Home security cameras and self hosted storage

[Conan257]

So we're in the market for a couple of cameras. I'm looking for great value with decent resolution and have eyes on the 12mp reolink stuff at the moment.

Must have:

24/7 recording
Local (within home, not on device) storage
Access over the internet via wife-friendly setup
Possibility of number plate recognition from one of the cameras (range 6-10m from road. but I'm happy to not guarantee this for cost purposes)

I have an Unraid server and proxmox box (router etc), and would be happy hosting frigate as I could put a module in there for AI stuff.... But frigate isn't wife friendly in terms of an app, I don't believe, so I'm at either home assistant or a supplier NVR/Hub?

Happy to take any thoughts, but with reolink I'm at £270 for 2 cameras and a doorbell... I'll need any hub stuff and PPE injectors on top of that, but unfortunately it's £200 ish for their hub. Any other supplier feels like more cost for no more gain.

 

[Conan257]

To expand on my quick response earlier. If you’ve already got Unraid and Proxmox available to you then Frigate combined with Home Assistant is a great option. I run Frigate with a Coral accelerator on my Unraid box, with Home Assistant on my Proxmox box. Frigate has very good integration with Home Assistant. Frigate is used to handle all the recordings, detections, etc and HA can display them in a wife friendly way.

As an aside, HA can be as complex or as simple as you want it to be. It can be happily used just as a GUI for your Frigate cameras so don’t be put off my the complex setups you’ll see on your research

Nice one, my setup is the opposite of yours with HA on Unraid and Frigate intended to be on my proxmox box as it has a spare A+E socket for a coral card if I go that way.... Maybe I can set up a simple HA interface for her to view the cameras and ignore everything else (it's not doing a huge amount at the moment). Aside from the coral card that's a free option which I can start off with on day one till she hates me.....

 

[Conan257]

I like unifi stuff

Almost certainly out of the price range when RRP on their doorbell is 3x Reolink

 

[Conan257]

The Frigate website that’s used to access camera streams and recordings isn’t too bad all these days. It’s had quite an update over the years and is much easier to use now

I'm digging through their website now, but I'm assuming I'll need a dns to access frigate over the internet?

 

[Conan257]

I have a feeling i'll be going down the "get the cameras and see whether I can make it work" route... I have openvpn setup already, but not a fan of having multiple interactions needed for the wife to view the live and recorded footage.... Can give it a go and see if she's content to go with it or spend another 200-300 to get their NVR

 

[Conan257]

Remember that VPN access is only needed if she's out and about. From a purely personal perspective, I rarely try to access my cameras outside my home network

Surely being out is a prime example of when you want to check cameras?

If i'm using a door cam, i'm going to use it when I'm out and almost never want to look at it when i'm at home.....

Edit: Just seen that I can use Nabu Casa to access HA easily and I'm paying for that since I wasn't able to get HA setup to use google without it