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MacBook M5 Pro and Qwen3.5 = Local AI Security System

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11–20 of 162 posts

Re: MacBook M5 Pro and Qwen3.5 = Local AI Security System

#11
post #6

Currently the barrier to entry for local models is about $2500. Funny thing is $2500 is about the amount my parents paid for a 166 MHZ machine in 1995.

Entry level is actually MAC MINI 16GB at <$499, I have models running on M2 MINI 16GB, it's working with small models.

Re: MacBook M5 Pro and Qwen3.5 = Local AI Security System

#13
post #6

Currently the barrier to entry for local models is about $2500. Funny thing is $2500 is about the amount my parents paid for a 166 MHZ machine in 1995.

Entry level is actually MAC MINI 16GB at <$499, I have models running on M2 MINI 16GB, it's working with small models.

If "small models" is the bar, then you can run inference for ~$50 on Raspberry Pi like hardware. I do that with 1.8b-4b models.

Re: MacBook M5 Pro and Qwen3.5 = Local AI Security System

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entry level is actually MAC MINI 16GB at <$499, I have models running on M2 MINI 16GB, it's working with small models.

If "small models" is the bar, then you can run inference for ~$50 on Raspberry Pi like hardware. I do that with 1.8b-4b models.

LFM 450M for vision task, QWEN 9B Q4 for Orchestration, this provides a good result.

Re: MacBook M5 Pro and Qwen3.5 = Local AI Security System

#17
post #16

This seems like an inevitable idea: a security system with full context. So you don't get alerts about your friend's car plates or your kid coming home late.

Exactly, the memory of full context is very personal, so I'd like to keep the local.

Re: MacBook M5 Pro and Qwen3.5 = Local AI Security System

#18
post #8
post #6

Currently the barrier to entry for local models is about $2500. Funny thing is $2500 is about the amount my parents paid for a 166 MHZ machine in 1995.

This is very false. My first system was a 3060 which you can buy new for about $300 or used for about $200. If you already have an existing system you can use it, else you can pick up a used PC for about $150. Entry is about $500.

Perhaps OP was referring to a usable agentic system, for which $2500 sounds about right.

I've got a 3060 myself, which is nice to play around with the smaller models for free (minus electricity) and with 100% uptime, but I was not able to program anything with them yet that I didn't want to rewrite completely. A heavily quantized Qwen3.5-27B model is getting close though. Maybe in a few months.

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