- My Forums
- Tiger Rant
- LSU Recruiting
- SEC Rant
- Saints Talk
- Pelicans Talk
- More Sports Board
- Fantasy Sports
- Golf Board
- Soccer Board
- O-T Lounge
- Tech Board
- Home/Garden Board
- Outdoor Board
- Health/Fitness Board
- Movie/TV Board
- Book Board
- Music Board
- Political Talk
- Money Talk
- Fark Board
- Gaming Board
- Travel Board
- Food/Drink Board
- Ticket Exchange
- TD Help Board
Customize My Forums- View All Forums
- Show Left Links
- Topic Sort Options
- Trending Topics
- Recent Topics
- Active Topics
Started By
Message
Privacy, Smart Home, Streaming
Posted on 11/18/20 at 4:44 pm
Posted on 11/18/20 at 4:44 pm
Anyone starting to get a little more protected in their smart home setup?
It just feels like it has become too much, too much monitoring, too much control.
There has to be a balance somewhere, right? What are you using to stream?
I feel like I have to get rid of echos at this point, but there are no contenders, except maybe trusting that something like Sonos, where Amazon doesn't control the technology and just has software, is at least slightly better.
Anyone else going through this thought process?
It just feels like it has become too much, too much monitoring, too much control.
There has to be a balance somewhere, right? What are you using to stream?
I feel like I have to get rid of echos at this point, but there are no contenders, except maybe trusting that something like Sonos, where Amazon doesn't control the technology and just has software, is at least slightly better.
Anyone else going through this thought process?
1
Posted on 11/18/20 at 8:15 pm to Freauxzen
Yeah, lots of folks.
We have an echo in basically every room, androids in every pocket, ring cameras at every door. We also have the ring alarm system, which I am happy with and I don't think it's all that "smart" to worry about data collection. But the doorbells, while I was happy with them at first (and the integration with echo show is nice), are starting to get on my nerves.
As you pointed out, there are not always great alternatives, but I will do my best to start migrating. I am a huge open source software proponent, and I carry the same mentality over to hardware. I'm not going to buy another IoT device that I can't flash arbitrary firmware to.
I'm going to try replacing a couple echos with ada/almond/rpi, but I'm not sure I can get the WAF high enough just yet. Without billions in backing, it's hard to get the level of integration and features to match Amazon and google.
I hope to migrate my phone over to a PinePhone or maybe Librem in the next couple years. Again, I'll be giving up some niceties leaving the google world, but if they keep making it easier by removing features (free Photos storage is the latest), this might not sting so much.
I've been a desktop Linux user for well over a decade, so no privacy issues there. Google search does nice things but DDG would suffice. I'm glad I went with Roku over firetv and google, but even there I'd like to switch to Kodi on a Pi (again when the WAF is high enough). I'm also glad I went with Ubiquiti for my networking/wifi needs rather than google or eero/amazon.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but those are the major ones. The important thing for now is to not dig deeper into these proprietary ecosystems with future purchases. Eventually all the old gear will fade away, I hope.
We have an echo in basically every room, androids in every pocket, ring cameras at every door. We also have the ring alarm system, which I am happy with and I don't think it's all that "smart" to worry about data collection. But the doorbells, while I was happy with them at first (and the integration with echo show is nice), are starting to get on my nerves.
As you pointed out, there are not always great alternatives, but I will do my best to start migrating. I am a huge open source software proponent, and I carry the same mentality over to hardware. I'm not going to buy another IoT device that I can't flash arbitrary firmware to.
I'm going to try replacing a couple echos with ada/almond/rpi, but I'm not sure I can get the WAF high enough just yet. Without billions in backing, it's hard to get the level of integration and features to match Amazon and google.
I hope to migrate my phone over to a PinePhone or maybe Librem in the next couple years. Again, I'll be giving up some niceties leaving the google world, but if they keep making it easier by removing features (free Photos storage is the latest), this might not sting so much.
I've been a desktop Linux user for well over a decade, so no privacy issues there. Google search does nice things but DDG would suffice. I'm glad I went with Roku over firetv and google, but even there I'd like to switch to Kodi on a Pi (again when the WAF is high enough). I'm also glad I went with Ubiquiti for my networking/wifi needs rather than google or eero/amazon.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but those are the major ones. The important thing for now is to not dig deeper into these proprietary ecosystems with future purchases. Eventually all the old gear will fade away, I hope.
