I tried wyze and find it silly how video clips are limited to 5 seconds unless you give them money every month. I want something where the footage is saved on a local sdcard/hdd without any cloud reliance.
Even better if I don’t have to be locked into using the manufacturer’s app, but I’m flexible on that.
If you want a local camera system you need a NVR (Networked Video Recorder). These have Ethernet ports and’s you connect security cameras to them over Ethernet, they record, store and allow you to view the footage.
A DVR does the same thing but will use a video signal to record, maybe coax or component. These are getting a bit old and also have lower limits on how far the video signal can travel than an NVR but work and are cheaper, many offer network access to view the cameras and recordings.
If you are looking at budget options you can use the software FrigateNVR. It is an open source NVR software designed to work with any camera that uses standard protocols (and many that don’t thanks to the active community). Including wireless cameras although everyone in the community recommends avoiding wireless cameras unless have no other options.
You will be able to use your wyze cameras will frigate.
Almost all IP Cameras, especially the cheap one are considered compromised and open to easy hacking. It is important to isolate them on their own VLAN, if you really care about privacy so they can only talk to your NVR.
It is important to remember security cameras are cameras and need light to perform, especially in the dark. If you need a camera to perform in no light situations you either rely on its own lights which will illuminate maybe 5-10m, and external light source like a flood light or you have a larger camera sensor that can drink in the ambient light for decent quality (this last option will only come from a camera that costs 200-300USD.
A cheap 4k (8mp) camera will perform worse in low light than a cheap 6mp as they often have the same size sensor.
Do you know why wireless cameras are so discouraged? I tried doing some research yesterday and there really are not many onvif wireless cameras available but unfortunately I need to use one because it’s not feasible for me to run cables outside. Also, it seems wyze decided to delete the RTSP firmware from their website because it was insecure, so that’s why I need to buy new cameras.
This is a guide for getting the rstp back for some of the wyse cameras. I haven’t used it myself https://houndhillhomestead.com/using-wyze-cam-v3s-with-frigate/. Someone else recommended thingno which I have read works but also haven’t tried.
One of the reasons wifi is discouraged is for anyone who lives in an apartments or even units, the wifi channels often very crowded. If you live in your own house it’s less of an issue but they still generate continual traffic. Having to punch through a few walls, as they will probably have to do if you are sitting them up outside, will have an effect too. As will the weather.
There are many tricks to running cable between floors. If you have down lights you can pop them out then use a bit of yellow tongue to poke between the holes, running the cable from light to light. most modern houses use pozi trusses for floor support and they have many openings for running services.
Or if you own the house just cut a few holes in the plaster. Patching and painting one ceiling not that big of a job and you’ll be able to use the same cameras for years and years instead of replacing when the battery dies.
This is very helpful information. Thank you. I’ll go with NVR/FrigateNVR in that case. Unfortunately, I need to stick with wireless cameras because there are next to no power sources available outside the building. Good to know my wyze cameras don’t have to be e-waste in the case of FrigateNVR.
I second the wired camera recommendation, at least for a few critical cameras.
WiFi cameras are vulnerable to a de-auth attack. It’s fairly trivial now to make a device that will kick all WiFi devices off of a particular network. It’s not so bad if they record internally and are inaccessible. If they can be reached, once someone is inside, or if they don’t record, they can be bypassed completely, or stolen.
This does all depend on the level of protection required. Basically, are you worth the effort of targeting, or is it just to dissuade opportunistic attempts.
If you get a PoE switch many cameras are designed to be run off of the power it can supply over an Ethernet cable. So you just have to run the Ethernet cable (pretty easy).
Also you can get splitters that will break that PoE cable into one Ethernet and a 12v barrel jack for cameras that are not designed to use PoE directly.
I can’t stress enough how much better a direct connection is than wifi, but understand that sometimes it is the only option.
Other benefits include simply unplugging the camera from the switch if it freezes up as this effectively switches it off (this can be done remotely if you have a managed switch.) and obviously higher quality, more stable streams.
Have a look through the frigate documentation before buying a device to run it. It needs some kind of gpu to process the frames for object identification. The most economical one in my opinion is a something intel 8th gen or higher like a hp elite desk mini pc that has a 2.5in sata slot with the igpu and ideally a proper spinning hdd for the recording as it is constantly being written to and an ssd will burn out faster.
Believe me I’d love PoE, but it really isn’t easy to run ethernet cable from the inside of the building to the outside. It’s a large building with 3 stories.
For wyze to work with frigate you will need the wyze docker bridge running. It’s a PITA to have them stable. Better option is to install Thingino on the wyze cams and then add them to Frigate with the rtsp feed
I don’t know what any of that means right now but I appreciate it and am sure it will make sense once I research this a bit.
No worries, there are many guides for everything.
wyze seems to have deleted the RTSP firmware from their site and said they have no plan to bring it back. I’ll be looking for other cameras.
Install Thingino on them. it’s really easy just place the file on the SD card and then hold the button on power up. Each cam is slightly different but super easy. Once Thingino is installed connect the cams and grab the rtsp link on the main page ofnthe web interface.