Why Does EVERYTHING Come With an App...?
Cameras, Forced Cloud Services, and too many apps.
My obsession with tech in my barn is a little weird. I know that. So, for just a few minutes here please set aside the fact that I set up wifi, security cameras, a home server running scrypted, and a home kit integration just so I could check on my horses at night. Well, actually don't. These are truly my wife’s horses and I love my wife. She wants wifi in the barn with cameras, she gets wifi in the barn with cameras. That’s just how it is.
Let’s get started as usual with the video I will be referring to during this brain dump.
Also, it might help if you watched this other video that outlines how exactly I get the wifi to my barn. Just for the sake of completeness
Ok, done with that? Now let’s talk about some stuff. Mainly apps and cameras and why subscription services are terrible (for some people, but not everyone)
Why is there an app for EVERYTHING?
One of the things that really bothered me about this Tapo camera is that even though it offers a widely accepted standard for local access to the camera feed (ONVIF), it still required that I initially set up the camera on the Tapo app. For some people that have strong feelings about their data privacy, this might be an immediate deal breaker. For me, it was something I was willing to deal with to get the thing working the way I wanted.
While, on the one hand, I really like the idea of keeping a ton of my data (or video feeds) out of the hands of cloud services that might be hosted under somebody’s desk somewhere, it really wasn’t the primary reason I wanted a local feed. What I was really looking for was an affordable way to get my security camera into the Apple Home app with all my other smart home stuff. For me, having less complication jumping between apps was the highest priority item on my checklist. So, even though I had to use the app for initial setup, I was, eventually, able to get this camera into the Apple Home app and make it so there was one less app I had to use in my normal daily flow.
I also recognize that I am not like the majority of people on the planet. It’s very likely (since you are here reading this) that you aren’t either. It’s really easy to take my own point of view and assume everyone is like me, but that’s just not the case. I think if you take a minute and put yourself in the shoes of your average consumer, it’s really easy to see why there is an app for everything.
If you are a company like TPlink and you have a line of security cameras, you need some way for people to be able to easily use those cameras without the need for an inch thick instruction manual or having to go watch a youtube video. The easiest way to accomplish that is to make an app. The app makes installation easy. It also creates a simple place to go and immediately use the product you purchased.
It also provides a way to generate additional revenue by offering more cloud-based services related to the camera, but that’s a different topic.
Security camera research
I looked at a bunch of different cameras before landing on this one. Initially, I thought it would be fun to DIY the whole thing and “build” a camera using a Raspberry Pi or an ESP32, but that honestly was pretty terrible.
I did pick up a couple of ESP32 Cams from Micro Center. I wired them up and got them working. I even got them working with scrypted and in Apple Home Kit. It DOES work, but barely. The main issue was that the video quality was absolutely terrible and the connection timed out more often than not.
From that point, I thought about getting a Raspberry PI and a higher-quality camera module. I think this would have worked way better. Raspberry Pi has a ton more compute power and many camera modules are compatible.
But… it ended up that a Raspberry Pi + a camera module + an enclosure was way more than $30 and this camera was $30 so it just didn’t make any sense to continue along that path.
I mentioned it in the video, but I found this camera on the Scrypted website and just went with it.
I think I will go this route, however, for putting a new camera inside my 3D printer. In the case of the printer camera, it needs to be small and have a custom enclosure anyway so it makes sense. I’ll make a video about that when I eventually do it.
Scrypted setup and some weirdness
Some of my camera setup in Scrypted didn’t make the video mainly because I had to try a few different things before I finally figured it out. So, here’s the details that didn’t make the cut.
The Scrypted auto-detect for the ONVIF camera almost worked. - This camera operates on port 2020. If the Auto-detect would have allowed me to provide a port number, it would have worked. Since it didn’t, I had to add the camera manually. It wasn’t a big deal since it was just a matter of adding the IP address of the camera, but it was sooo close.
Homekit setup required some fiddling. - After adding the camera to Scrypted, I had to go to the integrations tab and select HomeKit. This would have been a simple change except I had to restart the homekit service in scrypted to get it to show up correctly. Your mileage may vary, but that was my experience.
Homekit video was spotty for the first hour. I don’t really know why. - Immediately after setting up the camera with Homekit, it would time out periodically. After about an hour is started working fine and has worked flawlessly since then. Im not sure if this is some apple weirdness or what.
Scrypted RTP Sender settings. - I ended up enabling the “experimental” RTP Sender settings within Scrypted. I don’t know if it has an impact, but I haven’t had any issues
Two YouTube Channels - The Next video in the saga
This video is one that I consider a “crossover” between this YouTube channel and my other channel called “Morstone Acres”. Usually, home and barn-related stuff is on that channel while I keep this one more tech and “making” related.
Like I mentioned in the video, I will probably be making another video in this series where I get more of these cameras and replace all the old ones. I am hoping to wire them with ethernet and make them PoE with an active splitter to reduce the number of power bricks taking up the plugs in my barn.
The next video will be on Morstone Acres since it’s more barn DIY related.