If you’re a smart home enthusiast like me, you’ve probably come across gizmos that leave a sour taste in your mouth. Take Belkin’s Wemo lineup, for example. Despite the cool smart devices in this series, Belkin’s decision to discontinue the product family has made them effectively useless for people without dedicated Home Assistant or HomeKit setups.
I? I especially avoid Ring cameras at all costs, because the only thing worse than manufacturers randomly killing products is them intruding on my privacy. Fortunately, the surveillance functionality of Ring’s privacy-intrusive offerings is fairly easy to replicate with inexpensive single-board computers and conventional RTSP security cameras.
The privacy-intrusive “features” baked into Ring cameras are major deal breakers
I would like my surveillance camera to spy on me
Between outdated software, poorly coded credentials, and lack of encryption, smart devices are already notorious for their insecure nature. But then you have Ring’s surveillance cameras, which are under fire for their privacy-intrusive nature. It was still a firm in 2023 Paid by the FTC because of lackluster privacy and security tools that allow hackers (and even employees) to digitally break into people’s homes and spy on them through Ring cameras. Or you can look at a more recent example, where Ring’s Super Bowl ad featuring an AI-powered Search Party “object” received a lot of backlash from the community for spying on entire neighborhoods.
Call me paranoid if you must, but I don’t want big corporations tracking my personal information. Heck, it’s why I moved away from typical cloud applications and moved to self-hosted applications running on my home server nodes. For a security camera that can see around me, it’s a big deal to me that a company can access my surveillance footage. While the readily available nature of cloud-based productivity tools outweighs the superior privacy of a completely self-built setup for the less technically inclined, I don’t think I need to explain why cloud platforms store footage of my surroundings 24/7. Fortunately, there are tons of cool tools that can provide the same functionality as Ring cameras, while keeping me accountable for all the data my security settings generate.
I’d rather buy a cheap security camera kit and run it from my home lab
The Frigate is my favorite tool for the job
When it comes to self-hosting to a Network Video Recorder, there are many great platforms to choose from. However, Frigate is my favorite of the bunch because it combines a slick user interface with a lightweight design and strong security features. It’s capable of real-time face and object detection, and with the right combination of masks, filters and zones, it’s possible to track any strange (or rather unintended) activity without taxing the main system.
The best part? Frigate works very well with lean systems, and I’m not just talking about old mini-PCs and updated thin clients. I have used it with Raspberry Pi 5and while dedicated GPUs are better for motion tracking and precise object detection, Frigate performs surprisingly well on this ARM-based single-board PC. I have some Tapo surveillance cameras that I connect to Frigate over RTSP streams, but this powerful NVR utility also works with temporary security cameras. For reference, I’ve thrown everything from live streaming cameras and ESP32-CAM modules to old webcams and rear cameras built into old phones on my Raspberry Pi-powered server, and it hasn’t let me down. Then there are the many AI accelerators that Frigate supports out of the box…
With the right AI HAT, my Raspberry Pi Frigate server can handle object detection tasks
Combine all this with Home Assistant and you have a powerful control unit
By itself, a Raspberry Pi-powered NVR can capture streams from multiple cameras, but object detection tasks can strain its CPU. Fortunately, Frigate doesn’t just support GPU frameworks for object detection, it can also use small AI accelerators. Raspberry Pi AI Kit Hats. I bought one of these ages ago, but forgot about it until a few weeks ago when I decided to test it with a Raspberry Pi powered Frigate rig. It turns out that the Hailo-8L accelerator in the HAT works pretty well with the Frigate, although I still had to change the mask and zone values to avoid taxing the AI module with multiple camera feeds.
Then there’s the Home Assistant aspect of this DIY NVR, which dials up the utility to 11. Frigate has a plan developed by the assassin community In Home Assistant which gives access to this NVR tool from my smart home control center. Combine the Frigate’s terrific object detection skills with the trigger automation chains in the Home Assistant, and my Raspberry Pi control system offers more value than a Ring camera. And he does it by respecting my privacy.
- CPU
-
Arm Cortex-A76 (quad-core, 2.4 GHz)
- Memory
-
Up to 8 GB LPDDR4X SDRAM
- Operating system
-
Raspberry Pi OS (Official)
- Ports
-
2× USB 3.0, 2× USB 2.0, Ethernet, 2x micro HDMI, 2× 4-lane MIPI adapters, PCIe Gen 2.0 interface, USB-C, 40-pin GPIO header
- GPU
-
VideoCore VII
- Starting Price
-
60 dollars
