How To Build Your Own Security Camera System?

System Goals

• i want to build my own 4k wired & wifi camera system
• system that i don’t have to pay monthly fees to access digitally and that i can expand on site storage for as it becomes financially viable
• create a diy security camera system that allows for highly customizable detections, triggers, and actions without coding for each scenario.
• ringblink lack the features i need, and i dislike the idea of live video streaming to the cloud and paying additional monthly fees.
• there’s a higher initial cost for the equipment, but there’s no ever-increasing subscription cost.
• nobody can access my video but me since it’s stored locally on my own hard drive.
• my service will continue indefinitely.

Wired Cameras, Wi-Fi Cameras, and PoE

• ethernet (ieee standard poe) cameras are the way to go, the words "wifi" and "security" do not go together.
• since you're looking at new construction, there's really no excuse to deploy wifi cameras -- if you can run a power cord, you can run a slim ethernet cable instead.
• understand about the wi-fi/poe. i am looking to run all outdoor cameras as poe and any wi-fi cameras would only be utilized in the house like you would a nest cam.
• wireless cams are basically toys. we install cams for people.
• the wireless cameras i was talking about was meant for indoor use around the home. looking to go straight poe for all outside cameras but need something to integrate both technologies.
• the nvr won't know that a camera (which is supported by that nvr) is on wifi, as long as the nvr can connect to the ip address of the camera and reliably pull video, it'll work.
• poe > wifi.

Standards and Compatibility

• onvif , this will avoid vendor lock-in, you can mix-and-match brands with reasonable confidence they will all work together.
• this means, for example, if you are disappointed by a particular camera, or even by your recorder, you can just swap any one component out for another brand entirely (if it is also onvif conformant).
• some accept ethernet, but those have to support onvif cameras.
• yes, that is great, if you buy same brand of nvr, poe and wifi cameras, they can add by netp protocol, but if you want to use different brand of them, we suggest to chose all cameras support onvif, rtsp, ftp, so that they can make a whole system.
• any rtsp stream from an onvif compliant camera can be recorded by the qnap nas.

Camera Selection

• 4k" term, 8 million pixels means little if the lens are cheap plastic 2.8mm china-export with a tiny sensor behind them.
• even though i have 4k cameras, i have them setup for continuous recording at 1080p, no reason to waste disk space filming an empty driveway.
• for outdoor cameras, selection depends on the application -- a fisheye camera targeting the front door will be different from a varifocal watching 100' down the driveway or the wide-angle view of a backyard.
• image sensor.
• camera positioning will matter a ton.
• when selecting a camera, make sure it has specific features that ensure it operates correctly in different environments.
• select a security camera that’s waterproof, has night vision, and has a two-way speaker system.
• rtsp ip camera.

Recorder, Storage, and Local Recording

• record locally to your nvr or dvr and avoid subscription-based cloud storage fees.
• remote viewing includedview live and recorded video from your phone, tablet, or computer using free apps and software.
• expandable systemsstart with the number of cameras you need today and expand as your property grows.
• professional-grade equipmentget reliable cameras and recorders designed for real 24/7 surveillance, not temporary consumer use.
• security recorders – high-capacity security nvrs and security dvrs designed to store and manage your video footage efficiently.
• all connected cameras do not typically draw maximum power at the same time. if the total power demand exceeds the nvr's poe power budget, recording performance may be temporarily affected.

Drive Capacity and Retention

• to figure out how much drive capacity you need, there are online video storage calculators you can use.
• the factors are:

1. video format, frame rate, and quality to yield gb/h (gigabytes per hour).
2. total number of cameras.
3. subset of cameras to store 24/7 video.
4. number of days to store video.

• of those, i only wanted the front-of-house and driveway cameras to record 24/7.
• for the front door and back yard cameras, having them record only upon motion detection is sufficient — and cuts the storage requirements roughly in half.
• this is good for 10 days of storage for each camera running 24/7 @ 1080p, 6mbps bitrate and 10fps.
• i am happy with the last 10 days of recording on the nas for now (1.5 tb space allocated), but i can easily up it to 20-30 days by getting a bigger hard drive.

