Haven: turn old Android phones into security cameras

Re:Haven: turn old Android phones into security cameras by pengaru on Sunday February 23, 2020 @01:44PM (#22398668)

FWIW I've setup Raspberry Pi W cameras [0] as security and garage door opener (w/relay on GPIO) cameras for friends/family, using MotionEye [1] as the interface.

I just use a cheap VPS like Vultr [2] to terminate persistent ssh tunnels from the cameras and run a self-signed https gateway into them. It's under $5/mo for the cheapest VPS option.

It's a bit of work to get it set up, but nothing crazy hard if you know your way around something resembling a LAMP stack and ssh tunnels. There's no third parties integrated so you control the data and have a lot fewer privacy/safety concerns in general.

If there's no wifi available, at&t offers mobile hotspot prepay service for as low as $25/mo.

[0] https://www.adafruit.com/product/3414

[1] https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneye

[2] https://www.vultr.com/

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Re:Haven: turn old Android phones into security cameras by andrewshadura on Sunday February 23, 2020 @03:22PM (#22399287)

I'd recommend to use tinc instead of ssh tunnels.

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Re:Haven: turn old Android phones into security cameras by pengaru on Sunday February 23, 2020 @04:34PM (#22399703)

I've been relying on the command= syntax of .authorized_keys to restrict what's possible, but I'm not 100% confident in that being impervious to intrusion should someone get access to the on-camera SSH tunnel private keys.

Wireguard is somewhere on my mental todo list for possible replacement of these tunnels, but they do the job and SSH is going to be listening either way to admin the VPS.

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Re:Haven: turn old Android phones into security cameras by jzawodn on Sunday February 23, 2020 @04:19PM (#22399595)

Second that. Tinc is great for this.

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Re:Haven: turn old Android phones into security cameras by rosszurowski on Sunday February 23, 2020 @10:32PM (#22401427)

I like Tailscale [1] for connecting instead of setting up your own VPS. Works flawlessly for things like this.

[1] https://tailscale.com

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Re:Haven: turn old Android phones into security cameras by worik on Monday February 24, 2020 @06:12PM (#22409426)

In my experience those PI Zero cases and camera are very unreliable. They over heat

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Re:Haven: turn old Android phones into security cameras by pengaru on Monday February 24, 2020 @09:20PM (#22410426)

I've had absolutely zero problems with them overheating, and that's even using them as security cameras in a desert cabin without AC, where outside ambient temps exceed 120F.

The only thing I did to prepare them for that abuse was adding a small adhesive-backed aluminum heat sink [0] to the CPU. It only required some filing of the fins to fit in the tight packaging of the camera enclosure.

I never attempted running them without the heat sink, knowing it was going to be a rough desert life for them. So I can't even say if it was necessary.

It's also possible my software settings which are optimized to minimize wifi bandwidth and storage consumption are helping keep things cool. The `motion` process is only using around 15% CPU continuously, and the loadavg hovers around .27, FWIW.

[0] https://www.adafruit.com/product/3084

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