I’d like to host this on the Ubuntu Linux box in my home office and put a camera in my living room. Would like to be able to monitor the camera from an iPhone, and have it auto record on motion detection.
For external access though, I don’t have a domain name registered, and I’d rather not have one. I’d be happy to access this just using my external IP address. But I don’t know how “static” the IP address from my ISP is. (My router gets it via DHCP, but I don’t know how long those leases are, or if it re-uses the same IP when renewing.)
Edit: Also what is a good camera to use? Seems like a lot of these cams require registration with some shady service and their own app to view them. Which means that all of that is running through their hosted service, which I am trying to avoid.
https://frigate.video/
You can absolutely use your external IP rather than a domain, your ISP likely keeps your IP the same for long stretches of time. Mine only ever really changes during long power outages.
You can get around that the IP issue by broadcasting your ip from your local machine to a known service, there are some free ones but they aren’t the most stable things in the world if it’s critical. Google Dynamic DNS
I also use Frigate!
Piggybacking to also recommend Tailscale to OP for external access. Not 100% self hosted, but solves the DDNS issue. And works well with Frigate in my experience.
With amcrest cameras
depends on the camera. I just ordered 2 new wifi cameras that do not have local access. app via internet only. So I’m sending them back. That said, amcrest does make some good cheapo cameras.
Or Hikvision for very similar cameras at an actually affordable price (but you HAVE to block then from the internet and/or put them on an isolated VLAN because they send everything back home).
Reolink also makes gold budget cameras, especially their doorbell camera.
I use Reolink. Some of the older cameras don’t work as well but setting them to reboot on a schedule works pretty well.
Frigate is not able to control the PTZ function of my RLC-823S1 but the Duo 3V is amazing. I would like to be able to track people who step onto my porch so I can get an image of their vehicle or direction of travel, but I mainly just use it to look around if I hear a noise.
This is what i have. Amcrest cameras tied to an Amcrest NVR which offers remote viewing, recording, and playback and then also tied into Frigate and Home Assistant also for remote viewing, event notifications, etc. I could ditch the NVR but I’d need to get a POE switch and I like having it as a backup.