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It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

blog.vghaisas.com

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Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#21

Post by mathisfun123 »

t098i3 wrote: post #20
mathisfun123 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People steal things from stores which have had cctv for decades. I have no idea why people think these goofy webcams have any effect other than invading the privacy of your neighbors.

I literally just said it solved my problem. Most casual crime is opportunistic, and cameras and lights add uncertainty to the opportunity. Most people aren't willing to chance the camera for an opportunistic score.

> Most casual crime is opportunistic, and cameras and lights add uncertainty to the opportunity. Most people aren't willing to chance the camera for an opportunistic score.

People have been stealing things from stores which have had cctv for decades. Your premises are manifestly false.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#22

Post by artisinal »

ezfe wrote: post #13
artisinal wrote: post #12

I fail to see the relation between a video doorbell and stopping a burglar. Burglars wear masks. Also, a doorbell ringing on the outside of the door is not only silly but in case of an apartment complex highly annoying for your neighbors. And make sure your neighbors like being monitored through your five services. Personally I have a button outside my front door. It is connected with a copper wire to the other side…

It's video surveillance, it makes it more likely they'll go elsewhere. That's literally the whole point of Ring.

Then go for a CCTV system with local storage for the whole apartment complex instead of a cloud based personal surveillance system.

Then you don’t need 5 cloud services and people can go back to knocking.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#23

Post by VTimofeenko »

Banditoz wrote: post #6

It's crazy these things don't have much interopability with third parties. Is it so difficult to expose a MQTT thing or some other random HTTP server, default off but configurable in some developer settings, that could be used to control the device/read state? It would certainly make the minority that is us power users happy.

Not exactly home gamer stuff, but there are devices like the Axis cameras which can push to a configured mqtt.

Generally ONVIF is the protocol one should be looking for in a camera, it indicates that the edge device can play ball with a central server (Frigate, Blue Iris, etc). Profile M specifies the metadata into external mqtt:

https://www.onvif.org/profiles/profile-m/

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#24

Post by t098i3 »

mathisfun123 wrote: post #21
t098i3 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally just said it solved my problem. Most casual crime is opportunistic, and cameras and lights add uncertainty to the opportunity. Most people aren't willing to chance the camera for an opportunistic score.

> Most casual crime is opportunistic, and cameras and lights add uncertainty to the opportunity. Most people aren't willing to chance the camera for an opportunistic score. People have been stealing things from stores which have had cctv for decades. Your premises are manifestly false.

It's a good thing I don't live in a store, then

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#25

Post by thesmtsolver2 »

mathisfun123 wrote: post #19
t098i3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to have local teenagers messing around on my property and it completely stopped after putting up some lights and cameras. It stops most casual crime.

People steal things from stores which have had cctv for decades. I have no idea why people think these goofy webcams have any effect other than invading the privacy of your neighbors.

And criminals have been caught using CCTV footage for decades.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#26

Post by wrs »

vghaisas wrote: post #2

I thought it was finally time to write up the story of my absurd home doorbell implementation, especially because the upcoming Samsung SmartThings API pricing means things will have to change soon. Suggestions welcome!

I have a similar problem, except I needed to ring the actual doorbell. Currently I'm using a HomeKit-compatible video doorbell that communicates over proprietary radio to its wifi gateway that triggers a HomeKit automation (which presumably runs on my Apple TV as the hub) to turn a Shelly relay on for one second to do the same thing as pressing the doorbell button. I think this all ends up just using my internal network, but who knows. Thank goodness the Shelly relay can get a wifi signal while stuffed into that electrical box in the basement ceiling.

(The actual doorbell button is still there too, so it's a crapshoot which one somebody decides to use in the first place. And yes, many video doorbells have a "chime adapter" to take care of this, but our house's doorbell wiring made them run in fear.)

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#27

Post by johnhtodd »

I am constantly amazed that people rely on anyone else's compute infrastructure for things like doorbells, cameras, locks, switches, or sensors (network infrastructure is, at the moment, a seemingly acceptable integration for isolated communication.) There is inevitable over-pricing and capture by these companies; it's in their nature.

Add to this the security and downtime risks, and the equation really doesn't look good. Equipment that is tied to someone else's cloud is an astonishingly bad idea, but everyone has their own immediate (or even long-term) reasons for ignoring advice. "You get what you deserve."

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#28

Post by jen20 »

artisinal wrote: post #9
vghaisas wrote: post #2

I thought it was finally time to write up the story of my absurd home doorbell implementation, especially because the upcoming Samsung SmartThings API pricing means things will have to change soon. Suggestions welcome!

> the upcoming Samsung SmartThings API pricing Imagine paying a Korean company five bucks a months so you can get a notification on your phone that your fridge needs a new water filter. People really need to touch grass.

Why does it matter that it’s a Korean company?

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#29

Post by tamimio »

>an over engineered

It’s not, that’s called a duct tape solution, which is the opposite of engineering, that’s poor design and bad practice, there are so many failure points and moving parts that it’s eminent it will fail. The engineering design should be reliable, simple, and efficient. Instead of that cluster chaos you made, you could have had a relay wired inside the bell that simultaneously trigger a normal and simple electric-based bell, so it works for you and the other person.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#30

Post by stickfigure »

The interesting thing here is that Samsung thinks they are going to get people to pay for API access to their smart devices, when "app access" is free. We are now past the point where LLMs can automate the apps. You don't even need to write the code, the LLM will do it for you.

As a recent owner of a Samsung fridge, I'm really curious to know what the plan is here. The probability of me paying a monthly for my refrigerator is exactly zero.

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