Private security footage is nothing new to criminal investigations, but two factors are rapidly changing the landscape: huge growth in the number of devices with cameras, and the fact that footage usually lands in a cloud server, rather than on a tape.
When a third party maintains the footage on the cloud, it gives police the ability to seek the images directly from the storage company, rather than from the resident or business owner who controls the recording device. In 2022, the Ring security company, owned by Amazon, admitted that it had provided audio and video from customer doorbells to police without user consent at least 11 times. The company cited “exigent circumstances.”
Do you have particular recommendations? I somehow landed on Reolink as the option I’m going to buy in a few months
If you want something easy but not necessarily the cheapest, UniFi will do.
I like UniFi but they aren’t inexpensive and to really make them work you have to go balls deep into the UniFi ecosystem. I HAVE that ecosystem and still went with Reolink for my cameras.
Yeah they’re not crazy expensive but not cheap either, and I’m not a fan of Ubiquiti as a company. There are definitely better alternatives, I just don’t know anything that somebody who’s only used shitty cloud connected garbage could jump right into
Reolink is perfectly fine. They can be setup with or without internet, just remember to put them on their own VLAN that doesn’t have Internet access. If you don’t want to use the Reolink NVR then build yourself a frigrate box or similar.
Mine don’t have internet access and I can watch their feeds directly when I’m home and through my Home Assistant rig when I’m away.
Probably avoid anything by Hikvision if you don’t want to risk having Chinese backdoors in it. My own system is just a hodgepodge of different used cams I pulled off job sites. Just need to make sure they can do ONVIF and they should be compatible with any NVR out there.
If the cameras are on a private network with no routes to the Internet a backdoor doesn’t really matter. I would still avoid untrustworthy manufacturers.
Bit expensive, but I run all Ubiquiti network and camera equipment.
I’m using Reolink and highly recommend it. Without a doubt the best bang for your buck. I bought a bundle on Black Friday a couple years ago with the 2TB NVR and 4 cameras (5MP POE) for a couple hundred dollars, and I’ve since expanded to 6 cameras.
I’m in the process of setting up a NAS, so hoping I can get reolink backed up on it for easy access.