Posted on 11/18/20 at 8:31 pm to Korkstand
quote:In addition to sharing a lot of political viewpoints, it appears that we are both tech geeks, too.
Korkstand
Posted on 11/18/20 at 9:18 pm to Korkstand
quote:
As you pointed out, there are not always great alternatives, but I will do my best to start migrating. I am a huge open source software proponent, and I carry the same mentality over to hardware. I'm not going to buy another IoT device that I can't flash arbitrary firmware to.
I used to be, but the constant keep up with stuff is just tiring. I thought we'd be further along by this point with someone making open source a little easier, and it's probably easier, but is it hassle free? Probably not.
quote:
I'm going to try replacing a couple echos with ada/almond/rpi, but I'm not sure I can get the WAF high enough just yet. Without billions in backing, it's hard to get the level of integration and features to match Amazon and google.
This is the concern, is it too much trouble?
quote:
I hope to migrate my phone over to a PinePhone or maybe Librem in the next couple years. Again, I'll be giving up some niceties leaving the google world, but if they keep making it easier by removing features (free Photos storage is the latest), this might not sting so much.
Same on this. A couple more years and I think we'll have a decent phone alternative.
quote:
I've been a desktop Linux user for well over a decade, so no privacy issues there. Google search does nice things but DDG would suffice. I'm glad I went with Roku over firetv and google, but even there I'd like to switch to Kodi on a Pi (again when the WAF is high enough). I'm also glad I went with Ubiquiti for my networking/wifi needs rather than google or eero/amazon.
Yeah, I think I'm shedding all my echos. I think I might go with nVidia for now, as a bridge and turn off all the connections and literally just use it for apps, very little else.
I hadn't heard of Ubiquiti, but that's good to know.
quote:
I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but those are the major ones. The important thing for now is to not dig deeper into these proprietary ecosystems with future purchases. Eventually all the old gear will fade away, I hope.
This. 100%
Posted on 11/18/20 at 9:42 pm to Freauxzen
quote:Definitely not hassle free, but if you take care to stick to devices which use open and well-supported standards it's not so bad.
I used to be, but the constant keep up with stuff is just tiring. I thought we'd be further along by this point with someone making open source a little easier, and it's probably easier, but is it hassle free? Probably not.
quote:Right now, probably. But the Pi, ESP, etc communities seem to be growing *very* fast right now, and the user-friendliness of both the hardware and software sides of things is improving rapidly. Home Assistant alone has made major strides lately, and I was shocked at how easy it was to set up devices after not having used it for a few years. It discovered things on my network that I had no idea could be used with it, and it set them up with the click of a button. It's still probably a few years away from ready for the masses, but for even the reasonably tech-savvy it's probably the top choice for a home automation hub.
This is the concern, is it too much trouble?
Posted on 11/18/20 at 10:06 pm to Korkstand
What do you use for NVR?
Posted on 11/19/20 at 12:29 am to TheJacer
quote:I use ZoneMinder mostly because it is open source, runs on Linux, and is very old and mature. Also I am very familiar with it and its features, and I do not believe there is any other software, commercial or otherwise, that can match its flexibility (though of course there are countless NVR packages out there and I obviously do not have experience with them all).
What do you use for NVR?
You will read online that it is old and not actively maintained, but that is old information. It is being actively developed again, and I have chatted with the lead developer numerous times. I believe he installs it for a living, so he has a vested interest in continuing development.
It does have a very bland UI, but it has very powerful features tucked all around.
Here is my sales pitch for ZM (even though you didn't ask for it
): It is very "modular" which allows it to scale from a single camera system to one with hundreds of cameras, all managed from a "single pane of glass". A single camera system can actually run on a single *device* using a RasPi with camera in one package, since you can run the full ZM package on the Pi itself. Then on the large side you can use the multi-server feature along with the multiple storage areas feature and the ability to use a dedicated database server to distribute the load with almost no limits. A campus with 20 buildings each with 50 cameras for a total of 1k cams can absolutely be managed with a single ZM UI. You can log into any of the servers and see all the servers as if they are one. And group cams and restrict access per cam and per user to your heart's content.
The motion detection options are numerous and extremely granular. The event filtering options are numerous and extremely granular. Combined you have an incredibly powerful video review system for which I have not found an equal. The UI to achieve this may be ugly, but it is damned effective once you learn how to use it effectively. And if you are smart about defining your motion zones, you can easily find the 10-second needle that you want out of thousands of hours of video haystack. And that's just with the standard features. You can add plugins for object detection, face recognition, license plate recognition/reading, and more.
