Relatively minor from the perspective that the actual information which will leak from a Nest camera isn’t really that unique. And as a network device, it’s fairly simple to isolate and secure. The video a doorbell camera shoots is generally of “in view” public space, already visible to any camera. Your identity is already likely tied to the installation address where you’ve paid for the account with your credit card, which is also probably tied to that same address. If these things are not true, then you should obviously defer to your individual threat profile and disregard what I say.

The worst part of it is that these doorbell cameras could provide a state actor with a daily face shot database, but if you control it, then it can also be an adversarial source to that end.

But “minor” for me, is different from “minor” for you. For me, petty crime, and maybe some local cops with beef are a much bigger deal than hiding from the feds. That’s my whole point here. Know your own threat profile. If officer Barbrady kicks down your door and violates your rights, he’s going to take your local video server, but he’s much less likely to get access to some random silicon valley colo farm. Don’t fear the cloud, understand how to use it as a tool within your own threat profile.

I only use Frigate. All of the Amcrest stuff is turned off.

Each of the cameras have two video streams. The “live” stream is set to 1080p, and the “sub” stream is set to 720p. The sub stream is what Frigate uses for detection. Here is a sample of what a camera config would look like in the frigate.yml file:

cameras:
  back:
    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://camera-username:camera-password@camera-ip-address:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=2
          roles:
            - detect
            - record
    detect:
      width: 1280
      height: 720

My HA runs in a Proxmox VM with 4 vCPUs, 4GB of RAM and 128GB storage. The VM also has access to a network drive, which is where nightly backups are stored.

By default, the HAOS Frigate addon will store recordings on the host machine (you can define any volume if you’re running Frigate in docker), and you can set “event” retention in the frigate config file - default is 10 days. You can download any clip or snapshot directly from the Frigate UI to whatever device you are using. OR, if your setup is similar to mine, you can pull from backup.

My nightly backup to my network drive includes the frigate folder with the recordings and snapshots, which is also set to retain 10 days/backups, and finally there is a weekly Borgbase backup of that network folder to a server on another continent, so I don’t feel like I need any kind of dedicated storage hardware - normal backup procedures work just fine!

With this setup, CPU usage never goes above around 35% (keep in mind that I have a Coral TPU, which takes all the detection load off of the CPU) and with the configured Frigate retention policy, storage usage for the entire VM never exceeds 50% of the total available space.

This setup has been running flawlessly for almost 3 years now. Detection is immediate, as are the push notifications. Very happy with it!

I wasn’t implying that anyone was claiming anything, just attempting to detail a way in which privacy can be maintained while also having push notifications (both snapshots and video). I’m more pushing back against the general notion that it’s “too hard” to maintain privacy while using software and hardware that is supposed to enhance security.

If people think it’s “too hard” to maintain their privacy, they are likely to either give up and not do the security thing at all, or give their data away to a giant corp/cops, which undermines the security they were trying to enhance in the first place.

For the price of Ring hardware + subscription (you need a $20/mo subscription even if you want to use local storage), you can get an entire home automation setup with a robust security component in which everything is local and no data is sent anywhere, except to a device you control, over a secure and encrypted connection.

It’s not even hard to do - Home Assistant is very easy to get up and running these days (this was not always the case), and Frigate is also pretty easy - the documentation is extensive and there are a ton of videos available that cover installation and configuration.

The notification automation is available as a Home Assistant blueprint template - all one has to do is fill in some blanks.

And all of this can run on a Raspberry Pi or even a used $150 SFF Dell or Lenovo machine, or even just an old laptop.

You don’t even need a ton of storage space or dedicated drives - my 5 cameras use less than 64GB of storage in a month, and that is total, ROLLING storage, not cumulative, because you can configure how long each clip is saved before it’s automatically deleted. All of my clips and snapshots are deleted after 10 days. If there’s anything I want to keep, I just download it before 10 days is up.

For longer term storage, I have a simple nightly backup to a network drive, and weekly backup from there to an offsite location, but that’s just me, it would be just fine to save clips to a USB drive or a phone - whatever works.

I’m just saying that you don’t need to compromise privacy to obtain security.