[vanc_cefepime]

I have the same UI protect system w 7 cameras. After that incident, I made it local only. I like Unifi gear, but I became super paranoid after that incident.

After some digging around, I found homebridge [0] (with the homebridge-unifi-protect plugin by hjdhjd [1]) which fixed that for me by tying the UI Protect system into Apple's HomeKit ecosystem (which also leverages the homekit secure video that keeps alerts/motion/snapshots on iCloud). Now all our devices are able to have it popup alerts for motions, packages, etc.

It's not perfect, but this way I'm able to get alerts without tying in to Unifi's SSO system. I also still like to open the UI Protect app when I'm not on the local network to sometimes archive videos, view cameras, mess with one of the new UI PTZ cameras, so I have backup access options, including Tailscale. Tailscale doesn't give me the alerts I want, but lets me access the app as if I were still at home. I also have it tied in with HomeAssistant and recently began playing around with go2rtc.

I'm a super-newb when it comes to all this but 2022 is when I began getting fed up with all these privacy nightmares and began to teach myself selfhosting, docker, etc so I can mitigate all this. Unfortunately, I'm the only one who knows how to tinker and keep all this updated. However, I do have documentation for my wife how to access everything and start fresh to make it easier on her by using UI's SSO way so it "just works" as they say in the Macintosh World, when I'm no longer around.

[0] https://homebridge.io/ [1] https://github.com/hjdhjd/homebridge-unifi-protect#readme

[_rs]

I haven't seen any in depth performance comparisons, but I had also started to dig into this and I was leaning towards using Scrypted instead of the HomeBridge plugin. Just wanted to name-drop them for others also interested in all this

[vanc_cefepime]

Scrypted is faster when I tested it a year or so ago.

I almost jumped into their Scypted NVR system (with all the bells and whistles all fully integrated in one app and would cost me $70/yr for 7 cameras) but it seemed like I'm trading one remote access system for another hence why I decided to keep using Homebridge (HB) until the HB project starts becoming stagnant or unless something breaks on my end. You can have Scrypted+HomeKit just like I have Homebridge+HomeKit setup, but Homebridge is pretty fast for me on Apple Silicon hardware so as they say "if it ain't broke, dont fix it."

This is the beauty of open source projects like these. Pick which works for you and just keep it updated and donate a few $ when you can to support the project.

[zrail]

That's a really interesting setup, thanks for the links! I'm pretty deep into Home Assistant but that plugin looks amazing.

[jen20]

I had the same setup for a while, but eventually moved to scrypted instead which had better startup time for streams in Home.app.

[ErigmolCt]

Sooo you've basically built a modern home surveillance system that doesn't phone home to a dozen third parties