I have a local one (reolink). Prompted by neighbors getting robbed unfortunately. Will this prevent crime? Maybe some but probably not all. But it would let me know if I have to file a stolen package claim or should wait on the package for a few more days. Plus it has been doubling as a trail camera for the local fauna I had no idea came by so frequently. It faces private property only as it is set up.
Yep, I had this setup for years. PoE cameras, connected directly to a Reolink NVR, that I could access over my vpn and then later WireGuard connection back home. I very much enjoyed that setup and it helped me a number of times.
Not only did it give me peace of mind but two specific examples come to mind. One was when the garbage company’s truck picked up my trash can, and never put it back down (the whole thing fell into the back of the truck). I was able to get a replacement can for free, otherwise I wouldn’t have had any clue where it disappeared off to.
The second time was when my first Steam Deck was stolen in-transit. You could tell from the very hollow sound the box made when the delivery person threw the box onto the porch. It helped prove that it wasn’t stolen off my porch (side note, screw UPS, bunch of thieves, I also had another Steam Deck stolen from one of their drop boxes, last time I ever used one, by one of their employees. No recourse at all, I just had to eat the ~$700. Also, Valve, stop shipping the Steam deck in an incredibly obvious box).
I’m in the process of moving to a new house where I’m going to go all-in on Ubiquiti equipment. I don’t have it set up yet (house is being built now) but I’ve started buying the equipment and I had Ethernet run to the places where I’ll put cameras.
Same concept though, local NVR, remote access via WireGuard.
This is the setup I have, and it's been very good. I also live in a rural location, though- my cameras do not show anything that is not on my property, so I don't have the same concerns about randomly filming strangers just walking past.
No. Unless your camera is being held by a human being who can take action.
Cameras do not prevent crime. That's just marketing.
All they do is let people watch crimes after they've happened, and share the videos to spread fear to other people, which then sells more cameras.
If doorbell cameras prevented crime, the internet would be full of videos of people trying to steal packages, then changing their minds when they see the camera.
Instead, it's all just recordings of a crime that has already been committed.
Yeah - I think it still a bit of a deterrent ... today, not everyone has a camera, and if I were a thief and one house had cameras while the place next door did not, guess which one I'm gonna rob?
But I wonder how much of that will wear off once everybody has one.
> A thief doesn't know if there's a doorbell camera on a particular home until they're already on the porch and recorded.
When a thief wants to steal something, they usually stop trying to steal that thing once they become aware they are being monitored. Even if they only realized once they reached the porch.
It's not a guarantee, but it's something. And it provides a trail to follow if something is stolen (or worse).
Even if they do, “crime scene” camera footage is less useful than the victims expect. Cameras discourage thieves of opportunity but not someone who has their mind set on taking your stuff. A simple cap or mask, some sunglasses, a few strips of reflective tape, a WiFi deauther, cheap and accessible stuff like this make the practical usefulness of most home camera systems limited at best to the owner understanding what and how it happened.
That’s why police looks to piece together from a larger surveillance network. Maybe you can’t see the face on the home camera but in another camera down the road, or a license plate on the getaway car down the street, or an accomplice without disguise. They want everyone to have cameras and then they can abuse the system.
Friends showed me high quality close up footage of someone stealing their bike. Absolutely useless, all you saw was an average guy that you wouldn’t recognize if you walked past on the street.
Careful what you wish for, local cops have already abused cameras and license plate readers to arrest people just for driving by the location and looking similar to doorbell video, over package theft...
In Poland some moron in surveillance center visually profiled a random guy as one wanted person (by jacket color), then police took the guy to the police station and beat him to death.
Wow. What an infuriating case, again and again. Only 2 years in prison for the perps because the court decided that "excited delirium" killed the guy and not being beaten and tased 4 times.
The guys who beat Rodney King faced zero justice, American prison guards pretty regularly do horrific things and face little repercussion, and the guys who executed Pretti were working the next day, until that led to backlash and now they are being systemically protected.
In some states in the US, it is not illegal for a cop to have sex with someone they have arrested. Ain't that just dandy.
Not sure why you are downvoted. Reolinks work without internet and can stream locally using rtsp. I have a doorbell cam from them and it works fine. If you block it from the internet you only get video and basic doorbell functionality though, which is fine.
Given that cloudflare tunnels require ssl termination, this technically isnt much different to a cloud server that promises not to record. Of course, cloudflare are less likely to be inclined to analyse it
The difference if you can film out on the street (random people walking by) or just your property (my own fault if I approach your door).
Some countries have laws for this, as in you can only point the camera so that you don't catch everyone. This can have downsides, e.g. if you have no (even short) front yard and your (organization's) door is directly on the curb - but I completely agree that this is just tough luck, the privacy of random people walking on public property past private property should not be filmed.
