Ring founder Jamie Siminoff is back at the helm of the surveillance doorbell company, and with him is the surveillance-first-privacy-last approach that made Ring one of the most maligned tech devices. Not only is the company reintroducing new versions of old features which would allow police to request footage directly from Ring users, it is also introducing a new feature that would allow police to request live-st
Why do people want to see who comes to the door?
My brother installed one of these at his house and it makes me uncomfortable, but I know he probably feels safer and more in control by having it, and would value that over my comfort.
Then I start to gaslight myself, “why am I uncomfortable with the surveillance apparatus getting regular identifiable videos of me at a known location”?
This seems to be exclusively American thing. I presume it’s a big safety issue there. Here in Thailand people rarely even lock their doors let alone care about something like video doorbells.
We had a burglary a couple of months ago, luckily we have an indoor camera which scared him away when he saw it and nothing was stolen. On the camera recording, we heard that he was ringing the doorbell for a couple of minutes to check if anyone is at home. We now have a camera doorbell (not Ring one though), if we had it then he would see it and avoided our house altogether.
Yeah we have a camera pointed at our driveway from our garage door. It isn’t close enough to the road to trigger movement from people walking or driving by.
But if they come inside the fence it’ll pick em up.
Also have a couple of cameras watching other random parts of the yard. We live on just under 2 acres, and it’s all enclosed in chain link fencing. Next to us is an automotive maintenance shop owned by a by here pay here lot a few miles closer to town, and they don’t always hire the most trustworthy individuals to work on cars…
/boggle
How is that not obvious?
Because of porch pirates.
I don’t like being under constant surveillance from my neighbors doorbell cameras. This is one of many excellent reasons why.
What I am going to do is use MapComplete to start labeling every house that I come across that has one of these doorbells.
Then I’ll post some QR codes around town that link to the map.
Once people start seeing their homes called out on a map then perhaps some of them will feel uncomfortable with that and start to understand just why privacy matters.
I feel like this could backfire if lots of people have the cameras. They might be like, so what? Cameras are normal.
Or worse, thieves will see who doesn’t have them and plan their hits accordingly.
LoL, do it!
Just another dang ol’ reson to keep tech outta the house. But honestly, the masses are dumbasses and I am not gonna talk to idiots as much as I can. I really do a a bunch of listening to peoples takes & observations. I’m fairly quiet and appear non judgmental. But deep down all the way to the surface, quietly, I’m like, ”That’s an interesting take”. If necessary, I could incinerate. However, I enjoy allowing people to explain themselves so that whatever questions I may have, are answered. I have to do less work. And that’s great b/c Ima lazy mf’er.
Who could have guessed that having billionaire owned always on surveillance device in your home would lead to this
It’s not like there’s been dozens of people warning about it in the last few years. People deserve what they get.
So, what are people using to get:
- good quality streaming
- doorbell alert
- motion alerts
- local and remote access
- recording storage
Currently using Ring (outside of America) and looking to migrate away. There are some nice other features like distinguishing motion vs people vs vehicles that are nice to have but can live without.
Home assistant + frigate has been serving myself and my family on separate sites for about 2 years. It has definitely kicked my ass, but seeing “privacy friendly” reolink cameras constantly phone home on my firewall assured me it was worth it. Wireguard tunnel in and you have remote access with practically no security concerns*
2nd this configuration. My firewall rules block all external camera traffic and Frigate (once configured) is superb at detecting people without false alerts. All recordings are stored locally. It is disturbing just how much traffic smart devices try to send to China and Amazon, even when not subscribed to cloud services.
Home Assistant makes everything ridiculously flexible and is configured to turn on camera sirens if someone is detected at night or while my alarm system is armed, and disable sirens and alerts when doors have been opened or the alarm has just been turned off. The open Wireguard ports appear closed to scanners so I’m also reasonably comfortable with network security.
