Show HN: Open-source private home security camera system (end-to-end encryption) (github.com)

What's the difference between the hub and the server?

I'm curious about the Yocto based OS. Can you tell us about the architecture? How small the LOC is and how much customization has been done if it based from existing stacks?

Ah, the name is a near-miss vs https://secuso.aifb.kit.edu/english/105.php (the SECurity USability SOciety research group at Karlsruhe) that makes the "Privacy Friendly Apps" suite for Android. (I don't think there's any actual confusion, it was just a "why did that sound familiar" reflex :-)

What wasn't immediately clear to me is that you're meant to set up Raspberry Pis with a Pi camera attached, and that serves as the camera device. This then provides E2E encryption directly between the Pi and the Secluso mobile app via a cloud relay service that just shovels the encrypted bytes.

Contrast with https://frigate.video/, which is a locally installed NVR server that pulls camera feeds over the LAN (from a very wide range of off-the-shelf IP cameras) and does all kinds of really neat local processing to do things like (optionally hardware-accelerated) object and audio detection, face recognition, ALPR, semantic search over recorded video, and more — while still maintaining similar privacy guarantees.

It's great that you've done reproducible builds for camera firmware, since that means you don't have to trust a shady IP camera vendor to be competent. Of course, with off-the-shelf stuff, you can largely avoid the security issues there by putting your cameras on a VLAN that can only reach your NVR.

What I don't get is why there needs to be a cloud relay involved at all. If you're fully E2E encrypted anyway, just have the app communicate directly with the camera via STUN.

I see you're planning on selling the preassembled hardware. There's definitely something to be said for "buy this device, download app, done" ease of setup for the wider market that meaningfully improves their privacy over Ring/Nest/et al. But for the power user and self-hosting crowd, I think Frigate makes a lot more sense.

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This looks like a great project at first glance. One thing I did not see answered was how storage is handled. Is there a way to view historical video (even an hour ago)?

Are there also open-source solutions without dependency on server in the cloud and that depend on internet connection? I am looking for a total home solution where I can communicate with doorbel through laptop with headset.

This is great, congrats!

Do you think it would be possible to use ESP32 (RISC-V CPUs) based cameras?

Both for cost reduction and availability of the hardware reasons.

Maybe with a ChaCha20-based cipher instead of AES?

Why not release the iOS app in all regions?

Paint point on most systems is the camera itself. Seems like every Chinese ip camera has some 'ecosystem'. Does you system use any cameras other than Raspberry Pi?

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Do any of these NVR solutions offer police/authority notifications when alerts trigger and you are not home? It's the one thing that keeps me tied to a cloud provider.

Guys if you need ESP32-P4 based IP cam solution with PoE support and optional edge TPU. Just 50*60mm footprint. Full firmware installed (or if you need without firmware). Let me know at info@c3rl.com. A proper IP camera with free python scripts to discover and configure the camera.

Having a rpi for each camera is an overkill. What I found the best approach for private CCTV is getting a cheapo camera (like Cinnado D1, I think I got it for $2 each, or go high end) and install thingino, then connect all to frigade on a separate vlan, accessible through VPN. You can use wired cams for even better security.

I still think thingino needs a lot, but it does the job so far.

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Do you have plans to add smart features like pet detection, etc.?

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