Comment by ryandrake
14 days ago
I've got a bunch of POE Reolink cameras and their doorbell cam. LAN only, no centralized cloud server. So far happy with them.
14 days ago
I've got a bunch of POE Reolink cameras and their doorbell cam. LAN only, no centralized cloud server. So far happy with them.
+1 for Reolink. We have a reolink camera hooked into home assistant, the whole setup is local and reolink's API exposes every single feature in home assistant with no additional setup needed.
My house also came with an existing NVR camera network which I can view in home assistant over my router without it ever going to the cloud as well.
Thanks. You've answered my question about Home Assistant. I'm not familiar with Reolink and will give them a look.
I have a Wyze camera and their janky HA integration seems to have stopped working after a firmware update. They're also the epitome of enshittification and want to nickel and dime me for every feature -- I'd be glad to ditch them.
> LAN only, no centralized cloud server.
Until one day they auto-update ...
Maybe I'm paranoid, but I have a separate VLAN with its own WiFi SSID for iot things like cameras, sensors, washing machine, dryer, solar panels and a bunch of ESP32 based projects. It has no internet access, and is only accessible from my home automation server. Those devices really only need to send data to Home Assistant and expose some basic APIs to it.
I take a simpler approach and block such devices in the router. This is a bit riskier as devices may in theory change their MAC address.
How do you handle smartphone cameras?
Cameras (like other iot devices) should be forbidden from going outside LAN.
How do you deal with your smartphone camera(s)?
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Can you use the app to talk to someone at the door if it’s LAN only?
My grandparents solved that by putting their mobile phone number on their door. They're slow to come down and open the door so it makes sense for the post person or visitor to know they're on their way
Relatively low tech compared to somehow hooking up a camera livestream system to ring your phone via the internet in some way but it works
As far as I've tried, it's fully functional if you VPN into your LAN.
Sorry for bugging you about this. I'm not the person you are responding to but this is important to me before buying so if you don't mind, could you verify that this is your setup?
1. The doorbell cam is connected only to the LAN.
2. The doorbell cam is definitely blocked from accessing the internet.
3. Having access to the LAN from your phone through VPN allows you to watch the feed and talk to people at the door through the app.
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