Lots of HNers here claiming the problem is worth solving and easy to solve. Yet none with a product, profitable or otherwise. Interesting combination of circumstances.

The popular "product" in this space is a cloud based offering with a monthly service cost and a side income based on selling analysis of customer data...

It has good margins and could afford to market heavily and invest in feature development vs anything else. As a result an alternative might well be great for users, great for the world, and also an unsuccessful business.

Doubly so because it's essentially already solved. Setup a standard NVR and portmap it. The marginal gains are just in making it more secure (few care, obviously, or ring wouldn't exit) or a little easier to configure.

> Yet none with a product, profitable or otherwise.

I'm not sure how meaningful that actually is. I know that it's reasonably easy because I've done it a number of times, but I have zero interest in making a productized solution.

lol yeah ok go tell the ppl who can barely turn their computers on how to set that up and let me know the results

I would argue that people who have that low of a level of computer knowledge shouldn't be using IoT anything in the first place -- it's too dangerous for inexperienced people to use.