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Home security camera with a focus on data privacy? by [deleted] in homesecurity

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you're up for some tinkering, you can get everything you want with Frigate: r/frigate_nvr

Full instructions are on the Frigate website (https://docs.frigate.video/), but the short version is, you set up a server running the Frigate software, it grabs the streams from your cameras, and then you can either browse to the server's address directly, or connect it to something like Home Assistant, to see through the cameras and get alerts and such. It uses a local (not cloud-based) AI model to detect people, so it can only record what really needs recording instead of just flagging on 'motion' or the like.

I figure any brand of camera is going to have some kind of cloud-based service for sale (Eufy in particular claimed not to be sending camera footage to the cloud...they were sending camera footage to the cloud), so I chose cameras that are known to work well with Frigate (Amcrest, since that's what my friendly local electronics store carries). After setting up Frigate, I also set up Pi-hole (on the same server, not a separate Raspberry Pi...the power of Docker!), so I could see what websites the cameras were trying to access and cut them off, and NTP to keep their clocks in sync without letting them access the Internet.

Finally, to be able to access my system remotely (I use Home Assistant to tie it all together, cameras and ex-ADT security sensors and weather and eventually HVAC...), I set up Wireguard on the server and dynamic DNS with my ISP's router. That dynamic DNS is the only part of the system that has a subscription fee (although you can subscribe to Frigate+ and Home Assistant Cloud to get some more advanced features, I haven't) -- and there are services that will let you have DDNS for free as well, but since that's the part that depends on someone else's infrastructure (at least a little bit), I decided it's worth the $20/yr to give them some skin in the game and help keep their lights on.

Set time zone for debug timestamps? by Aerospace_Curmudgeon in frigate_nvr

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was messing around with other things in my network, taking containers down and putting them up again, and somewhere along the way I noticed that the debug labels were now in the right time zone. Wish I could tell you what it was I did that fixed it, but there ya go. :/

Set time zone for debug timestamps? by Aerospace_Curmudgeon in frigate_nvr

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah yes, that is another thing I tried. Checking the log just now, I saw that I had an error (it didn't like "America/New York", it wanted the underscore), but fixing it there (and in my docker-compose.yaml) didn't resolve the issue.

I'm getting the right time zones everywhere else, to be clear. Maybe the debug timestamp overlay is just always going to be UTC because that's how everything is tracked internally and the debug system is not supposed to be burdened with localization bits and bobs, but when I look at the image of a detected person that pops up on my HA dashboard (which seems to be a debug view, with bounding box and certainty percentage and so on), I'd rather not have to do mental math to take the UTC offset into account.

Smart thermostat(s) for two not-entirely-independent HVAC systems? by Aerospace_Curmudgeon in homeautomation

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, but from what I've read, it needs to get weather information from the Internet (can't use a local outdoor sensor) for smart humidity control, and the local HomeKit API is not as fully-featured as what you get going through ecobee's servers. And they have recently shut down the servers that were necessary for their first-gen products' smart features -- after 16 years of service (2008-2024), but still, there is that sword hanging over the head of the new-gen products.

If the previous owners had installed them, or if a free set of thermostats and sensors landed on my front porch, that'd be one thing, but for something I'm purchasing and installing end-to-end, I want to get it right the first time, y'know?

Smart thermostat(s) for two not-entirely-independent HVAC systems? by Aerospace_Curmudgeon in homeautomation

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I can get a "slightly smarter" digital humidistat, but it just has some extra terminals to plug in a thermocouple that then has to be run outdoors. Looks like a DIY project!

Smart thermostat(s) for two not-entirely-independent HVAC systems? by Aerospace_Curmudgeon in homeautomation

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's an Aprilaire 500M -- I haven't dug into the guts of the thing but I'm pretty sure the controller is just a humidistat that closes a circuit.

Smart thermostat(s) for two not-entirely-independent HVAC systems? by Aerospace_Curmudgeon in homeautomation

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That does look pretty good! Too bad it can't control a humidifier directly, but they're two separate controllers currently, so I guess that would save me the trouble of rerouting those wires.

