MOTION

Nick Peers reveals how to bypass expensive (and insecure) cloud security systems to create your own using a variety of cameras.

Credit: https://motion-project.github.io

OUR EXPERT Nick Peers has lost hours trying to get cheap knock-off cameras to work with MotionEye. Ironically his greatest success came with his oldest one.

Worried about your home security? Looking for a system that lets you set up multiple cameras around your property, but which won’t break the bank or require you to invest in an expensive monthly subscription while entrusting your video footage to some unknown third-party cloud hosting service? The obvious solution is to invest in a dedicated NVR – network video recorder – but why tie yourself into a single expensive proprietary ecosystem when you can cannibalise cameras from a variety of sources and use a self-hosted solution that’s completely free and private?

The good news is that your Linux-powered PC or server stands ready and willing to shoulder the NVR burden. There are several open source platforms out there, but here we’re focusing on Motion, a longestablished and completely free option that you can install on a dedicated machine like the Raspberry Pi or add to your server.

There are several versions of Motion out there, but we’re featuring MotionEye, which offers a web-based front-end you can manage from any web browser, and which can be installed in a minutes through Docker. Better still, MotionEye does everything you need of it – not only can you attach multiple cameras for viewing and recording your home in real time, but you can configure it to jump into action whenever motion is detected, recording potentially incriminating footage while alerting you via email.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to get MotionEye up and running, link cameras to it from a variety of sources, set up motion detection and enable you to access the service from outside your home.

Spot a camera

Before setting up MotionEye, ask yourself what cameras you’ll need. The good news is that you don’t need to lay out hundreds of pounds on expensive cameras to populate your surveillance system. Motionworks with a wide range of cameras and video devices, including USB webcams, video capture cards and – crucially – a wide range of wireless IP security cameras. You can even breathe new life into old phones and tablets by turning them into IP cameras.

We recommend setting up your Docker script in a text editor to make it easy to tweak and redeploy when required.