Ubiquiti. Cloud gateway max (router + NVR) for $200 with no storage, add your own 2tb nvme, get a ubiquiti doorbell for $300. Little pricy, but simple to setup and all the footage lives locally on the cloud gateway max. No subscription, and you can add more cameras later. The cloud gateway max is an excellent 2.5G router. Slap on a WiFi 7 access point for $200 more and you got yourself a killer home network.
I want the Ubiquiti Doorbell Pro (wired Ethernet) but it’s always sold out. Plus I’ve been hesitant to spend ion a Cloud Gateway or Dream Machine. I just wish I could use my own storage.
I need to just bite the bullet though.
The cloud gateway max lets you use your own storage without getting one of their giant NVRs. I got the wireless doorbell. Initially I kinda regretted not getting the wired one, but once I tuned my WiFi I haven’t had any issues. But definitely go wired if you can.
This is the choice if you want to buy the equipment and it works out of the box. Its cheaper if you want to sort of build your own setup but requires more maintenance and setup.
I have a piezoelectric doorbell.
The bell part plugs directly into a wall socket. The button part is completely wireless and batteryless and is affixed near my front door.
Been working like clockwork for a decade to let me know when someone is at the door and I’m home.
If I’m not home, the postman or delivery driver leaves a note to go to the collection center for my package. If it’s a small package not requiring signature, they just leave it at the door or in the mailbox if it fits. None of that changes with a camera.
Why overcomplicate life.
I use a $40 tp-link video doorbell and it has has all of that.
Reolink Doorbell ( Firewalled from connecting outside LAN) + Frigate (self hosted)
The best thing is you don’t need any of that. Just install normal doorbell. We all love gadgets but some of them are just not worth it.
Hard agree. What does a video doorbell connected to the internet solve? I’m concerned that people dont trust their neighbors to this extent. Sort of a canary in the coal mine type thing.
I don’t have a doorbell of any kind (the button isn’t even hooked up to anything). My neighbours are jerks but they won’t steal packages or anything like that.
We’re living in a low trust society that used to be a high trust society a few decades ago. I believe all of the problems you see in politics ultimately stem from this. Factionalism is tearing western society apart.
Crime has been dropping for decades, yet news coverage is higher than it’s ever been. The oligarchs know we’re easier to rule if we distrust each other so we don’t work together and figure out who’s actually screwing us over.
What does a video doorbell connected to the internet solve? I’m concerned that people dont trust their neighbors to this extent. Sort of a canary in the coal mine type thing.
It’s not that I don’t trust my neighbors, I don’t trust anyone outside of those I personally know well.
Growing up around people who abuse hard drugs tends to destroy the trust you have in those around you after you have your shit stolen repeatedly. Both my wife and I had shit stolen from closed front porches when we were growing up, so I have cameras that watch the sides of my house. But I also built my system from scratch, so I am not worried about third party snooping/reporting.
Plenty of us have good reasons not to trust those around us. Especially in this day and age of terrorists walking around with state authority.
Neighbors can be people you dont well, you should still trust them anyways, because you’d want them to treat you the same.
If you have drug addicts regularly causing you problems, might do you some good to befriend them in some way or help them out, instead of secure your shit and avoid them more. They aren’t any different than you are.
If you’re still talking about getting shit stolen off your porch, anyone within driving distance could be responsible for it.
Do you really think it’s possible to try to become friends with or “help out” every asshole within a 10 minute drive of where you live? Or even identify everyone in that range who might have sticky fingers?
I grew up around drug addicts, and in my experience, befriending them doesn’t protect your shit. I had my PS3 stolen by a dude we showed nothing but kindness too when he needed a fix. Don’t get me wrong, addicts can be super chill people, but they’ll still steal from you when they need to get high.
Friend, family or stranger, don’t kid yourself that they won’t steal from you
Never said it would protect your shit, just that it likely would be better in the long run for everyone involved. Its not an easy problem to solve but I dont think we need to treat people poorly because of it. I understand if its just not possible to assume the financial risk though.
Never said it would protect your shit, just that it likely would be better in the long run for everyone involved. Its not an easy problem to solve but I dont think we need to treat people poorly because of it.
