NVR

Contents

• About
• Camera Hardware
  • Version 1
  • Version 2
• NVR Hardware
  • Version 1
  • Version 2
  • Final NVR Build
• Software Stack

About

This article documents my findings in the search for a replacement for my Ring cameras.

No, I don’t think companies should sell my data to anyone without asking, and especially not the government.

Camera Hardware

Version 1

Currently, I have four cameras, all Ring branded: a doorbell, a small indoor cam, and two floodlight cams. These are a disappointment.

The doorbell barely fucking works and the outdoor floodlights look terrible. The only camera of acceptable quality is the indoor camera and it’s the least important. I only use it to look at my cats.

For alternatives, I had some criteria:

• Must be able to use local-only
• Must not be expensive / hard to buy (so no Unifi)
• Must be WiFi with wired power (I don’t want to run cables)

I don’t want to deal with subscriptions. The only subscription I want in my life is Youtube Premium. So, I had already decided on using Frigate for my NVR software.

A family member recommended me Dahua cameras. Unfortunately, these are now no longer sold in the US, so I needed to find another option.

From my observation, Reolink seems to be incredibly popular. They fit my criteria well, too:

• Supports local, cloud optional
• Relatively cheap
• Has WiFi + wired power cameras

Purchasing

I ended up choosing these Reolink cameras:

The choice of floodlight camera will need further review with my family. Honestly, mostly based on how they look. They seem to be nearly identical in function for me, since I’m not using the camera’s built-in functionality.

Total: $440 or $562

Version 2

Version 1 was a good initial plan. But, my family wants more cameras along the house. I need additional cameras that can cover:

• all entryways
• all sides of the house
• the driveway

and I want them to not look ugly.

Given that this will increase my camera count from 4 to 8-12, I’d likely want to use PoE cameras so my WiFi doesn’t get demolished.

For the original four replacements, I think the original choices should work fine. Once we are ready to install the additional cameras, we’ll need to run cables.

Purchasing

NVR Hardware

For NVR, I wanted to go ahead and build a separate production system. Like my NAS, I don’t want any shit I do in the lab to break it. It’s separate solely so it can sit there doing only what it needs to do and nothing else.

Version 1

I decided on building a low power N100 machine to save on costs. I don’t plan on having more than 4-6 cameras in the next few years, and if/when I need more, hopefully prices have gone down at that point.

Total: $425

This is more expensive than I’d like, but fuck it i just spent $500 on an oled monitor

I plan on running baremetal Debian with Frigate on this. I do want to use Frigate’s AI features. I think the N100 will be fine with the 4 cameras I plan on having. If the performance is unsatisfactory, I will probably end up trying to find a Google Coral accelerator off eBay or something.

Either way, it literally cannot be worse than the Ring cameras I have now. The only way to get worse cameras is to mount webcams instead and run USB extenders in the walls.

Version 2

After making the initial plan, my family upped the requirements on cameras. So, I decided I’d probably need a more powerful NVR. Luckily, I have an overpowered machine that sits around doing nothing but serving Plex. I’ll steal the components from that, and move the Plex server to a mini PC.

Total: $330

A lot ‘cheaper’ by being basically a chassis swap and two drives. This will absolutely destroy the N100 in performance, with the bonus benefit of getting my Plex server out from under my desk.

Final NVR Build

I ended up mostly going along with Version 2. There were some additional purchases I needed to make: Plex server to a mini PC.

I opted to skip on hard drives until I actually got more cameras. For now, I’d just be testing with a single E1 Pro, so I used an old 2TB Toshiba I had lying around.

I switched the rails for generic universal L-bracket rails because I heard the Rosewill rails are shit.

I needed the 24-pin extender because the SFX PSU I used didn’t have a long enough 24-pin cable to reach the motherboard from its position in the case.

Ever since I got the ASRock B660M board, I had problems with its NIC. I first used it in my college dorm, where I had trouble registering it because its MAC was apparently already used. I checked and the MAC was 88:88:88:88:87:88, which I found is caused by some sort of corruption. I was able to use it fine for a few years up until I was migrating my Plex data off of this system so I could wipe it. I was basically unable to archive and transfer the files over the network and have them still match checksums afterwards, so I said fuck it, why not just get a PCIe NIC that actually will work and not have to worry about it anymore. That’s why I bought the i210 off eBay.

Software Stack

OS: Debian 13 (baremetal)

NVR Software: Frigate

• Acceleration: iGPU (i3-12100: UHD 730)

Additional Software:

• Home Assistant (on other server)

As with basically all my non-hypervisor machines, it’s connected to my FreeIPA realm as well.