I love frigate... just had my neighbors come by because their dog was sick and were wondering if the dog had got into something in our back yard. Pulled up frigate, searched for "black dog" on the backyard camera, and found all the video of their dog.
So the app is free to download from the Apple site, and will run free, and is open source, but you have in-app purchases, and certain features can’t be used until you pay for them, is that right?
What are the paid features and what are the costs? Do I have to install the app to see the list of paid features and costs?
You might get a better response from HN if you give us more info up front.
Paid features are Live and event clip viewing over the internet, and receiving iOS notifications. You're paying for use of my server in those cases though, not for features I've made closed source. You can edit the code to use your own server if you wish too.
I'm new to HN and thought shilling the paid stuff violates the rules, so I didn't mention them.
(I'm a mod here) - it's fine to talk about paid features, as long as it's clear which ones are paid and which ones not.
The only thing that wouldn't be fine is to post a Show HN with no way to try the product out (https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html) and you're fine on that part.
Am I reading your README correct, that in order to sign up to use the app on Android, you have to install and sign up using an iOS device (using Apple's payment system) and then login on Android using the credentials you created?
Yeah sorry that’s confusing, I need to change or remove it until I’ve a payment system setup.
There is an unfinished but functional APK and android project in the repo, but it’s not on the Google Play store yet, their approval process for new individual devs is long
Anyone can recommend a good quality camera without spyware and ideally open sw stack.
I am willing to do it myself with little soldering etc.
that’s one rabbit hole didn’t enter yet
Depending on your definition of "good quality", you might find this project useful: https://thingino.com/
Most cameras on that list are low cost, typically with 4-5MP sensors. They don't compete on the high end in terms of image quality but you will have an open source firmware stack with root access over SSH.
Models from Eufy, Cinnado, Jooan, TP-Link, WUUK, Galayou are relatively easy to source on Amazon or Aliexpress.
The best option is just to assume any IPCam is unsafe and firewall them off in my experience; even with a fully open source camera stack connecting it directly to internet is not that great a practice. Put them on a no internet access VLAN and you can largely buy whatever cheap IPCams you want, etc etc. If you want remote access you should expose the server running the camera management software/NVR securely, not the cams.
This is basically how I run Frigate at home today, with only the NVR able to reach the camera IPs on my no web access “internet of nothing” VLAN.
Nothing good has an open software stack. There are some brands (eg: Axis, Bosch, Hanwha), that support 3rd party apps that can run on the camera and perform various tasks, including AI applications.
Any product that would fall under the good quality segment is primarily targeted at the commercial market, and nobody there is looking for open software.
It's not open source but used Axis cameras are pretty cheap and have rtsp and onvif support. Those mostly come from commercial installs and can be configured offline using a web interface.
Closed circuit television (CCTV) is a term to describe video transmission that is not broadcast. Traditionally with BNC cables going to a control room, monitors and recorders.
I think this software-only post is meant for IP cameras / surveillance cameras. Internet is the oposite of closed circuit.
Maybe CCTV is used as a synonym for surveillance now in some regions of the world, but certainly confusing for a non-native speaker.
> I think this software-only post is meant for IP cameras / surveillance cameras. Internet is the oposite of closed circuit.
I think in this case, IP is referring to IP from TCP/IP, meaning "The Internet Protocol", not necessarily over/through "public internet links", so as long as you're only within your own local network/WAN, wouldn't that still be CCTV then? Or maybe the "closed circuit" thing is more of a physical property than I read it to be?
It's even recommended when building out a CCTV system with cheap Chinese IP cameras that like to phone home all the time. Stick 'em on a VLAN which can't access anything besides your local NVR.
This just seems like an extremely inconvenient, very hands-on subscription given that similarly priced AI detection exists with reliable, cheap cameras.
Also check out frigate (https://github.com/blakeblackshear/frigate)
I love frigate... just had my neighbors come by because their dog was sick and were wondering if the dog had got into something in our back yard. Pulled up frigate, searched for "black dog" on the backyard camera, and found all the video of their dog.
Also discussed here on HN greatly:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44794508
So the app is free to download from the Apple site, and will run free, and is open source, but you have in-app purchases, and certain features can’t be used until you pay for them, is that right?
What are the paid features and what are the costs? Do I have to install the app to see the list of paid features and costs?
You might get a better response from HN if you give us more info up front.
