...a free, open source app that watches your driveway, your porch, your garage, entirely on hardware you already own. No cloud. No subscription. No footage anyone else can request.

September 14, 2026 | Yasir Ai @AiwithYasir

[ransomnote]

Yasir Ai

@AiwithYasir

·
10h

Amazon Ring has a serious problem, and it doesn't cost a dollar.

It's called Frigate: a free, open source app that watches your driveway, your porch, your garage, entirely on hardware you already own. No cloud. No subscription. No footage anyone else can request.

It's built by Blake Blackshear, and it's been quietly becoming the go-to alternative for people who got tired of renting access to their own front door.
Here's the math Ring doesn't want you doing:

You: "How much is Ring Protect Pro?"
Ring: "$20 a month. $200 a year. Per house."

You: "What do I actually get for that?"
Ring: "Cloud storage. Also, we paid the FTC $5.8 million in 2023 after employees and contractors accessed customer videos without consent."

You: "What does Frigate cost?"
Frigate: "Nothing. It runs locally. Your footage never leaves your house."

Ring sells you the camera. Then rents you access to your own footage, every month, indefinitely.

Frigate just gives it to you.

100% open source (MIT license).
100% local.
100% yours.

The smart camera industry bet you'd keep paying rent on hardware you already bought.
Free, local alternatives are quietly proving that bet wrong.

'

September 14, 2026

[bak3r]

I’ve been using frigate for a couple years now. Highly recommend.

[time4good]

Just today got my new Gigabyte X870E Elite X3D w 9900X loaded with ProxMox and moved my Windows underneath on its own nvme and the next thing about to install is Frigate to talk to my Amcrest cameras finally. Family and former colleagues - all like me - software developers, love Frigate. Total control and privacy - no sucking my video like Bling/Ring/Google/Amcrest, etc. Can’t want to try that Eufy.

[time4good]

And I learned from Claude that Frigate can run in its own container under ProxMox - very thin.

[KevinB]

Eufy has no subscription fees. Just buy the devices and you’re done. I have a bunch of them. Everything is stored locally.

[NurdlyPeon]

My dog has recently implemented a new three-point security protocol for our house:
Be
Aware,
Reconnoiter,
Klaxon

[central_va]

Dogs are great security alarm systems. It is the off switch that needs work.

[Does so]

“Just buy the devices and you’re done.”
.
How does that work? I dont have Wi-Fi.

[KevinB]

How does that work? I dont have Wi-Fi.

All the Eufy devices connect to wifi so you do need that. I'm curious why you don't have wifi. If you have internet, which you obviously do because you're posting here, all you need is an inexpensive wifi router to have wifi.

[muir_redwoods]

“ Just today got my new Gigabyte X870E Elite X3D w 9900X loaded with ProxMox…”

I tried everything but Google Translate won’t touch that 😜

[Billthedrill]

It's an ATX MOBO with PCIe 5.0 and it supports DDR5 and a Ryzen 9K CPU. What could be clearer?

Kidding...

[cyclotic]

We have a couple cameras at. my mother in laws house. She’s in assisted living and the home is unoccupied except when we or brother in law come.

It’s nice to be able to see if there are any visitors or intruders.

[Ken Regis]

Thanks— I’ll take a look-see at Frigate.

I have a dozen cameras -only two on wifi. Ten wired. I found that Ethernet cables bring more reliability.

I’ve been using Netcam Studio and my own NAS to a very long time.

NCS notifies me when it detects activity and I store three days of motion clips for most of the cameras.

NCS dropped its iOS app a couple years ago - I temporarily lost remote viewing but got it back with “IPCams” app (which handles my variety of camera makes models very well. )

The entire surveillance network is local, behind a firewall and is its own VLAN (unifi).

[Organic Panic]

I have a big ram who is quite suspicious of visitors.

[mowowie]

i was reading somewhere that you can repurpose old cellphones into motion detecting security cameras

[eastexsteve]

There are lots of good IP cameras out there. And, the best software I’ve found to run them all is I-Spy. And, it’s free. I’m still running the older version 64-7.2.6.0 and I’ve used it for years.

[fini]

"Dogs are great security alarm systems. It is the off switch that needs work."

Don't forget to keep your Kibbles subscription up to date.

[LimitedPowers]

I can do the same thing with Eufy. All my data is stored on my devices.

I hear a lot of good stuff comes from Shenzhen.

[LimitedPowers]

"Dogs are great security alarm systems. It is the off switch that needs work."

I hear geese are pretty good. Of course, it helps if one is at home during the "incident."

[nuconvert]

Ltr

[DugwayDuke]

Ring cameras are also made in China