And of course it's open source, so you can add features as you like (if you are capable of course).
Not bad for $0 IMO.
Posted on 11/19/20 at 6:04 am to Korkstand
I use zoneminder with Reolink cams actually. Was planning to do a ZM+Reolink review this weekend for everyone here who didn't ask or know they wanted it lol. I'm still trying to get ZmNinja alerts and learning how to use the alarm features. I figured you were a ZM guy. I have it running on my NAS with 6 cams right now.
Is pliable the guy developing it now?
Is pliable the guy developing it now?
This post was edited on 11/19/20 at 6:06 am
Posted on 11/19/20 at 8:35 am to TheJacer
quote:He works on zmninja, the obj detect plugin, and a few others. iconnor/connortech works on ZM core (but yeah pliable and a few others contribute too). If you have any coding skills you can contribute too, of course. They're both pretty friendly.
Is pliable the guy developing it now?
I have grand ideas for ZM, and I've talked about them with iconnor and he has some of the same ideas. Basically I think the perfect video surveillance system would take the modular approach to the extreme and distribute the load among all of your camera nodes (probably based on Pi). Each node would of course have a camera and run its own copy of ZM, and store its own recordings and metadata. They would work together among themselves to copy data between nodes to provide data redundancy. This way you don't need a central NVR, and your processing power and storage capacity scale perfectly with the number of cameras you add.
And there are lots of bonuses, such as putting your Pi wifi in AP mode to blanket the premises with wifi, or using the GPIO pins to operate a self-clean mode (I'm constantly clearing spiderwebs on outdoor cams), etc.
quote:
I use zoneminder with Reolink cams actually. Was planning to do a ZM+Reolink review this weekend for everyone here who didn't ask or know they wanted it lol.
I use mostly reolink and amcrest cams. I've found the reolinks to be kind of tricky to get a stable stream. Are you using the RTMP stream? Works great here.
quote:Yeah ZM definitely fits my computing mindset (and price preferences!). I tried Shinobi recently, it's prettier than ZM but kind of trash in operation. Plus the shinobi dev is kind of an arse.
I figured you were a ZM guy.
Posted on 11/19/20 at 1:34 pm to Korkstand
quote:
Are you using the RTMP stream? Works great here.
I'm using RTSP, why do you use RTMP? Does it help with stability? I do notice occasionally that the stream becomes distorted and I have to restart the cam...
I bought two Lumus cams recently because I needed one with the light and could get two for really cheap ($80). I was pretty disappointed when I realized I forgot to check if they provided an RTSP stream...but then I found Neolink! It proxies the cameras connections to China and provides an RTSP stream. It's working great!
Posted on 11/19/20 at 1:56 pm to TheJacer
quote:I had the same problem, and it's now been several weeks since switching to RTMP and the stream has not distorted a single time. Here is the source path I'm using:
I'm using RTSP, why do you use RTMP? Does it help with stability? I do notice occasionally that the stream becomes distorted and I have to restart the cam...
quote:with UDP, ffmpeg, and H264 passthrough. On the cam it is set to stream "clear", 1080p@10fps, and H264 main. This is the RLC-410, but the rtmp url works on other models too.
rtmp://ipaddress/bcs/channel0_main.bcs?channel=0&stream=0&user=USERNAME&password=PASSWORD
This post was edited on 11/19/20 at 1:59 pm
Posted on 11/19/20 at 2:14 pm to Korkstand
you're giving me flashbacks to my foscam days. i honestly don't want to ever have to deal with that level of backend manipulation of local video storage again.
i have no doubt this is a better way to do it. i just don't have the time to dig back into that right now.
Posted on 11/19/20 at 2:53 pm to CAD703X
quote:Yeah it can be a pain finding the hidden and/or nonexistent documentation on some of the cheaper cameras, but if you stick to makes/models that you like and are familiar with, it's really not a problem at all.
you're giving me flashbacks to my foscam days. i honestly don't want to ever have to deal with that level of backend manipulation of local video storage again.
Also that's kind of the price you pay for the extreme level of precision and control. If I can't use my security cameras to detect a cat on my front porch and fire off a water cannon, then what is the point?
Page 1 of 1
Popular
Back to top
Follow TigerDroppings for LSU Football News