OUR EXPERT
Matt Holder has been a fan of the open source methodology for over two decades and uses Linux and other tools where possible.
This tutorial will look at some of the open source solutions that are available to self-host CCTV recording, playback and analysis in your own home. In this way, we can remove reliance on third-party services that charge a recurrent fee for a subscription service. Many services have moved to a subscription model in recent years and the amount spent on these soon adds up. The bulk of the article will cover the usage of Frigate, but other options will also be discussed.
Frigate (https://frigate.video) made its debut in 2019. What makes the software interesting is that it uses Google’s TensorFlow to categorise what’s causing motion. The software can also be configured to only store motion events attributed to certain things, such as people or cars. Frigate has a modern-looking web interface for the viewing of live cameras, events and for the export of footage.
Configuration takes place using a YAML file, where all aspects of the setup is configured, including camera addition, retention times, motion settings and adding zones to the footage. Frigate supports a wide range of camera output types and uses ffmpeg to grab the footage for processing. doesn’t support pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras , but has brilliant support for home automation.