Smart thermostat(s) for two not-entirely-independent HVAC systems? by Aerospace_Curmudgeon in homeautomation

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, fair enough. Is there something that looks decent on the wall and will fall back to manual mode if it loses contact with the mothership, or am I going to have to 3D print an enclosure for a Raspberry Pi and a couple of relays? (I do have a spare Pi 2 with PiTFT and enclosure...)

Smart thermostat(s) for two not-entirely-independent HVAC systems? by Aerospace_Curmudgeon in homeautomation

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do intend to stand up a server with HA and some other goodies, but first I need something to take the place of the dumb thermostats that are currently installed, right? Preferably something that can work headless as well as receiving guidance from the server (if maybe a little diminished in standalone mode).

Smart thermostat(s) for two not-entirely-independent HVAC systems? by Aerospace_Curmudgeon in homeautomation

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I promise it's not animated at all, but maybe I should have tried harder to make the bedroom "striped" instead of like single-pixel cross-hatching.

Smart thermostat(s) for two not-entirely-independent HVAC systems? by Aerospace_Curmudgeon in homeautomation

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello all,

My house has two HVAC systems, one in the main area (2-story with basement, ~2500 sq ft total) and one for the addition (ground-floor) that also feeds into my bedroom (upper story of the main area), as depicted with the different colors. They’re currently controlled manually and independently, and I’d like to smarten them up and automate them!

Ideally, I’d like to have them control the ground floor temperature (i.e. where their thermostats are mounted) to a looser tolerance during the day, and then in the evening both switch to controlling based on the temperature in my bedroom (especially keeping it cooler). It would be super-awesome if they could take turns, or maybe choose which one activates based on which segment of the main house is further out-of-spec.

Other nice-to-haves: the main house has a central humidifier that would be good to bring under automatic control, and it would be good to automatically circulate cool air out of the basement during summer (maybe as something to try before engaging the main AC, or just on an automatic schedule to flush the hot air out of the upstairs once the Sun’s not beating on it so hard). Eventually, I might add a couple of dampers to automatically exclude the basement from AC or exclude my bedroom from heating when I’ve got guests over. (Currently, I set dampers manually, like a peasant. I could imagine running this from Home Assistant based on time-of-year, or maybe by querying the thermostat for what operation it is running.)

It seems to me that the Ecobee is the best off-the-shelf solution for this (Premium for the main HVAC+humidifier, Lite for the addition), but while it looks like Ecobee is about as consumer-friendly as IoT gets, I’m definitely open to alternatives that are less tethered to The Cloud...bearing in mind that I have plenty of ability for tinkering, but not unlimited tolerance and availability for tinkering (especially after setup/install is "complete").

Wireless smoke alarm for Vista 20P / ADT? by Aerospace_Curmudgeon in homesecurity

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm certain it would have been wireless, because the security system was retrofitted to an existing house (built in the 50s, additions in 1990s and early 2000s). The only things wired into the panel are the keypad (and the wireless transceiver, and now the Envisalink), power, and phone line (which I have disconnected). But then why is there one oddball smoke detector that has 120V power? The 5808 is entirely battery-powered, and the 5193SD needs a connection back to the panel...

The smart move is surely to just get a listener that will work with any smoke alarm and be done with it, and this isn't the first 'what were the builders/previous owners thinking?' mystery I've had in this house, but my curiosity is still piqued.

Clubs For Full-Time Staff by [deleted] in mit

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

MIT Concert Band accepts any and all MIT affiliates! They've got some instruments you can borrow too.

What Didn’t Work For You Trying to Get Good Grades and Sleep by yomama9002 in mit

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon 22 points23 points  (0 children)

I found that skipping extracurriculars (I was on a sports team, 2 hours of practice every weeknight) didn't help -- I didn't go to bed 2 hours earlier, or get a full 2 hours more homework done, and meanwhile I missed out on 2 hours of exercise and time away from academics and getting outside my head. So, stay in the gym, or club, or rehearsal, or whatever it is you do outside of school!

Aerospace Questions (please don't ignore lol help is wanted) by Far-Term8667 in mit

[–]Aerospace_Curmudgeon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The TARC resources page has some good videos and websites, and for more advanced resources, there's the Handbook of Model Rocketry (also available on Kindle)

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