Yep. Anyone got alternatives? I love the convenience of a video doorbell but I really really would like to not help the police or ICE or anyone else for that matter unless I decide it's a good idea.

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baby_souffle 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Yep. Anyone got alternatives?

The self-hosted and home-automation and home-assistant subreddits are _full_ of discussion threads on this. The good news is that you have a TON of options to pick from. The bad news is that they're all deficient in one way or another so you really do have to spend a bit of time to figure out who executes best on the things you care most about.

If you don't mind the lock-in, Unifi is nice. Reolink (and the other DaHua re-brands) usually leave a lot to be desired in terms of software / quality but they are cheap and they reliably spit out a regular video stream that can be used with just about any software. Just don't let them onto the WAN!

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yndoendo 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Are there any such systems for general users that don't want to manage or maintain such systems?

Alternatives really need to be for the masses that have little Knowles in server hosting.

This is one reason I invest in Linux Smartphone company's that are work towards a clean solution for the masses. Daily drivers that are satisfactory for us build the stepping stones to walk to the alternative.

	▲	Cyph0n 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Home Assistant has the plug and play Green box: https://www.home-assistant.io/green/ Hubitat is a different player in this space: https://hubitat.com/
	▲	cmorgan31 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		UniFi is simple to keep running and updated. It’s mostly plug and play as long as you have Ethernet lines. You sometimes have to hit update in the iPhone app.

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dyauspitr 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Any non-Chinese, plug and play systems? Does simplisafe offer on premise video surveillance?

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jszymborski 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Reolink has doorbell cameras[0] that you can keep disconnected from the internet. They also have some pretty useful local recording hubs if self-hosting is not your deal[1].

[0] https://reolink.com/ca/product/reolink-video-doorbell-wifi/

[1] https://reolink.com/ca/product/reolink-home-hub/

	▲	dawnerd 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Reolink also fixed a problem with some of their cameras that prevented them from working with scrypted fully. I have a bunch now completely isolated from the internet and linked through HomeKit.

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keraf 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Got the UniFi Doorbell from Ubiquiti and I'm really happy with it. It's hooked up to my Dream Machine, records video on disk and I access it via Tailscale. Not paying any subscription and it doesn't live in a cloud.

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andrewxdiamond 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

you can use a company that is self hosted like Unifi and have complete control over your data, still have remote access, and not pay a subscription. “self hosted” scares people off but its literally a box you plug in and forget about. Pretty trivial.

I dont understand why anyone chooses Ring when the costs of Unifi are so much better.

The ring app also sucks imo and all their hardware is quite slow.

	▲	bagels 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Honestly, that commercial convinced me to dump my Nest cameras because, eventually (if not already), they'll do the same.

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marricks 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Normal door bells are pretty great and have less overhead and maintenance...

All tech puts it's best foot forward, some of it's really nifty, but a camera on every street corner is always going to pose more risks than it's worth IMO...

It's work to go back to the old ways but I think this is one we step we should really all take.

	▲	Marsymars 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think your take on cameras is legitimate, but from my home office I can't hear my doorbell if I have the door closed or if I have music playing at even a low volume. Installing a smart doorbell that notifies me when rung was a significant upgrade over the old doorbell.

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rtkwe 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I use Amcrest's AD410. I don't pay for their cloud, have my own NVR, and can access them through Wireguard if I'm out of the house.

	▲	acidburnNSA 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This is the way. Do you use frigate for NVR or something else?

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acidburnNSA 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Frigate is incredible. I have 3 instances of it (different homes across the family) running using various amcrest and reolink local-only PoE and Wifi cams. I access the remotely using wireguard. One is running on a 2017 miniatx box (Intel i7-7700T) using openvino to do local-only object detection with the 2017 intel CPU. One is using a Beelink EQ14 Mini PC, Intel Twin Lake N150, also using openvino for object detection (people, dogs, cars, etc). One is using a nvidia 5070 gpu. All notifications are processed via the home assistant integration.

Truly top-notch quality, full-featured, very low maintenance, easy to set up, cheap to operate. I'm glad so many people are using it now.

For video doorbell I just have a cam that can see the front door and I drew a box around the area I want notifications for. When a person enters the box, I get a notification and snapshot.

https://docs.frigate.video/

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nerdsniper 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Reolink with Frigate NVR. Can also put Home Assistant on the same box. Pretty much any 12+ gen intel CPU with QSV should be able to handle the encoding for streaming to your device. Probably will want to use tailscale so that you don’t have to open any ports.

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lightingthedark 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have a Reolink doorbell. It records to a SD card and works great with my Home Assistant setup. So much better than the Ring it replaced.

	▲	jayofdoom 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Hard agree. I have their doorbell and some of the wifi light fixtures (that go into mains power). They integrate great with home assistant and record locally.

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dgxyz 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We've got an analogue video phone on our apartment. Works flawlessly. No digital path other than the ring selection. Has a flat monochrome CRT which is kind of cool.

I made it half a century without a doorbell in my phone. I don't need it now.

	▲	kstrauser 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Eh. I have a Logitech Circle View, and appreciate seeing whether it's a delivery person or some rando selling vacuum cleaners. It also pops up a picture of the person on our TV and chimes my phone, so even if we have the music up or we're not at home, we can still see that someone's there. I like these.

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roamerz 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’ve been pretty happy with Reolink. No subscription required and uses local storage. Notifications are done through smtp which works pretty well. Mobile app is pretty solid as well.

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add-sub-mul-div 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The difficult lesson is that getting off the treadmill of always chasing greater convenience is the only way to stop the bleeding of increasing dependence on technology.

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righthand 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yi cameras are supposed to be local if you dont get a subscription.

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LazyMans 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

None of these agencies get your video data without your consent. The feature was designed so they have an easy way to present you the request for footage.

Unfortunately a portion of the information getting circulated is the complete opposite.

	▲	drnick1 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> None of these agencies get your video data without your consent. You certainly can't be sure of that. In fact, it is almost certain that these companies provide the data they collect to the police and government agencies data, often without warrant.
	▲	i_love_retros 10 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Doesn't matter, unless you're an asshole you shouldn't continue to give money to companies like Ring that partner with ICE or Flock. I'm not an asshole so I cancelled my subscription.
	▲	array_key_first 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Yes, for now. But ultimately you have no control or say over these features because you do not own the software or data. You must have pure blind faith that this will be the way it continues to work. If other people are cool with doing things without any reasons and based on pure trust, that's on them. But that's not gonna be me
	▲	SoftTalker 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		If you don't own the entire stack you don't decide who does what with the data.
	▲	wat10000 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I'm certain they get your video data without your consent when the agencies have a warrant. I think it's very likely that they won't necessarily require a warrant, either. Consider the Nancy Guthrie case. The owner wasn't around to give consent, and the camera didn't even have an active subscription, yet law enforcement was still able to recover video from Google's systems. The only way it could be as you say is if the video was only stored locally without any remote access, or if the video was encrypted with keys only you control. Google clearly is not doing this. I really, really doubt Amazon is.