Just because I don’t trust those around me and use cameras doesn’t mean I treat people poorly. I am very respectful to the people who live and work around me, but that doesn’t mean I trust them not to take something that isn’t theirs.
Lack of trust does not equal disrespect, it just means I’ve seen the true side of a lot of people and don’t wish to let them take advantage of the kind of naivety that you display here.
I understand if its just not possible to assume the financial risk though
It’s not that I’m unable to assume the risk, I’m unwilling to be taken advantage of.
I think some people also think they need it because they order way too much junk from the internet but it’s really just an indication of bad habits. If it’s for security a single camera doorbell is definitely not adequate solution either.
It’s solved tech and there are hundreds of alternatives so you can definitely find something local. I’ve heard Netatmo recommended for Europeans (French, gdpr compliant)
There are many other cameras but most have the same potential to do this sort of shit. Sending video to some server you don’t control, on cameras you don’t control because it’s proprietary, isn’t going to cut it if privacy is your goal.
No, most don’t do it.
What is the incentive to do this sort of stuff?
I recently adopted a dog who I want to monitor when I’m away from home. So I got a cheap motion tracking in-home camera with cloud storage, and AI identification for people and pets. The AI functions never fucking worked. I already had a Ring camera.
Did a bit of research after realising the cheapo camera was shit, and went for a eufy stack to replace the Ring doorbell and tbr shitty in-house camera.
I now have:
- eufy Video Doorbell
- eufy HomeBase 3, with an added 1TB of storage
- eufy IndoorCam C220
This gives me
- local storage for both cameras on the HomeBase.
- the HomeBase also gives you local AI for (individual) person, (general) pet, vehicle, and package identification. I haven’t tried the vehicle identification.
- streaming in the app for both cameras should work in 2k. I have it set to 1080p. It’s good enough for me.
- continuous recording is an option. I have it set to motion alerts because
- the app gives you motion and doorbell alerts. You can configure how much information you want in the notifications, to prevent video’s from passing through eufy’s servers.
While this happened a few years ago, I’d still suggest to block it from accessing the internet/cloud in your firewall nonetheless.
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2022/12/01/eufy-cameras-uploading-to-cloud-without-consent/
Even if it’s not on eufy’s end, there could always be a vulnerability.
Just bought a Reolink rln46 NVR and four cameras. I don’t have the doorbell, but every other feature you requested works flawlessly. It records 24/7 in 4K but can stream at lower resolutions if you want when you’re away from home on mobile. You can set what notifications you receive and when you want to receive them. You can even go back and search for events by type in the recorded video when they were never flagged for notification in the first place. I’ve been thoroughly impressed and plan to add to the system in the coming months.
I also use Reolink, including both the NVR and doorbell, and have been very pleased with it.
You can run all of that on a Raspberry Pi, without third-party access and surveyllance.
Yes I did this years ago in 2013, but the problem for my family was accessing the recordings (basically I never set up remote access outside of our LAN)
i use wyze, been solid for years esp for the price. local SD storage is a huge plus for me and the streaming quality is good and loads insanely fast. i have a handful of blink cameras around the property but never use them anymore bc the interface and UX is so shit
I bought a cheap Chinese security camera for a fraction of the cost of a Ring and signed up for their cloud storage system. I’m more comfortable with the Chinese government being able to access footage of my backyard, than the current US administration.
Not too long ago, that statement would have sounded controversial or even crazy. Nowadays though, I’m shocked how much sense it makes to me. Never thought that I would agree with something like that.
Yeah. It’s crazy. I would choose neither because I can DIY something secure but for non-technical folks in North America today, the Chinese gov’t having your video is safer than a private US corporation. I didn’t imagone I could make this judgement back in 2022.
To be honest china is more likely to come to their defense than american police are.
