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Yep still glad I've never trusted "smart-home" tech.
Why do people want to see who comes to the door?
My brother installed one of these at his house and it makes me uncomfortable, but I know he probably feels safer and more in control by having it, and would value that over my comfort.
Then I start to gaslight myself, "why am I uncomfortable with the surveillance apparatus getting regular identifiable videos of me at a known location"?
FedEx drivers routinely lie about folks not being home to accept delivery, but in reality they never even go up to the door to ring the doorbell or knock on the bell. Having evidence that the driver never showed up can help dealing with FedEx to get a package that they repeatedly fail to deliver.
That's about it though, I don't actually have a doorbell camera at the moment (I did, but it died, and I haven't bothered to replace it), and I really resent the mass adoption of surveillance cameras pointed out at public roads and sidewalks, especially Ring cameras which have been repeatedly shown to be readily available to law enforcement.
This seems to be exclusively American thing. I presume it's a big safety issue there. Here in Thailand people rarely even lock their doors let alone care about something like video doorbells.
Why would you not want to see who is at your door? Or know if there is a package there? Plenty of packages get stolen off of porches in my neighborhood
We had a burglary a couple of months ago, luckily we have an indoor camera which scared him away when he saw it and nothing was stolen. On the camera recording, we heard that he was ringing the doorbell for a couple of minutes to check if anyone is at home. We now have a camera doorbell (not Ring one though), if we had it then he would see it and avoided our house altogether.
Yeah we have a camera pointed at our driveway from our garage door. It isn't close enough to the road to trigger movement from people walking or driving by.
But if they come inside the fence it'll pick em up.
Also have a couple of cameras watching other random parts of the yard. We live on just under 2 acres, and it's all enclosed in chain link fencing. Next to us is an automotive maintenance shop owned by a by here pay here lot a few miles closer to town, and they don't always hire the most trustworthy individuals to work on cars....
/boggle
How is that not obvious?
Because of porch pirates.
I don't like being under constant surveillance from my neighbors doorbell cameras. This is one of many excellent reasons why.
What I am going to do is use MapComplete to start labeling every house that I come across that has one of these doorbells.
Then I'll post some QR codes around town that link to the map.
Once people start seeing their homes called out on a map then perhaps some of them will feel uncomfortable with that and start to understand just why privacy matters.
I feel like this could backfire if lots of people have the cameras. They might be like, so what? Cameras are normal.
Or worse, thieves will see who doesn't have them and plan their hits accordingly.
LoL, do it!
Just another dang ol’ reson to keep tech outta the house. But honestly, the masses are dumbasses and I am not gonna talk to idiots as much as I can. I really do a a bunch of listening to peoples takes & observations. I’m fairly quiet and appear non judgmental. But deep down all the way to the surface, quietly, I’m like, ”That’s an interesting take”. If necessary, I could incinerate. However, I enjoy allowing people to explain themselves so that whatever questions I may have, are answered. I have to do less work. And that’s great b/c Ima lazy mf’er.
So, what are people using to get:
- good quality streaming
- doorbell alert
- motion alerts
- local and remote access
- recording storage
Currently using Ring (outside of America) and looking to migrate away. There are some nice other features like distinguishing motion vs people vs vehicles that are nice to have but can live without.
Home assistant + frigate has been serving myself and my family on separate sites for about 2 years. It has definitely kicked my ass, but seeing "privacy friendly" reolink cameras constantly phone home on my firewall assured me it was worth it. Wireguard tunnel in and you have remote access with practically no security concerns*
2nd this configuration. My firewall rules block all external camera traffic and Frigate (once configured) is superb at detecting people without false alerts. All recordings are stored locally. It is disturbing just how much traffic smart devices try to send to China and Amazon, even when not subscribed to cloud services.
Home Assistant makes everything ridiculously flexible and is configured to turn on camera sirens if someone is detected at night or while my alarm system is armed, and disable sirens and alerts when doors have been opened or the alarm has just been turned off. The open Wireguard ports appear closed to scanners so I'm also reasonably comfortable with network security.
Ubiquiti. Cloud gateway max (router + NVR) for $200 with no storage, add your own 2tb nvme, get a ubiquiti doorbell for $300. Little pricy, but simple to setup and all the footage lives locally on the cloud gateway max. No subscription, and you can add more cameras later. The cloud gateway max is an excellent 2.5G router. Slap on a WiFi 7 access point for $200 more and you got yourself a killer home network.
I want the Ubiquiti Doorbell Pro (wired Ethernet) but it's always sold out. Plus I've been hesitant to spend ion a Cloud Gateway or Dream Machine. I just wish I could use my own storage.
I need to just bite the bullet though.
The cloud gateway max lets you use your own storage without getting one of their giant NVRs. I got the wireless doorbell. Initially I kinda regretted not getting the wired one, but once I tuned my WiFi I haven’t had any issues. But definitely go wired if you can.
This is the choice if you want to buy the equipment and it works out of the box. Its cheaper if you want to sort of build your own setup but requires more maintenance and setup.
I use a $40 tp-link video doorbell and it has has all of that.
Reolink Doorbell ( Firewalled from connecting outside LAN) + Frigate (self hosted)
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I bought a cheap Chinese security camera for a fraction of the cost of a Ring and signed up for their cloud storage system. I'm more comfortable with the Chinese government being able to access footage of my backyard, than the current US administration.
Not too long ago, that statement would have sounded controversial or even crazy. Nowadays though, I’m shocked how much sense it makes to me. Never thought that I would agree with something like that.
Yeah. It's crazy. I would choose neither because I can DIY something secure but for non-technical folks in North America today, the Chinese gov't having your video is safer than a private US corporation. I didn't imagone I could make this judgement back in 2022.
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Or you could choose an option that does neither. Why feed the autocrats at all?
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I mean, people are not being forced to buy this shit. So it’s on the idiots who think they have nothing to hide. Just Google something like “why are people ok with cameras inside their house “ and you’ll see many many people basically saying “don’t care, I have nothing to hide, everyone has a pussy/dick”
We still need to protect the idiots. Thats why we're banning asbestos and have safety codes. How is this any different?
How is this any different?
IT and privacy is too abstract for non-tech people. Bring examples with people instead of the tech devices to make an impact.
Things like this:
This is the right approach. Normies won't pay attention to any "your privacy is at risk" argument. But showing them examples (plural, as 1 instance won't do shit either and will just be dismissed) of people getting fucked by all the surveillance COULD make some of them take it into consideration (no guarantees).
I do not agree that people that allow these devices into their homes are idiots. I see them more as "ignorantly lazy".
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People who claim they don't value privacy are simply ignorant of how this can affect them. They don't consider the data falling into the wrong hands. Surely they don't want criminals with unauthorized access at least. It should be obvious that governments don't always have their best interests either.
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this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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