Show HN: CheapSecurity – Lightweight, Self-Hosted CCTV for Linux SBCs
by zeldone on 7/26/2026, 3:53:55 PM
https://github.com/gmrandazzo/CheapSecurity
Comments
by:
7/27/2026, 1:57:25 AM
by: synergy20
<p><pre><code> V4L2 (MJPG) -> cap.read() -> CLAHE(night) -> imencode -> _current_frame (web MJPEG) -> resize .25 -> gray -> blur -> absdiff -> contours -> motion? -> motion? VideoWriter.write() : pre_buffer.append(jpeg) -> on stop: ffmpeg remux fps fix -> Telegram/email </code></pre> a mjpeg system basically, all in python but does need opencv
7/27/2026, 1:20:21 AM
by: lormayna
What are the difference with systems like Motion (<a href="https://motion-project.github.io/4.0/motion_guide.html" rel="nofollow">https://motion-project.github.io/4.0/motion_guide.html</a>) ?
7/26/2026, 7:57:19 PM
by: kube-system
My question about this project and the numerous similar projects: where do I get a usb camera suitable for this? Webcams typically have unsuitable enclosures, focus behavior, and low light performance.
7/26/2026, 7:26:27 PM
by: drnick1
What is the difference between this and Frigate? Before clicking the link, I thought this would be a hardware solution (build you own camera from open components).
7/26/2026, 6:54:01 PM
by: mattlondon
How does this handle motion detection? Anyone tried it?<p>I have a bunch of Nest cameras and some cheaper Tapo cameras.<p>The "motion detection" is night and day different. The Tapo does some basic frame-diffing and it's <i>awful</i>. Shadows? DING DING DiNG MOTION DETECTED! gust of wind made some blades of grass move? Motion! Spider? Motion motion motion! Turn down the sensitivity a notch or two and it won't notice a human walk across the frame 2 meters away. The Tapo ones claim to be smart but twigs and leaves still trigger pet/person/motion alerts. It makes them essentially useless.<p>The Nest cameras are so much better and their "human" detected is usually zero-false-negatives at the cost of one or two false-positives perhaps once every 3 or 4 months, and their app is superior (tapo one frequently needs to be false-killed to load clips). Yes I am aware that the nest ones are streaming back to google 24/7.<p>Tldr: naive frame-diffing sucks for this sort of thing if used outside. An open source implementation that has accurate and reliable "human detection" would be amazing. Doesn't need to be "AI" - I would hope that there is some sort of computationally reasonable OpenCV way of doing person detection. Perhaps wait for frame-diffing to flag motion then feed it to a more expensive algorithm?
7/26/2026, 5:35:17 PM
by: serf
`motion` is in the big hall of fame for 'software other things are based on' next to imagemagick and curl.
7/26/2026, 6:54:08 PM
by: ibejoeb
Anyone have camera suggestions? I've got 2 spare raspi 5s that would probably be a good base.
7/26/2026, 4:38:15 PM
by: npodbielski
I always wonder why author of such software will not add some screenshot or gif showing UI and how it does work? In features there is mention of web interface.
7/26/2026, 5:18:10 PM
by: ashish01
[dead]
7/26/2026, 8:51:06 PM