I have a whole range! All are POE because I am using them with Frigate and all the recommendations are to avoid wifi cameras for that.

The first one I put in was this TP Link one. I was pretty happy with that one really. I got a 4mm focal length and didn’t really understand what that meant at the time, for the place I put it I’d probably go for the 2.8mm version if I did it again for the slightly wider angle, but it does what I need it to. Noting that wider angle means pixels are spread across a wider area so identifying people is harder if you’re using it for security.

The second camera I got is this HiLook one. I got it because it’s a Starlight camera, working in very low light. However, it doesn’t seem to have a setting for automatic frame rate, so if you have it set low for low light then it’s blurry all day whenever anything moves. In the end I have it using the IR light at night and don’t really make use of the Starlight capability.

My most recent camera is this Ubiquity one. It turns out you need a device with Unifi Protect in order to enable the RTSPS stream to allow Frigate to get the video stream, it’s not enabled by default. I have a device capable of it (Unifi Dream Machine SE) so it wasn’t an issue for me, but if I didn’t that would have been a shock! But I only got the camera because I have that Unifi ecosystem for some other stuff. It’s a bit nicer build quality than the others but it’s a lot more expensive than the TP Link and I don’t know that it’s any better.

The doorbell camera is this Reolink POE one. I only paid $120 for it in the black friday sale (only just got around to getting it installed). It can do cloud stuff if that’s your thing but I have it running all locally with the video streaming to Frigate and with Home Assistant notifications for when someones at the door or if they press the doorbell button. The Reolink app lets you talk through the doorbell with the person at the door, when someone presses the doorbell it rings your phone like a video call and you can accept or decline. Two way audio is apparently doable through Frigate to Home Assistant but we decided we don’t really want to do calls with the doorbell so I haven’t looked into it much. All in all pretty happy with it though, maybe my only complaint is that I think the HDR could be stronger, the sky is bright in the shot and people approaching it have shadowy faces so facial recognition doesn’t work that great unless it happens to get a properly lit shot of them.

These cameras all come with AI detecting of people, animals, cars, etc, but I’m not using it because I’ve got Frigate so I can’t really comment on their effectiveness.

It’s as good a plan as any, working when everyone is trying to have a holiday and holiday when everyone is at work!

I’ve never lived in the South but I know those that have and they loved it so I’m sure you’ll have a great winter so long as you stay warm!

Not bad, I went shopping with one of my kids to get them some clothes. It was the decisive one so it was a pretty smooth and quick shopping trip. And I took a kid to a swimming lesson. Pretty chill day really.

How has your weekend been so far? (besides getting banned from reddit 😆)

Welcome!

Nice, looks like you had a good time!

I spent too long working out what word “thake” was supposed to be, and I’m still not sure 😅

I can happily report I successfully mounted the switch and camera today, with no dramas and only a normal amount of blood sacrifice.

Yeah agreed, it seems like a non-article. Just that they said his name at the wrong service 🤷

Ah, that is the kind of special I meant. So it’s plugged in to a base station sending signals.

You mentioned it’s corroded, so it’s just a bare wire? Or it’s insulated but over time I guess the sun would damage the plastic and air/water would start to get into the wire and corrode it?

Is your boundary wire special, e.g. has some power or signal running through it, or do you literally just have wire and the robot uses magnets or some other magic to detect it?

Also, reminder to submit a suggestion of a 2025 NZ song for Lemmyvision.

And if you’re a LemmyNZ user and want to get more involved in managing the instance, see this post.

Of course!

Thanks for the suggestion! We have no others 😅

Long weekend! Are you guys planning on attending the ANZAC dawn service (or later services) tomorrow? I used to go each year but haven’t been since we had kids. Can’t get them up early enough 😅

This week I’ve been on a spending spree. I have a new security camera that I’ll put over the driveway, that will hopefully let me see both number plates of cars in the driveway and the kerb where we put our rubbish/recycling bins, letting me play with automations around reminders of putting the wheelie bins out or notifications of who is in the driveway. That will bring it to 3 security cameras + a doorbell camera, which is the final state I intended. It doesn’t do a good job of security as someone could easily skirt around them, but it will do a great job of covering things that make for fun times in Frigate/Home Assistant!

I had to get a new switch as I’ve used all the 8 ports + extra 4 on my mini switch. I also can’t thread any more ethernet cable into the ceiling through the existing hole, it won’t fit more, so I’m going to roof mount the new switch, which has 7 POE ports which should cover everything.

Another thing I bought this week is a 20kg bag of Wairarapa grown flour. Shipping was a killer, I seriously considered driving there to pick it up but in the end I decided to just suck it up. It was an impulse purchase, not sure what I’m going ot use it for but we generally go through a lot of flour anyway. I might have to bake some bread, which I haven’t done in a while.

Huh interesting! I see playing on their website that an equivalent laptop is more expensive in the DIY version, it’s just that the starting price includes no RAM, storage, etc.

So the DIY is for people who want to bring their own parts, not for people who want to get all the parts then save money!

Framework sells DIY kits so the European dude assembling the laptop could be himself!

This is pretty much my life at work. “Here’s how AI can do something with 95% accuracy, beating out the alternate rule based method that only delivers a 100% accuracy rate”.

Damn I think we are getting fucked over on EV prices. I don’t know about 6 years ago but now an Ioniq 5 costs $70k NZD for the cheapest model, that’s 35k€.

Yeah 10k miles is more than what I drive in a year and they’re doing it in a month 😅. I am thinking that $480 may be at retail DC charging prices rather than home power usage prices because I’m not sure who would drive that much and not be driving for work (which would then be an unreasonable comparison to others buying EVs).

To be clear and so people don’t get the wrong idea, Graham Linehan is the creator of The IT Crowd, he’s not in this meme.

Yeah there is quite low maintenence on EVs but they are said to go through tyres faster (on account of the weight). I figure any maintenance difference is probably not that big compared to not using fuel though.

We bought an almost-new (ex-demo) EV about 6 months ago. We get free power (due to accidentally OPing our solar it’s use or lose) and we paid a little over half the price of what the car would be new.

With mostly free power (still have to pay when we travel away from home) it’s going to take about 16 years to pay it off in fuel savings for us - and that’s not accounting for the interest on borrowing the money or the opportunity cost of investing the money elsewhere. If we had paid full price it would have been more like 25 years. This is based on before times fuel prices though, right now the numbers probably look better.

I think you have to do a lot of driving for a new car to pay for itself. We do a lot of WFH and when we commute it’s with public transport so I think that really eats into any savings because we only do like 12 000km a year.