Comment by zrobotics
4 days ago
Not exactly open firmware, but something like ONVIF on an isolated network is pretty close. An ONVIF camera should talk to basically any NVR (network video recorder), there are several open-source ones available.
There are tons of ONVIF-compliant and cheap PoE cameras, and with this setup you really don't care about the security of the manufacturer firmware since you aren't exposing them to the network publicly. However, you do need to be extra diligent when configuring your VLAN/network segmentation.
Getting this right is hard, speaking as someone who has ARP poisoned an exposed ethernet connected to some cheap switches to monitor cameras in whole buildings before. The problem is the endpoint itself, adding layers on top doesn't solve things. Ideally I'd like a device that could be connected to public wifi and still be robust. For example including padding any data it's transmitting to avoid observable compression side effects being usable as a proxy for motion detection (which is a cool trick you can try even without a working wifi key)
For anyone who wants a setup like this but the nice notifications and quality of life capabilities (recordings, easy remote access for family), and are ok being on Apple infra (end to end encrypted) -
ONVIF camera (or one compatible with Scrypted) Block WAN (ideally, VLAN) on the cheap cameras Home computer to run Scrypted AppleTV (for Apple home bridge)
This is what I moved to after getting away from Ring and it works quite well. Reolink cams, old desktop, and an hour of setup.