
As far as I know, Eufy security and doorbell cams only store footage locally by default.
Granted, the app is still the primary way to interact with them, so theoretically, it would be possible for them to access your footage. But you could also just disconnect it from wifi and access footage exclusively via the microSD if that's what you wanted.
Of all the brands I whose word I wouldn’t trust on that…
Admittedly that was a couple of years ago, so maybe it was high profile enough that they had to make some actual changes, but their handling of it was bad enough that I stopped buying their cables and chargers as a matter of principle (Eufy is an Anker sub-brand). It’d take an awful lot to convince me that their cameras are a good option for privacy and security.
They've had a lot of open security audits since then, so I trust them enough for smart cams.
Definitely more trustworthy than Ring.
I dropped Anker at the same time for the same debacle. It's one thing to own your mistakes. It's entirely another to lie and gaslight your customers.
I'm using Tapo at the moment, which, as far as I know, keeps things locally and hasn't had any shenanigans of the same kind as Eufy did.
I believe Unifi and Reolink are much the same.
Reolink in theory can be set up for direct access, either disabling their remote connection setup or going further and straight up blocking the hardware from connecting out on a firewall, I think Unifi can as well but not 100% on that. Eufy, I don't think so.
Unifi and Eufy I believe have both had session security problems in the past, giving people access to others systems because session tokens were swapped on the backend or something like that (I'm sure someone can correct me on the exact technical details). The only way to avoid this as far as I'm concerned is using direct connections to your equipment and not being reliant on any online accounts to sign in and view devices.
I don't see how that'd be possible depending on your config. You can literally limit access only by direct IP connect which is something they can't grant if you block external at the router (which doesn't have to be unifi).
I also can't find anything on sessions swapping failures for them at least not in the same way that Eufy fucked up.
It did happen, but they had it fixed within a few hours, were very transparent about the cause and the remediation, and only a few thousand accounts were affected total [Edit: a few thousand theoretically affected, only twelve actually accessed, apparently. Not twelve thousand. Twelve.]. And, like you say, it’s not a risk at all if you disable cloud access - that doesn’t change the fact it shouldn’t have happened at all, but it does at least come down to a user driven choice on the convenience vs risk tradeoff.
Pretty much the mirror universe compared to the Eufy situation, IMO - what the handling of a fuck up says about each of them, as much if not more than the fuck up occurring in the first place, is a big reason Eufy are on my permanent blacklist while I happily recommend Ubiquiti stuff to people all the time.
I’m currently caught between this rock and hard place.
Our doorbell isn’t audible from from the whole home and our HOA forbids an awning over our stoop - so after a couple of packages we weren’t aware of got soaked by rain we set up a nest doorbell. As a result any time someone rings the doorbell or a package is delivered our phones buzz.
Now 5 years later we’re not comfortable with having a cloud connected doorbell camera any more but I have no idea what to do instead.
I’m not aware of any local-only camera or solution that’s set-it-and-forget it. And increasing the volume of the chime itself will make it audible everywhere but ear-damaging in the front room where we sometimes hang out.
If anyone has any thoughts or ideas please do let me know…
There are wireless doorbells, and ones with multiple chime receivers, so you could place them more strategically. I have a single-reciever wireless doorbell for my home so I could place the chime in a more central location that could reach every room with roughly equal volume. It's nothing smart, network enabled, or anything like that; just a dumb wireless bell. The receiver is even small enough that I've lowered the volume and carried it with me to avoid disturbing my kids' naps when they were infants. Only downside is replacing batteries; mine is cheap and doesn't have a low-battery indicator, so either I regularly test or wait for someone to tell me the bell didn't work.
I had no idea this existed, I'll look into it. Thank you!
What about a box that delivery drivers can put packages in so that they’re protected from the rain?
Unfortunately my stoop is narrow such that there isn't anywhere to put a big enough box that wouldn't end up blocking the ability to open the front door.
(Yes, we sometimes get partially blocked in by delivered packages as well).
I've intentionally not replaced the batteries in my Blink doorbell for months, due to this concern. Blink is also owned by Amazon, and while the system was originally deigned to allow local recording with the ability to stream video from an SD card in a wireless base station, they've made that functionality increasingly broken and slow while pushing a cloud subscription that mysteriously is very fast.
The latest development in that was an email this week that their pricing model is now unlimited cameras for all of their cloud subscriptions, but you'll pay for different "AI" features, such as notifications describing people or vehicles the cameras pick up. So it's safe to say they're doing the same things with video harvested from the Blink products.
I've had much hiking EZviz products up to my Blue Iris PC based PoE system for monitoring, but rely on each camera to record locally to its own micro SD. It's the best of both worlds - they have a capable app, can be integrated with larger systems and come in at a good price point.
What?! I’m shocked at this development!!