A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
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If it is onvif compatible or similar sure, but it's most likely not. If you're lucky someone else have had the same camera as you and made a custom firmware for it, but I wouldn't count on it.
Frigate and shinobi are two alternatives to use software wise on the server, but you still need a compatible camera.
I borrowed a camera - it's not the one I would be using for this.
That's why I'm asking. I haven't bought anything yet and don't want to get the wrong thing.
Get a CCTV camera for it. Make sure it supports ONVIF. An IP camera can be run 100 meters on CAT5.
Trail cams are not intended for remote viewing. They are battery powered and a remote connection would drain the batteries quickly.
That essentially boils down to "build your own solution", which under my current circumstances amounts to "don't do it". Not that I lack the skill or will but the spare time and energy I have is used on my baby daughter. I can't justify rabbit holing on something like this.
It's why I created this thread - to see if there's a software and hardware combo that solves this with minimal additional work.
There are multiple wifi-connected solar powered cameras that will do the motion-activation, IR night mode, etc. thing that you're asking for, that you can just drop into a location, but they won't be self hosted.
Unfortunately pretty much everything you'd self host takes time and finagling, it's just the price of privacy/independence. I know you're asking for a self hosted solution but that will be difficult with little free time. I've been running frigate for a year and I still can't get some object detection masks to properly ignore detections.
An honest answer that it's not currently easily doable is in and of itself useful.
This is a "nice to have". I figured I'd ask preemptively so that I didn't go down a blind alley. Thanks!
You got it! Best of luck with the baby
I would think you would need a wifi trail cam or something more permanent using buried cable.
That would be possible, yep.
Yes, there are trail cameras with WiFi or 4G connectivity, but the good ones are expensive. The Chinese ones are often a pain.
I had one with 3G, it wasn't reliable. I had a Moultrie one that was nice, but like yours, only SD card.
You'll want to be running frigate, a self hosted nvr solution.
Camera wise, you'll probably want a power over Ethernet (poe) amcrest or hikvision camera for continuous video to be sent to the nvr to do the detection. A list of recommended hardware is found here.
I'll be honest though, depending on where this is you might be better off with a non-self hosted setup. For example, reolink makes several battery/solar powered wifi cameras that record on motion, shooting notifications to your phone. No cables to run
I can also recommend frigate. It's an awesome piece of software and it really is what OP wants
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| CGNAT | Carrier-Grade NAT |
| IP | Internet Protocol |
| NAT | Network Address Translation |
| RPi | Raspberry Pi brand of SBC |
| SBC | Single-Board Computer |
| VPN | Virtual Private Network |
5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 5 acronyms.
[Thread #1009 for this comm, first seen 19th Jan 2026, 12:35] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
You can get a WiFi or LTE trail cam that essentially to works the same. If you get LTE though, you'll almost certainly need a VPN setup on your network as well to work around CGNAT issues.
WiFi would be easily sufficient. We're talking a distance of 10m from my router, tops.
Most of the cameras like this that I've seen have an app that lets you transfer the photos too. The issue is that you need to connect to the camera with Bluetooth, which then turns on the camera's wifi for the full connection. The apps do this automatically.
I've been wondering if there's a way to run the app from a computer, and connect to the camera through that, but I don't know how you'd get it to wake the camera to allow the wifi connection.
Are you buying a cam or borrowing the same one? If you are borrowing again, you know the model? That will help us give better advice.
I would be buying. The cam I borrowed wouldn't fit the setup I want, I just mentioned it because I want that functionality but without the hassle of pulling the SD card.
So far it doesn't sound like what I want exists, unfortunately.
There appears to be many wireless options available. While there is no off the shelf option available, you may be able to automate connecting to the Wi-Fi of the cam and pulling the files from a Windows share. From there, you could put the files on a share for a service like photoprism.
If the only way up interface with it is through an app, and you don't have an old smartphone to run the app, then you could consider running an android emulator.
The hunting cams all use cell modems, which honestly sucks (a subscription to pics on land near you...). Ive been looking at wifi halow (802.11ah) for it personally. Which can support low power longer range (km/miles long) at 4-40 mbs.
I can find m.2 modules that support it too(i.e. GW16167) so its just matter of SBC and camera choice from there to me. The RPI camera honestly seems pretty decent.
Hmmm, an RPi with a camera might well work. The problem there is more the amount of work I'd need to do - I haven't got that kind of time right now.
Tell me about it. If you find a off the shelf built kit that works let me know so i dont have to build one too