Paid features are Live and event clip viewing over the internet, and receiving iOS notifications. You're paying for use of my server in those cases though, not for features I've made closed source. You can edit the code to use your own server if you wish too.
I'm new to HN and thought shilling the paid stuff violates the rules, so I didn't mention them.
(I'm a mod here) - it's fine to talk about paid features, as long as it's clear which ones are paid and which ones not.
The only thing that wouldn't be fine is to post a Show HN with no way to try the product out (https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html) and you're fine on that part.
"I'm new to HN and thought shilling the paid stuff violates the rules, so I didn't mention them."
HN ain't a non profit charity, but is the forum of a venture capitalist company, so talking about paid things does not violate any rules.
Paying for things does cause some folks to champ at the bit, though, so his assessment is not unwarranted.
It mostly gets people going on and on about how they could do it themselves for free.
Am I reading your README correct, that in order to sign up to use the app on Android, you have to install and sign up using an iOS device (using Apple's payment system) and then login on Android using the credentials you created?
Yeah sorry that’s confusing, I need to change or remove it until I’ve a payment system setup.
There is an unfinished but functional APK and android project in the repo, but it’s not on the Google Play store yet, their approval process for new individual devs is long
Anyone can recommend a good quality camera without spyware and ideally open sw stack. I am willing to do it myself with little soldering etc. that’s one rabbit hole didn’t enter yet
Depending on your definition of "good quality", you might find this project useful: https://thingino.com/
Most cameras on that list are low cost, typically with 4-5MP sensors. They don't compete on the high end in terms of image quality but you will have an open source firmware stack with root access over SSH.
Models from Eufy, Cinnado, Jooan, TP-Link, WUUK, Galayou are relatively easy to source on Amazon or Aliexpress.
The best option is just to assume any IPCam is unsafe and firewall them off in my experience; even with a fully open source camera stack connecting it directly to internet is not that great a practice. Put them on a no internet access VLAN and you can largely buy whatever cheap IPCams you want, etc etc. If you want remote access you should expose the server running the camera management software/NVR securely, not the cams.
This is basically how I run Frigate at home today, with only the NVR able to reach the camera IPs on my no web access “internet of nothing” VLAN.
Related to the original comment - can anybody recommend a budget router with vlan?
What about the Ubiquity gear? It’s maybe not AS open as you would prefer but no spyware and required cloud services is a big win in my book.
Nothing good has an open software stack. There are some brands (eg: Axis, Bosch, Hanwha), that support 3rd party apps that can run on the camera and perform various tasks, including AI applications.
Any product that would fall under the good quality segment is primarily targeted at the commercial market, and nobody there is looking for open software.
It's not open source but used Axis cameras are pretty cheap and have rtsp and onvif support. Those mostly come from commercial installs and can be configured offline using a web interface.
Axis cameras are great. Their product support is awful.
For used cameras I don't expect to get any form of official support. IMO their documentation is clear and they provide software updates for 7 years.
reolink is acceptable
BoquilaHUB also does this, but with Rust: https://github.com/boquila/boquilahub/
How come you didn't write the iOS version in Swift?
This is sick! Thanks for open sourcing it!
Do we still call it CCTV if it's an IP network?
Closed circuit television (CCTV) is a term to describe video transmission that is not broadcast. Traditionally with BNC cables going to a control room, monitors and recorders.
I think this software-only post is meant for IP cameras / surveillance cameras. Internet is the oposite of closed circuit.
Maybe CCTV is used as a synonym for surveillance now in some regions of the world, but certainly confusing for a non-native speaker.
> I think this software-only post is meant for IP cameras / surveillance cameras. Internet is the oposite of closed circuit.
I think in this case, IP is referring to IP from TCP/IP, meaning "The Internet Protocol", not necessarily over/through "public internet links", so as long as you're only within your own local network/WAN, wouldn't that still be CCTV then? Or maybe the "closed circuit" thing is more of a physical property than I read it to be?
I'm also non-native English speaker FWIW.
You can use IP on a LAN with no outside access.
It's even recommended when building out a CCTV system with cheap Chinese IP cameras that like to phone home all the time. Stick 'em on a VLAN which can't access anything besides your local NVR.
“CCTV” has better optics than “surveillance camera”.
Better as in better lenses?
Or better look (as in spyware vs CCTV). Curious, too!
This just seems like an extremely inconvenient, very hands-on subscription given that similarly priced AI detection exists with reliable, cheap cameras.
Are there models that accurately register bullet impacts and calculate scores on shooting targets?