Or you could choose an option that does neither. Why feed the autocrats at all?
eh, you might have a spare day to source a completely uncompromised camera and find someone in a trusted neutral country who runs an unproblematic hosting service and configure a system to do offsite storage in a secure way, but I’ve got other stuff going on. If you can source me a reasonable alternative I’m happy to use it when it comes time to renew my subscription.
An offsite server is not under your control and accessible by who knows. Surely it is still a privacy concern.
Privacy is like security in that it costs time. Most people don’t spend time on even having a conversation like this but if something bothers you then finding a spare day is easier.
Just buy a Reolink Doorbell. Pop in an SD card. Put in on your wifi or LAN and access it with your browser. You’re done. It’s all local. There’s an optional app that does need an external server, but that’s optional and there is no subscription.
Reolink devices still reach out to a bunch of different servers across the world as soon as you connect them to a network.
Always isolate an IP doorbell or camera on its own access point or virtual network, where it can’t see or interact with other devices on your local network, and then block it from WAN access.
Ok, but one of the most important use cases is non-local access.
If I’m at home I can just go to the door.
Wireguard/tailscale in?
This is highly unlikely to be able to notify you of someone ringing the door. It’s doable, but takes some tinkering which most people are not able to do because of all the reasons mentioned in previous comments.
I don’t know anything about this product, but if the data is just on an SD card attached to the doorbell, couldn’t someone just steal the SD card? Like, this is why offsite storage for cameras is useful.
Sure. That’s why I have my Reolink doorbell hooked up to Frigate NVR running on my home server. And frigate is hooked up to my home assistant. But that’s the thorough and secure solution, not the quick and easy solution that the grandparent poster was asking for.
Besides that I would trust a Chinese cloud way more than a murican one (I’m non-US), this really is a lazy excuse. This apathy paired with ignorance or being technically challenged is the main reason dystopian shit like ring even sells at all. Or all those silly “smart” assistants like Alexa.
Phrases like “renewing my subscription” in context of a fucking doorbell itself sounds so absurd to me.
E.g. A raspberry (or the likes) with some run-of-the-mill ip-cam, some wifi-doorbell and AgentDVR would do the same for even less moneyz. And just for you, not the whole world. Wouldn’t take more than some hours of setup.
Phrases like “renewing my subscription” in context of a fucking doorbell itself sounds so absurd to me.
Why? It’s logical to want your video footage held offsite so that burglars don’t just take the device you’re storing the footage of them on. Which means paying someone to store it for you. Which means a subscription. Even if you’re running AgentDVR on an offsite server that you control, you’re still paying money to the hosting company.
A raspberry (or the likes) with some run-of-the-mill ip-cam, some wifi-doorbell and AgentDVR would do the same for even less moneyz. And just for you, not the whole world. Wouldn’t take more than some hours of setup.
Wow. Do you have any idea what you sound like there?
(also, it’s not even true on its own terms. A raspberry pi plus all the components and equipment necessary to set up what you’re describing would be easily over $100, I paid $19 for my Chinese internet camera)
Why do I need the footage offsite? Because the burglar might’ve stolen the server/raspberry? I actually have my server storage hidden, if that would even be on the radar of a thief, which I really doubt.
But even if, an encrypted storage of your own choosing still beats random access by who-the-fuck-even-knows.
OK, granted, your 19-moneyz-solution is financially hard to beat, and probably no Chinese really gives a rats ass about your data. But even the thought that some random cloud-admin might just take a peek out of boredom…ugh. But OK, I’m a very private person.
A proper solution that does not suck probably costs a bit more than a ring (dunno what they cost though), but if one owns a house, one probably has a few spare hundreds or thousands for a secure surveillance.
Nah you’re just being lazy. Its really not that hard. At least be ashamed man instead of this defeatist bullshit.
What you’re saying makes me think you aren’t aware of the technical knowledge of your typical smart doorbell or cam user, which is basically little to none.
And exactly this behavior (“I have no clue about the thing I will do, but I’ll do it anyway without educating myself prior”) is what makes everything suck more and more because it always gets adapted to the lowest common denominator.
We’re only still alive because people need licenses to drive cars or fly planes.
