---
title: "Domestic Surveilance"
date: 2025-02-24T22:01:14+02:00
draft: true
---

I am building a house, for which I decided I need a webcam. I have never set up
a security camera, so have zero knowledge before starting; one good thing — I
knew the requirements pretty well:

- Nothing that has a subscription fee. ring.com is pretty good for short-term
  plug&play, but I cannot brace myself for a yearly payment, especially that I
  have (and can afford to maintain and upgrade) storage, network and compute.
- Use off-the-shelf hardware, so I am only minimally required to maintain the
  setup.


The Setup
---------


```
           o-
          /\
        Camera
          |
    LTE/5G Router
          |
   <public internet>
          |
         NVR

```
* Camera is the single most important component. Easy to understand what it is
  and why it matters too.
* *NVR* is a Network Video Recorder. Besides the camera, this is the *second
  most important component*. This is the thing that captures a video stream
  from the camera, (optionally) detects people and vehicles.

Picking the camera
------------------

[A friend of a friend](https://jpg.lt/), who has been setting up security
cameras for the last 15 years, recommended Dahua.

A popular open-source NVR