> how often do you have to change your cameras' batteries, or are you accepting ugly wiring for powering from mains

Meh (a) I want security and cat-monitoring cameras anyway (b) I'm willing to take the effort to install cameras neatly since they're capable of serving as 100 different sensors

> constantly sending images of one's private space to a cloud LLM is Orwellian

I agree. I have a local server with a GPU. The security side of things records to a local NVR. Nothing goes to the cloud.

> IP cameras are flaky, too

haven't had nearly as many problems here

> are you polling your LLM minutewise "Did the cat vomit on the floor"?

Kind of, but it only re-polls if the camera detected motion, and then every 15 minutes as a catch-all.