this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io
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I am all for local however my biggest issues with video doorbells tends to be the field of view, image quality and operating temperature ranges.
I live in a climate where +30C and -20C will happen at least for a few days a year and quite often I have seen doorbells just go offline below when it gets cold outside or physically degrade in the heat.
I want a highly durable device. These ESPCam devices kinda have crap optics, I want to clearly identify people in the dark.
I'm surprised I haven't heard more of this (makes me think its impossible), but I feel like the ideal world is buying big tech's hardware and overriding its firmware/software to talk to home assistance locally. I saw a post recently about someone making an google nest speaker work with home assistance and they really just made their own speaker and shoved it in a nest mini body. I like the hardware I have, I just wish I had more control over it, and sadly I don't know nearly enough to mess with firmware myself.
The newest reolink doorbell comes close on most counts but it isn't rated cold enough and the RTSP stream requires specific firmware updates to be stable with home assistant / frigate.
When I was still playing with it and it was sitting on my desk I did notice that it ran a bit warm. Not hot enough to be a concern but now you have me thinking it might be an advantage in cooler climates. The lack of a battery makes me less concerned about cold as well. I've only had it a few months but it seems far more reliable than the Ring doorbell I'd been using previously. I do have it rebooting nightly but I haven't had to touch it in months. Winters here don't often go below 0F anymore. I guess I'll see how it goes.