just get a Chinese one like tapo so that the Chinese government can spy on you instead
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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Or hear me out,
Buy one that stores its data only on your local network and does not rely on corporate cloud or servers in any way or form.
This counts for all most all consumer home technology.
People should think about a NASS or Home servers like they do about owning a vehicle.
Yeah right. Next you'll be telling people to get off corporate owned social media and use something without an algorithm.
i have 5 tapo cameras because they're cheap and work well in HA and frigate and they aren't allowed on the internet and only communicate with the app during onboarding and...
okay i'll get rid of them
For anyone not liking Tapo, a good alternative is Reolink. They offer about the same features, but use cameras with higher megapixels.
what is ha and frigate
HA = Home Assistent, to manage your smart home Frigate = Self Hosted Webcam Server
How do you manage remote viewing without internet?
2 methods
home assistant (installed on mini pc thru proxmox) via the tapo: camera controls integration
frigate(installed on a dsm 7.2 synology) via go2rtc (mini pc)
also i've set my routers firewall settings so all the wifi cameras can only see eachother (and the mini pc)
edit: oh and tailscale
Seance or crystal ball, mainly
A file server by Synology will have built-in software for this, or you can get a free one by not using a Synology server
I put Google cameras on my house years ago out of convenience and this is it, I'm spending the money on a PoE system where my footage stays on my own hardware.
Reolink is decent
What does PoE have to do with it?
He's talking about a cheap NVR with poe built in. The only thing on the network is the NVR.
Check out frigate.
Imagine spending millions of dollars on an ad that costs your company millions more in lost sales
And reduced usage by existing customers, reduced network effect, etc...
my next door neighbor has a camera that seems to look like a ring... I mean I'm not gonna approach their door for no reason to check if it is a ring, but like... if it is a ring... then oh well, NSA is right by my door.
And I'm in a deep blue city btw... neighbor is a renter and is Black, so.... yeah... minority working class inadvertantly have a spy camera on their door
Front door is like right next to each other... like the camera can see me walking in the the path into my own house, it makes a sound when it detects movement and I heard the sound thing trigger even when walking only on my side of the yard
...And my family are immigrants...
so yay, our movements are probably in an ICE database
Do you still have chinese citizenship? A few immigrant friends have gotten the paperwork ready, either to return to their home country or immigrate elsewhere, just incase ICE picks them up, they can agree to self-deport instead of ending up in a salvadorian concentration camp indefinitely.
IDK how the chinese US citizenship thing works, maybe China'd accept getting literally deported as proof you're not a US citizen.
According to google (I am not a lawyer) I don't have it anymore the moment I got US citizenship since they don't do dual citizenship and honestly I don't really want to live in mainland China.
If I had to leave the US, I rather go to Canada, Australia, or perhaps EU for asylum...
Or perhaps Taiwan, or maybe Singapore.
I know from your post history, you seem to like PRC, but please understand that I have a personal grudge against the CCP, I was the second child (precisely a second son so there was no exemption whatsoever) in my family born during the One Child Policy, I really hate the fact that they tried to terminate me when I was still a fetus, then afterwards deny my existence by refusing to issue my legal documents until they made my parents pay a huge fine... which feels like extortion IMO.
I feel like my existence in China is "illegal", I feel rejected. I don't wanna be there.
I have an existential crisis over it... I'm not even supposed to be alive in this world, I'm an anomoly.
His icon suggests Taiwanese.
I honestly didn't know what they were thinking with that commercial. Why would you proudly advertise that you've built a massive surveillance network, during one of the most-watched yearly televised events too for that matter? Did they seriously believe that there wouldn't be a major backlash? I mean I appreciate the blunt honesty in that commercial so I'll give them credit for that.
Tbh I think the people at the top still haven't caught up with the rapid changing sentiments among the population. My zero-tech-savy retired mother in-law was talking to me about Palantir the other day.
I honestly didn't know what they were thinking with that commercial. Why would you proudly advertise that you've built a massive surveillance network
Presumably because most end users are in deep with the "if you do nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about" crowd ... and besides it can find a lost dog /s.
They brought these sorts of intrusive cameras in the first place so privacy was not top of mind, or even in 2nd or 3rd place.
Presumably because most end users are in deep with the "if you do nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about" crowd
I agree with other comments that this is probably an Executive issue. Decision-makers operating with missing information can make misinformed decisions. Whether or not end users actually are in that crowd is less relevant than whether the people making such decisions think the users are in that crowd.
In a game-theory framing, it's a game with incomplete information. What you assume about others, including what you assume about their assumptions, influences your decisions. The sheer amount of players makes it a lot harder to model or predict.
I would also put a good bit of the blame on executives and marketing people being way out of touch with the average person.
Because in 3 weeks most people will forget about it. It's brazen. They'll still be the biggest doorbell company in America
They product does exactly what their customers want. Just the latter had not realised the implications for their own privacy, before the commercial, apparently.
My only regret is that I can't smash one because was never stupid enough to trust these things to begin with.
My friend, have you heard of Flock cameras?
Yes and I hate them cause it's a pain in the ass having to route all my drives around them. Some trips take me 3x as long as they should cause of that stupid privacy-invading bullshit.
Paintball
Well, I wouldn't suggest doing crimes to physically break them, but you can break their little AI brains with a bit of adversarial noise and someone with a printer that can print on some sort of clear backing.
Benn Jordan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9MwZkHiMQ
Don't buy one just so you can smash it! I know it's satisfying to hear the plastic crack and see its tiny lens pop free like a smooshed eyeball. Yeah. That I guess would be good. But don't.
Cancel prime too
Why anyone ever thinks empowering psychopathic companies is ever a good idea is beyond me. They ALWAYS fuck us over. Every damn time.
The most appalling thing is the advertisers and whoever approved this live in a bubble where people are ok with massive surveillance, and don't imagine people will freak out when they see how Amazon can watch them. At least Meta knows their users hate them but are hostages of their network, that's why Meta buys or crushes competitors before they become too big. I've not seen that since a Ford's VP bragging about how much Ford will know absoltuely everything you do with "your" car (is it really?) and backpedaled live as he realized journalists were horrified. That was a long time ago. Today it's common.
My personal choice for security stuff is ubiquiti, but I'm sure someone here can find a super cheap doorbell camera that saves to an SD card and accomplishes the same thing.
I'm really glad people didn't just fall over for this ad, and connected the dots on what Amazon is doing
Reolink doorbell cameras don’t need to be connected to the cloud. They can record to an SD card or upload to an FTP server. You can connect to them with RTSP and run your own NVR if you want too.
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the problem with these fucking things is that you can't really opt out. even if you don't buy your own, some neighbours will happily buy and install the big brother to watch you from their porch and there is very little you can do about it.
same as you can't really escape the google, even if you don't use single one of their service, there is always the other part to any communication you are having...
Maybe we all need to start wearing clothes with bright infrared leds lining them?
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I hope what really gets people to pay attention is how the FBI said they searched that news ladies' moms' ring camera footage even though she didn't have an active subscription.
It was a NEST camera from Google, which is only a meaningful distinction because it means they ALL do this shit.
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