But this maybe implies that there’s a possibility to change this behaviour. Which is infeasible. For many of the same reasons why we don’t have people specialize in more than a couple of areas.If you’re not implying that and you’re just saying that in vacuum, then yeah sure. That said it’s not the only reaaon why things suck more and changing this behaviour is not the only way to not have things suck, For example a government in a more democratic system might serve its citizens more than its corporations and ban these practices.
Yeah sure, government shall intervene. But…i can probably expect more from anyone else.
And no,I didn’t imply everyone should be expert at everything. That is beyond impossible, even for fractions of fractions of things. But. If you wanna drive a car, you’re forced to learn a shitton and pay like 2k € to be allowed to do so. One of the reasons is safety for others.
If I had no clue about e.g. doorbells, I would ask a pro I know or search the net or whatever. At least the absolute basics of it. Even setting the pure curiosity aside, just to know what the heck I’m getting at. Admitted, I might have much more spare time than the regular Jane or Joe, but I’d still do that if I had to work. Just less intensive.
But yes, this mixture of apathy and ignorance is the leading reason why the internet sucks so much nowadays then 30 or even just 20yrs ago. The majority of absolutely clueless people not knowing how they get fucked and where to draw a line. Sure, to some it’s just a tool they don’t need to know shit about to use it. No judging. BUT that doesn’t change the fact.
What? We can’t make people read setup manual for 30minutes? Might as well stop living now because whats the point of our society if we are defeated by a pamphlet?
Its just sheer laziness. These people are dragging our entire society down because they can’t spend 30 minutes to read the manual. This should be shameful unjustifiable behavior.
Betting 100% that the same people are calling someone else lazy every week without any self awareness.
Oh I’m lazy too (in regards to boring stuff). But I know what I don’t know and would not start to argue about e.g. car-mechanics or buy something without at least getting a basic grasp of that. Lazyness isn’t an excuse for ignorance 😁
I mean, people are not being forced to buy this shit. So it’s on the idiots who think they have nothing to hide. Just Google something like “why are people ok with cameras inside their house “ and you’ll see many many people basically saying “don’t care, I have nothing to hide, everyone has a pussy/dick”
Right but if my neighbor across the street has one, my house is being surveilled a lot more than is theirs.
We still need to protect the idiots. Thats why we’re banning asbestos and have safety codes. How is this any different?
How is this any different?
IT and privacy is too abstract for non-tech people. Bring examples with people instead of the tech devices to make an impact.
Things like this:
This is the right approach. Normies won’t pay attention to any “your privacy is at risk” argument. But showing them examples (plural, as 1 instance won’t do shit either and will just be dismissed) of people getting fucked by all the surveillance COULD make some of them take it into consideration (no guarantees).
I do not agree that people that allow these devices into their homes are idiots. I see them more as “ignorantly lazy”.
Isn’t roofing too abstract either? 100% majority of people dont know how prevalent asbestos was in roofing material and what even asbestos does but yet if you tell anyone thay their shit has asbestos in it they’ll be quick to rush to alternatives. Sometimes people just need to be told what to do.
That’s right. But how detrimental asbestos is took time to be made abundantly clear and known, plus “authorities” got involved, so the sheep listened. With surveillance, the same “authorities” want the public to be ignorant so that they can keep it going without us countering it.
Similar situations, but certainly not equal.
We need to protect uninformed people. You do this by informing them. If they know the risks and still decide they don’t care it’s their problem, not ours.
Not if they are willingly bringing this inside their homes. I think it’s very different from substances that you might not be aware are there and are highly toxic.
People who claim they don’t value privacy are simply ignorant of how this can affect them. They don’t consider the data falling into the wrong hands. Surely they don’t want criminals with unauthorized access at least. It should be obvious that governments don’t always have their best interests either.
I mean, you might think that but you underestimate how willing people are to give up their privacy and freedom just to feel safe.
Not even for feeling safe. For convenience is enough.
The cops can come to them to get video on you. So you’re impacted.