24/7 Recording and Motion Recording

1. personal preference – i started out recording just motion detection clips to my nas nvr, just as i do on the hikvisions with sd cards inside.
2. but sometimes i felt like i wanted to see a bit more of what happened before and after the motion detection event.
3. now the hikvision cameras record 30 seconds before and after the motion trigger.
4. with the 30 sec pre and post record, i may or may not get all of these details.
5. but with the nas recording 24/7, if i want more details than just the pre and post record images sent to me by the hikvisions by email alert, i can log into the nas and check out the full video.
6. how motion detection recording works – since the nas provides a pre-recording feature, it means that it is actually recording everything it is receiving from the camera, holding on to it for the duration of the pre-record (1 min in our example) in case motion is detected.
7. if there is no alert it has no reason to save the clip and it deletes it.
8. this happens on a rolling basis.
9. risk – if for some reason, the motion detection didn’t trigger, there is a risk that i may miss important footage.

Network and Cable Planning

• empty conduit so you can pull necessary wires later.
• this is my plan. everything that is network or communication is going into the blue conduit both in & out of the house for future upgrades if necessary.
• the biggest thing i can tell you right now is if you during your build phase have conduit run whenever possible (this goes beyond just where you are putting cameras, any place that will see low voltage.
• you probably want wifi access points in the ceiling .,.etc)
• pull an extra cable to most locations you are going to run cameras at, unless you have conduit.
• everything is going into conduit and cat 6a is what i’m running.
• planning on having a centralized network closed with a rack that everything goes to looking to do everything outside as poe and then have the ability to have some wi-fi cameras inside.
• running cat 6a in the house

Power Choices

• for cameras, you have to consider two things:
• lan connectivity.
• for power, there are three choices:

1. power-over-ethernet (poe).
2. battery + solar panels.
3. hard-wired is the most complicated and likely most expensive since you’ll likely need to hire a licensed electrician

• and then you still have to connect the camera to your lan somehow (likely wifi).
• switch that actually puts the electrical power over the ethernet cable.
• for poe switches, you have to read the specs carefully.
• just because a poe switch has n ports doesn’t mean all n are poe.
• typically, n–1 ports are poe and the 1 other port connects to the rest of your lan.
• i’d use battery + solar panels only if i wanted to mount a camera in a location where it would be either difficult or impossible to run an ethernet cable to.

Remote Access

• use tailscale as a vpn and never expose any ports to the internet.
• also note that the base starlink service is "cgnat", which means you cannot set up port forwarding (e.g. to expose your nvr to inbound internet connections).
• you can however pay extra for a higher level of service, with a public ip.
• ip address on your lan so it’s possible to access it directly via a url like http://192.168.1.xxx where xxx specifies the camera.
• dhcpmac address. alternatively if your cameras support it, you can assign them static ip addresses; but then you have to exclude those from your dhcp address pool.

Hardware for a Raspberry Pi Security Project

• step 2: gather the hardware for your diy security project
• for this project, you’ll need:

1. computer
2. camera
3. raspberry pi

• choose the right camera type
• choose the best raspberry pi for your security camera
• raspberry pi 5.
• twice the performance of a raspberry pi 4object detection and object recognition.

Capabilities and Triggers

• capabilities fall into two categories:

1. those that are core to the project (like the camera).
2. those that are contextual to our use cases (like the specific ml models you want to use).

• these can be added to or changed over time without writing new code.
• one camera is essential to the project, but we could add any number of cameras.
• with viam, you can easily upload your custom ml models to the viam registry for use on your smart devices.
• our platform supports tensorflow lite, tensorflow, pytorch, and onnx frameworks.
• you can also use viam to train your own custom ml model on images captured by your smart machine.
• our platform allows for the training of single label classification models, multi-label classification models, or object detection models.
• step 5: add triggers for your diy security camera
• configure the event manager and customize solutions
• with our camera, ml models, and vision service in place, you're ready to start using them.

Build Sequence

1. determine your diy security camera's goals
2. gather the hardware for your diy security camera
3. install viam-server to connect your diy security camera
4. add capabilities to your diy security camera
5. add triggers for your diy security camera
6. build a mobile app to monitor your diy security camera
7. plan to enhance your diy security camera

Build Your Security System

1. step 1: choose nvr
2. step 2: choose cameras
3. step 3: choose accessories

• you can go back anytime by clicking a step above.
• changing your nvr will reset your selected cameras and accessories.
• select one network video recorder for your security system
• select cameras compatible with your nvr
• add optional accessories to complete your system
• please review your selected products before continuing to checkout.
• changing your nvr will remove your selected cameras because camera compatibility may be different.