HN Explorer

Ask HN: IP cameras that do not require Internet?

3 points by mcculley ↗ HN
I want to install some IP cameras on tugboats. While these boats have Wi-Fi on board, they do not always have a connection to the greater Internet. (They have LTE hotspots that work near the coasts.) I would like crew to be able to view the cameras from various points on the boat at all times and for land staff to be able to view the cameras when the boats have an Internet connection.

It looks like the Ubiquity applications used to support these modes but the newer "Unifi Protect" lines expects to use cloud services.

I realize I can cobble together something that works in both modes. I am wondering if anyone has experience with hardware/ecosystems that do not assume the cloud is omnipresent.

Edit: I guess I should have made this clearer. I want the users to be able to use the same UI/app whether local or remote, assuming it will do NAT traversal in the remote case.

9 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 35.4 ms ] thread
detaro
Any camera that supports ONVIF can be talked to locally.
pcdoodle
ONVIF + BlueIris would be ideal for a boat. Anything with a browser on the boat gets a nice page with situational awareness / fast playback.
mcculley
ONVIF is only the local protocol, right? I want the users to be able to use the same app whether local or remote.
detaro
Then something like BlueIris the sibling comment mentioned is probably what you want in addition (various "recorder" products also offer remote access), assuming giving everyone VPNs to the boat isn't quite as all-in-one as you are looking for.
mcculley
No, I don’t want to set up VPNs. I was hoping there was a provider that makes an app and manages the NAT traversal for remote access. I would like the users to not know the difference and the app be smart enough to figure out when the camera is on the local network.
iseanstevens
Most Cameras supporting the ONVIF standard will work off net/grid.

ONVIF feeds info about camera capabilities, and URLs for the camera’s RTSP streams which can be used with many things including VLC.

ONVIF is a discovery/configuration protocol for many security/access control type things.

There are a number of open source etc programs that will discover/config the cameras.

mcculley
ONVIF is only the local protocol, right? I want the users to be able to use the same app whether local or remote.
runjake
ONVIF is the discovery/configuration protocol. Most all of those cameras stream RTSP/MJPEG/etc.

I’m fond of the cheap Chinese cameras off of Amazon — Annke in particular, which I think are just rebranded Hikvision cameras.

On the cheaper end, the Eufy cameras can be configured to run in non-cloud RTSP/ONVIF mode. The C24 models run between $30-40 a piece (they go on sale often) and have great video quality. They are USB powered.

mcculley
I see. I would still need to set something up for remote access via NAT traversal or something. I’m hoping I can buy a solution that does that transparently.