Brilliant business idea for someone who wants to put in the work:
Make a local Frigate instance accessible to people who don't know how to set up a Docker container, read or write JSON, or log into their home router.
A real CCTV system is more reliable than a cloud-based one.
It's more secure in that you won't be affected by breaches of these cloud services and their partners.
It provides piece of mind that your security camera footage isn't being shared with other companies, or sold to the highest bidder for Lord kniws what (AI training, purchased by law enforcement without your knowledge or consent, extremely creepy data brokers, etc.)
You don't have to worry about some megacorporation jacking up prices or deciding they want to sunset that service.
It has a lot of advantages. The disadvantage is the setup cost. With the commercial cloud junk, they can have the device phone home to their server and have you log in there. Very simple setup.
With Frigate, you have to know Docker, JSON.
And with Frigate or any other CCTV system, you need to know the bizzare RSTP URL that is likely not even documented by the camera manufacturer, the IP address of your cameras, which you also have to set up, and you have to be comfortable logging into your router to do that and heaven forbid that the IP address ever change...
And all of that is for the most basic setup of just having live streams. If you want to record, have motion detection, alerts, object recoginition, or amything fancy, that's an even bigger investment of time and learning about the software.
This experience may be tolerable for geeks, but for the person who wants to go from opening the box to having something that works in 30 minutes, it falls flat on its face.
If there's anyone out there who actually serious about making this a thing, I'd be willing to be your technology partner. I already have scripts to set everything up for myself, it isn't a big deal if I let other people benefit from them. I've got enough projeta going on that I don't want to take on any more, even if they are to support the #FreedomTech cause.
