Home cameras yourself: what to choose, how to connect, where to store and not invade others' privacy

Published 2026-11-03 · 9 min read · By the Alian Digital team

Cameras are simple now: buy, screw on, watch on your phone. But that makes it easy to end up with the picture going to someone else's cloud, a password of “12345” and a lens pointing at the neighbour's window. Here is how to do it right.

First answer the question: why

• What exactly you want to see: the door, the yard, a parking space, a child, a warehouse.
• Who needs access: only you, the family, the board.
• How long to keep recordings: a day, a week, a month.
• Whether you need motion alerts or a recording “just in case” is enough.

The answers cut half the unnecessary purchases at once. For a few cameras at home you do not need expensive systems. For a yard and parking with difficult light the choice of the particular camera matters more.

Wi-Fi or PoE

A Wi-Fi camera is convenient because it needs no data cable, but it still needs power, and in a weak-signal area it “stutters”. A PoE camera gets power and data over one Ethernet cable, works stably and does not depend on the radio (more: PoE in plain words). If you are renovating or can run a cable, choose PoE. Keep Wi-Fi for places the cable cannot reach.

What to look for in a camera

• RTSP or ONVIF protocol: it lets you record video to your own device rather than someone else's cloud. Cameras with only a branded cloud app depend on the maker and may stop working if the service closes.
• Resolution: 4 MP is usually enough. More is not always better: a bigger stream, more disk space.
• Night vision: infrared for dark places or “colour night” cameras for lit ones.
• Water and dust protection (IP66 or higher) outdoors.
• H.265 codec: the same picture takes less space.
• Firmware updates: whether the maker releases them.

Separate cameras from the home network

A camera is a small networked computer, and they often have vulnerabilities. Keep them on a separate network (VLAN or guest) that cannot see your laptops and NAS. If cameras store recordings locally they should not have internet access at all: block it on the router. Then even if a camera has a “back door” to a cloud, it cannot use it. More in the article on guest and IoT networks.

• Change the camera password at once: the defaults are known to everyone.
• Turn off P2P and cloud features and UPnP in the camera if it runs locally.
• Do not expose cameras to the internet with port forwarding: use a VPN for remote viewing (see the WireGuard article).
• Update the firmware.

Where to store recordings

• A video recorder (NVR): a separate device, the simplest option.
• A NAS: many NAS devices have built-in surveillance apps.
• Software on a home server: for example together with Home Assistant.
• A memory card inside the camera: fine as a backup, but it is stolen along with the camera.

It is better to choose a disk made for video surveillance: it is rated for constant recording. How much space you need is easy to calculate. One megabit per second is about 10.8 GB per day. So a camera with a 4 Mbit/s stream writes about 43 GB a day, and four such cameras about 170 GB a day, or around 5 TB per month of continuous recording. Recording only on motion saves a lot of space.

Where and how to mount

• Height of about 2.5 to 3 metres: high enough to be out of reach, low enough to see faces.
• Not facing bright light or the sun.
• Protect connectors from water: a sealed box, insulation outdoors, a “drip loop” of cable before it enters the wall so water runs down.
• Under an eave, not in the open, if you have the choice.
• Label the cables and keep a layout diagram.

Privacy: where the lens looks

A camera that films someone else's yard, the neighbours' windows or a shared area may violate people's rights. In an apartment building, installing on shared areas usually needs the approval of co-owners or the board. In a private house point the camera at your own plot. “Privacy masks” in the camera settings, which block out extra zones, often help. Warn people about video surveillance with a sign. The exact requirements depend on the law and the situation, so if in doubt, ask a lawyer.

Typical mistakes

• Cameras with the default password and direct access from the internet.
• All cameras on Wi-Fi in the same network as the computers.
• Recording “everything, always” to a small disk, so the archive lasts only hours.
• The lens looks at the neighbour.
• No checking: the camera stopped recording long ago and you find out when you need it.