Selfhosted @lemmy.world archomrade [he/him] @midwest.social 4d ago

Battery-powered wifi cameras with RTSP?

Over the weekend I set up some outdated wyze v3 cameras with hacked firmware to enable rtsp, and was able to load the stream into frigate to do some mouse-infestation detection. This worked great, and it was with hardware I already had laying around, but now i'm in need of some more coverage and I don't want extension cords hanging from my basement ceiling everywhere.

I thought there might be another ~$50 wifi battery camera somewhere out there that could be hacked or had native rtsp support, but my search is coming up short.... seems like either people settle for cloud-polling cheap ones or they splurge on some real quality mid-range ones. Anyone know of any cheap options?

For those curious, here's the git repo for the wyzecams i found. It's as easy as loading a micro-sd with the firmware, giving it an ssh key, and then turning it back on. Then you can ssh into it over the network and enable things like rtsp and a bunch of other features i don't know what to do with. It has proven to be handy, but it doesn't support the outdoor battery-powered models.

3 comments

Simpler route: buy the same cams and get a bulb socket adapter with USB ports. Then you've solved the power problem (assuming you have light sockets in the basement).
- Would be, but unfortunately all I have are fluorescent troffers down there. But a single extension and splitter cable might still be acceptable. I also thought about getting some usb battery banks - the cameras run off a 5v power adapter, I think a 15000mAh battery might last a couple days or even just one (not sure how many watts they draw running the custom firmware).
  
  I was hoping for a cleaner solution but it might be one of those "pick two" situations.
  
  I've seen splitters for those as well, though I doubt they are as simple as just screwing them in. Just a thought.