this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2025
59 points (96.8% liked)

Selfhosted

60426 readers
226 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Detailed Rules Post

  1. Be civil.

  2. No spam.

  3. Posts are to be related to self-hosting.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title.

  6. No trolling.

  7. Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hello selfhosters!

I have what is hopefully a simple ask. I am looking for some outdoor cameras for my sister, who is not at all tech savvy. I am, to an extent, and I'd like to get her set up with a small, remotely-manageable system to view and record the outside of her home. I'd wager there's a plethora of selfhost software that can be run on a number of systems (I'm thinking something cheap like a Raspberry Pi), to connect to an external HDD for camera storage.

I'm also looking for camera suggestions for this purpose. Wi-Fi cameras are ideal, since we don't have the means to run ethernet for PoE.

Thank you for your time, and I hope you all have a wonderful week :)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ah ok thanks, so just to be clear, when you come home it will still "alert" you to an "intruder" (until your GPS updates presumably).

[–] lankydryness@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You could set it up like that yes, I suppose it would be bad opsec to give away exactly how I set mine up. But HA certainly has the ability to be informed when your phone comes home and change what alerts are sent out based on that

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Hmm my phone always takes a few minutes to update that I'm home.

[–] lankydryness@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I have thought about different ways to do that. Both iOS and android have the ability to run scripts upon certain triggers such as joining a certain Wi-Fi network. (On iOS the Shortcuts app can do this). I’ve thought about using that to post to the already running mqtt broker and using that to update my system. Or I’ve thought about just snooping all the nearby Wi-Fi clients to my server, and if it detects my phone, do something similar.

Or I suppose you could turn it around, before the system decides it has an intruder, check to see if your phone is in fact at home via some method. Either scanning for it on Wi-Fi or some other way.

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 9 months ago

Hm I like that idea. That's a bit out of my wheelhouse but worth looking into. Maybe also have two zones? A larger one to trigger the location update?