At multiple locations and every area of the price spectrum, from indies to bigcorps, I have had my rights and privacy violated. So I keep a camera so I can know about it.
At 2 locations now I have used footage to break my lease early with zero penalty. Never got actual charges pressed against anyone but just with that it has paid for itself multiple times over.
Around the time the bait disappeared, the police were pursuing a suspect from house to house at 2am. If it was the same person, and I had proof, stealing from parked cars would be the least of anyone's concern.
What are the odds your local police are going to take your package theft footage and actually pursue the thief? Even for more serious crimes, it's questionable whether they will seek (or use) camera evidence, or be successful if they do. I know of an armed robbery attempt that occurred close to home, and to my knowledge no inquiries were made regarding camera evidence (I was a witness).
I can think of plenty of concrete uses for surveillance cameras, sure, but I'd say the costs vastly outweigh the benefits for most people using them today.
Check out some online social (fearmongering) sites like Nextdoor some time - it's nothing but busybodies speculating that the person parked on the street is casing their house or stealing packages. Quick, report them to the cops.
Oops. The local cops no longer accept 'suspicious person or vehicle' reports unless there is a crime in progress.
Round these parts you would return to your car and the window would be smashed.
> Check out ... sites like Nextdoor some time
Highly reccomended - but dont go alone, take a support person with you to pull you back to reality after a few minutes, it is a truly horrific place.
Living in the inner city where property crime is rampant might make you change your mind. A dashcam was the star of a legal case I was in, and our outdoor cameras have caught multiple yard prowlers. Police don't do anything about it, of course, but at least I can notify my neighbors with actual evidence.
but saying it’s worth having cameras just so your neighbors believe you isn’t really justifying them. If anything, you further proved how pointless and ineffectual they are. I’d rather save that money.
I believe that was the intent of the GP's question: Why have indoor cameras?
Sometimes they fight over food (automated feeder) and one doesn't get fed. But it's hard to tell if they're meowing at us because they were bullied out of food, or because they know we are softies and will feed them if they meow enough. We can check the feeder footage and see who got fed.
One of them is potty-shy, and about once every 3-6 months stops using the litter box and starts using obscure corners of the basement until we can coax him back to using the litter box. We check the footage every couple days to make sure he's using litter boxes.
For a software-oriented site, I'm baffled at how obtuse users can be. A lot of the negativity I'm seeing is along the lines of "I have no use for an indoor camera, therefor anyone who uses them is dumb." There are lots of legit uses (if you think about it for more than 2 seconds), and not all of us want provide the police with indoor footage of our cats shitting.
Oh, come on. Go install a Nest or Ring for a week and see how much you come to rely on it. "Do I need to answer the door or is it just girl scouts selling cookies?" "Do I have time for coffee or should I head home to grab the package?" You can chat with the folks at the door! You can say thank you to the Grubhub driver as they drop the meal. You can see what the neighbor's cats are doing on your doorstep in the middle of the night. You can point one into your backyard trivially and see if it's the rabbits eating your leeks.
I mean, no, you don't "need" this, just like you don't need a dishwasher. But don't pretend it's just about paranoia, it's a fun tool for the modern era.
(Conversely, the folks here arguing about the terrible abuses possible with third party access to this data about girl scouts and cats are the ones who seem maybe a little paranoid.)
I’d probably like finer control over my air con so that it automates to on when the solar is producing enough electricity to cover it, but otherwise I just don’t really get it.
But I still have a front door to interact with the rest of society, and automating (even partially) my interaction with all the junk and people that need to use it straight up saves me time. It's great.
The doorbell and security camera stuff do seem to be a cultural difference between the US and where I live though; I don’t have strangers routinely come to my front door and don’t really have security concerns that aren’t solved by locking my front door.
A couple of my friends have smart doorbells but none that I know of use security cameras at home.
curtain twitcher
someone who is very interested in what their neighbours (= people who live near them) are doing and tries to find out by looking out of the window without being seen:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/curtain-...
Another case that is valid is for very old people that share the video with their family. A few months ago a very old (~ 100) lady that I know died and her only daughter, one continent away, found out by checking the camera. The alternative would be for neighbors to call the police days later for not seeing her, but that is undesirable.
These companies are encouraging fear and paranoia to sell their products, and there is no guarantee using said products will deter criminals, or ensure that they are caught and punished even if you have clear video evidence.
This whole camera craze is built on a bunch of hot air. Ditch the cameras and stop living in fear.