The topic I’d rather build a Raspberry Pi security camera than ever pay for Ring again is currently the subject of lively discussion — readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.
This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies’ decisions and competitors’ reactions can quickly change the picture.
If you’re as big of a smart home aficionado as I am, you’ve probably run into gizmos that left a sour taste in your mouth. Take Belkin’s Wemo lineup, for instance. Despite the cool smart devices in this series, Belkin’s decision to discontinue the product family effectively rendered them useless to folks without dedicated Home Assistant or HomeKit setups.
Me? I specifically avoid Ring cameras at all costs, as the only thing worse than manufacturers randomly killing off products is them intruding on my privacy. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to replicate the surveillance functionality of Ring’s privacy-intrusive offerings with cheap single-board computers and regular RTSP security cameras.
With the right apps and integrations, Home Assistant is an absolute powerhouse for tinkering enthusiasts
Between outdated firmware, weak hard-coded credentials, and lack of encryption, smart devices are already infamous for their insecure nature. But then you’ve got Ring’s surveillance cameras, which have been under fire for their privacy-intrusive nature. Back in 2023, the firm was charged by the FTC for its lackluster privacy and security tools, which allowed hackers (and even employees) to digitally break into people’s homes and spy on them via Ring cameras. Or, you can look at the more recent example, where the Super Bowl ad featuring Ring’s AI-powered Search Party “facility” got a lot of backlash from the community for spying on entire neighborhoods.
Call me paranoid if you must, but I don’t want large corporations to track my personal information. Heck, that’s the reason I moved away from typical cloud apps and switched to self-hosted applications that run on my home server nodes. For a security camera that can see my surroundings, the fact that a company can access my surveillance footage is a huge deal-breaker for me. Even if the easily accessible nature of cloud-based productivity tools outweighs the superior privacy of a fully self-hosted setup for less technically-inclined folks, I don’t think I need to spell out why cloud platforms storing 24/7 footage of my surroundings is a bad idea. Fortunately, there are tons of cool tools that can provide the same functionality as Ring cameras while leaving me in charge of all the data generated by my security setup.
I replaced my unreliable Wemo smart plugs with TP-Link’s Tapo Matter Smart Plug Mini.
When it comes to self-hosting a Network Video Recorder, there are a bunch of cool platforms to choose from. However, Frigate is by far my favorite of the bunch, as it combines a neat UI with a lightweight design and powerful security features. It’s capable of real-time facial and object detection, and with the right combo of masks, filters, and zones, it’s possible to track any weird (or rather, unintended) activity without taxing the underlying system.
The best part? Frigate works exceedingly well with weak systems, and I’m not just talking about old mini-PCs and refurbished thin clients, either. I’ve used it with the Raspberry Pi 5, and while dedicated GPUs are better for motion tracking and precise object detection, Frigate works surprisingly well on this ARM-based single-board computer. I’ve got some Tapo surveillance cameras that I’ve hooked up to Frigate over RTSP streams, but this powerful NVR utility also works with makeshift security cameras. For reference, I’ve thrown everything from livestreaming cameras and ESP32-CAM modules to old webcams and the built-in rear cameras on old phones at my Raspberry Pi-powered server, and it hasn’t let me down. Then there’s the sheer number of AI accelerators that Frigate supports out of the box…
On its own, my Raspberry Pi-powered NVR can pull streams from a few cameras, but object detection tasks can stress its CPU. Fortunately, Frigate doesn’t just support GPU frameworks for object detection, it can also leverage tiny AI accelerators, including the official Raspberry Pi AI Kit HATs. I bought one of these ages ago, but ended up forgetting about it until a few weeks ago, when I decided to test it with a Raspberry Pi-powered Frigate rig. Turns out, the Hailo-8L accelerator on the HAT works pretty well with Frigate, though I still had to tweak the mask and zone values to avoid taxing the AI module with multiple camera feeds.
Then there’s the Home Assistant aspect, which dials this DIY NVR’s utility to an 11. You see, Frigate has a killer community-designed blueprint on Home Assistant, which lets me access this NVR tool from my smart home control hub. Combine Frigate’s terrific object detection prowess with the trigger-action automation chains on Home Assistant, and my Raspberry Pi surveillance system offers more value than a Ring camera. And it does so while respecting my privacy.