We aren’t too fond of cameras around here and there’s almost always someone home so it’s not really a necessity for us. Having said that, we’ve had a few cams for a while now and most important is the doorbell.

I’m certain for 95% of you I don’t have to explain why I want the Amazon/Ring bell gone.

I run HA and have deployed Frigate separately to start messing with IP cams.

Here is my question? I understand that you can take the feed from the Reolink bell/cams and import it into Frigate from which I will send it over to my home assistant. For those of you who already do this, how offline is it? Did you need to set up any kind of reolink account to adjust settings or do the initial login? Does the camera try to call home occasionally? Is it fully offline?

I learned my lesson with Amazon. I want to control this doorbell myself and I’d to avoid video, audio, or logs exiting my network without me knowing.

How has the Reolink - Frigate - Home Assistant trio panned out for you?

  • Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    TL;DR: They’re a damn good choice, and I don’t know how offline they can be.

    I use Proxmox, Reolink 810s, and I have AgentDVR logged into the cameras via https (443) to get info, and ONVIF (8000) for the stream. It takes a little tweaking via the camera app or web GUI if you want the onboard AI to omit large or small objects for screenshots or notifications, which I have controlled by HA. I use the AgentDVR and Reolink integrations. Here are the features I’ve got:

    • AgentDVR logged in to the cameras’ admin account (definitely no Reolink account)
    • Reolink cam rolling footage based on motion, on onboard MicroSD
    • AgentDVR 24/7 footage saving directly to a mounted high-capacity HDD
    • Reolink cam, with detection, sends a screenshot with a configured naming format via FTP directly to Home Assistant’s www folder (but this and notifications can be handled by either piece of the setup)
    • Home Assistant monitors the folder with folder_watcher and an automation prepares to send my phone a notification (Fdroid - not Google) once the image has ‘closed’)
    • I’ve saved my automation script in which HA does the screenshots instead of the Reolink cam. I’ve kept the clickAction to the Reolink app in there because it’s very complicated
    • My cameras are connected to my home WiFi but they can also connect to an NVR or a PC for a completely isolated link (you’ll need a PoE injector, I use this for up to 4 cameras).

    If you use the Reolink app, then it will use the Reolink servers via several domains. I haven’t checked traffic on the cameras yet. It can be fully offline but I choose not to for a better remote experience using the app.

    I set them up a long time ago, scanning a QR code on the camera using the Reolink app. I don’t know if it can be handled another way.