> because i don't care who can look at my front lawn

This is extremely selfish. What about your neighbors who walk/drive by your front lawn? You're doing your neighborhood a surveillance disservice.

By not caring about who can look at my front lawn, I am implying if that camera footage gets hacked I do not care. I own my lawn and can do whatever I want with the footage.

As for people walking or driving by, they are in public and have zero expectation of privacy. I live in a school zone with a high school of 3500 kids across the street, most walk home. No one would never believe in a million years the crap they do to my lawn and the neighbors. They throw trash in my lawn, leave soda cans and bottles at the end of my driveway so I literally have to either stop in the street and move them or run them over getting into the driveway. They throw things in the back of a pickup truck in my driveway. They do this to all 12 houses on my street. It is nice to have footage in case ANY of this results in criminal damages. And it is legal.

So if that is selfish, then I am cool with that.

"Public" is a thing distinct from "private." On your property, you get to decide where the dividing line is. That's one of the primary ideas behind the notion of private property.

The issue I have is when the property owner isn't told who has access to the resulting still images or video stream, or is actively deceived about it. I'd be reluctant to use a Ring camera at my front door for that reason, and there's no way on Earth I'd install anything like that inside my home.

I'm pretty sure a lot, if not most, door cameras are filming public space.

Yes, that's my point. I have a right to do that, and so do you, and so do Amazon, Google, and the CIA.

See, that's the idea behind the word "public." Nobody has to ask user lm28469 on Hacker News for permission to take photos in public.

This is a good thing.

Depends on jurisdiction. Dash cams are illegal in many countries.

True, only the police are allowed to run dash cams in those countries. We could also mention the trend toward berserk copyright laws that have much the same effect. [1]

And these are not good things. Both communal and private interests end up worse off in the long run with laws like these.

1: https://www.asmp.org/copyright-tutorial/photos-public-buildi...

you'd have gotten a lot more agreement if you had explicitly limited your argument to recording only your own private property, by placement or otherwise.

most folks (especially us americans) accept personal propertly rights implicitly, so there's no need to vigorously defend them, especially when that defense implies caring only about yourself and not others.

What I genuinely don't understand is why do you even need them. Do they somehow deter burglars? Unlikely, unless there is hard data showing that they do. Did the US somehow degenerate into a war zone lately, because everyone managed (and still manages outside the US!) to survive without those, but Americans suddenly need those cameras? Besides, what would you even do if a. you're away from your home b. a camera detects something c. you're near your phone at the moment (which isn't given at all, you're pretty likely to be asleep or busy)? Call the cops from the other side of the world and hope they come in time? Activate claymores or giant battle robots?

How come Amazon and others apparently convinced millions of middle class Americans in the space of just a few years that they absolutely require 24/7 surveillance in and around their houses? Are you that scared of your compatriots?

It's even more puzzling than gun worship tbh

I use my cameras to check in on my cat when I am out of town. Typically a friend only visits briefly once a day and I get peace of mind out of knowing that the cat is eating. If the cat was not eating, I'd ask a friend to take it to the vet or to sit with a while to make sure it eats.

Ditto. I have 4 wyzecams I setup around the house when we go on vacation. Then I unplug them and put them in a box as soon as I return.

And for Mr "Irrational fears", no, I do it for entertainment, not because BigEvilCorp taught me to be afraid.

If you use Wyze you should probably be aware of this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/30/us/wyze-security-camera-b... https://forums.wyzecam.com/t/updated-12-29-19-data-leak-12-2... https://blog.12security.com/wyze/

Can't you just ask your friend to note if your cat ate during the day? I mean, they're probably refilling the bowls anyway, so they will notice if they're full

Also the whole notion of an imminent danger for a semi-wild animal in a big house with daily renewed water and food is a bit weird to me. It seems like Amazon&co just amplify the existing irrational fears, don't you think so?

Warzone? No, but our homeless problem means people may choose to make use of your property in myriad ways. Anything from an open-air bathroom to a place to stash stolen goods. Ask me how I know. :-(

I have a nest camera pointing at my driveway. It's configured to use a zone that excludes the public sidewalk and street and only to alert me on seeing people. I really only expect alerts when my wife or the mailman comes and goes. The last time it alerted was actually the police walking across the property because I filled out an "alert slip" letting them know I was going to be gone for some time.

But the time prior to that was a homeless dude who ditched a bunch of stolen property in my yard and then came back to switch into his new stolen clothes. My wife went down and asked him to just go somewhere else mostly because this was the second time he'd done it and we didn't really want it to turn into a habit, much less for him to tell his buddies at the local homeless encampment "Hey, there's this great spot partially out of the public view...".

Unfortunately it turned into the guy screaming at my wife that she was a dumb bitch who couldn't tell him what to do, etc, etc. A police officer happened across all this as it was transpiring and ended up arresting the guy for trespassing. A big chunk of all this was caught on camera, including his using our driveway as a changing room the first time.

Hopefully that's the end of it and we never see this guy again, but if he comes around we have evidence of him trespassing previously and being told (on camera) to vacate the premises. It's just evidence if legal action needs to be taken.

You could probably create one yourself with a raspberry + camera, with added benefit you can mod it to make your own.

I've been on the hunt for a physical box that could house a raspi zero w with together with a power brick and a reasonably good wide angle lens to be an outdoor, weatherproof (not waterproof) camera that only needs a power cable. Adding motioneyeos on it would make a very decent hardware, but so far, nothing.

If anyone knows something like this, a link would be appreciated.

My solution would be a fake birdhouse. It could be weatherproof and less conspicuous, and the hole on the front is a natural place to put a camera lens. (You might want to put a fake bird on top or something to dissuade actual birds.)

Assuming it’s attached to a tree, how would you power it?

If I _had_ to put it in a tree, PoE or solar+battery would probably work. In my tiny yard I could probably get away with a regular outdoor extension cord.

Seconded. Needs to have ~90 deg FOV, either good enough low-light performance or provisions for an IR emitter, option for a sound interface, POE, and put in a case that looks inconspicuous enough to hang on my wall in my home. AFAIK that doesn't exist and I wish it did. Being able to run an open source cctv system would be great, as the other option is typically running grey-market chinese non-upgradeable firmware.

Option 1: search ebay (or a similar retailer) for "IP65 transparent" to find box-shaped waterproof enclosures with clear lids. Arrange electronics to your satisfaction, with the camera looking through the lid. Many sizes, but looks nothing like a normal CCTV camera.

Option 2: Search for "CCTV housing" to find boxes that look like old-fashioned outdoor CCTV cameras. Fewer size choices, but less weird-looking.

I don't have any pre-built recommendations, but you can figure out some dimensions and find someone online who'd be willing to 3D print it for you.

Or you could find a machinist. That'll be fairly expensive, though.

Lastly, you could probably make it using supplies from Home Depot, like PVC pipes + fittings and PVC cement, maybe some gasket sealer for any holes you drill. Probably the cheapest option of these 3.

There are many, many 3d printable enclosures on thingiverse and elsewhere. I recommend still using a gasket and epoxying the enclosure.

Why do you need an additional nest camera if you already have a CC camera system with ethernet cameras? (Genuinely curious, because I have neither of those)

My other half wanted the nest cameras, especially the doorbell one. She wanted to be able to check in real time when we are not at home if someone was at the door.

I wanted camera's in the garage and back yard on at all times (people have wandered around the back yard before). Nest also costs per camera, so it would get expensive as well.

So it was a variety of issues and it was a compromise i was willing, or maybe forced, to do. I am happy with just the closed camera system and sending footage offsite, alerts and logging on with my VPN if needed.