Keith via plug on 12 Jan 2021 12:16:45 -0800


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Re: [PLUG] ZoneMinder / Alternatives


On 1/12/21 1:59 PM, Rich Freeman via plug wrote:
Is anybody using ZoneMinder, or some other FOSS alternative?  I'd be
interested in non-FOSS feedback as well assuming it is entirely
self-hosted.
I've looked at some of the Ring-like devices out there and was
wondering it would just make more sense to go with plain cameras and
self-host.  I have plenty of storage and can easily run a
container/etc, and PoE networking is no big deal with my setup at this
point.  Decent IP cameras seem to be relatively inexpensive if you
dispense with all the cloud services that can be pretty expensive, to
say nothing of the privacy/etc concerns.
Zoneminder is the one piece of software I'm familiar with.  I have
some questions about its capabilities.
Zoneminder (ZM) is what I use at home and also offer as a security solution now.  I'm starting to implement it for a couple of clients who had an immediate need to get out of closed solutions.
Can it alert me in realtime when there is motion in a monitored zone,
both on my phone and on Google Home?  Ie, somebody walks up to the
front door, and a chime sounds throughout the house or something like
that.  It can't happen 20 minutes later.

Yes to all your questions though I can't talk about Google Home. Alerts to your "phone"... that's a bit ambiguous.  You can get those emailed / texted to you but they may be other options. OpenHAB can see ZM alerts so you can assert them that way too or if you wanted, you could use OH to trigger something else is has control of.

You can also use one camera / zone alert to trigger other cameras where it makes sense (i.e. trigger a cam's zone to be able to establish an expanded monitoring of objects passing through a zone or for redundancy when you have have overlapping zone or different viewing angles).  I didn't think this functionality was big deal but it actually is in my environment.

Can it record both events and continuous footage?  Ie can I have just
a loop of continuous footage that maybe lasts a few days, and then
have events with motion/etc tagged and retained for longer?  That way
if motion is missed I can still review the footage while not letting
storage get too out of hand?
Yes to both and I do both type of events.  You can archive events too so that they are not deleted but I haven't done that yet.  If you have the space, I say use it.  YMMV of course, since it depends on you are trying to do in your environment.  My ZM runs on my LizardFS cluster and right now is still in a 1Tb container since I haven't need to expand it yet but I'm sure I will.
For footage does it use anything reasonable codec-wise?  I wouldn't
want something super-inefficient like rtjpeg or whatever if I'm going
to record days of full-frame video.

I'm sure I can go ask on one of their forums but I figured I'd start
here and see if anybody is actually using it and what they think...

Typical codecs... ZM isn't doing x265 yet but it does does x264 pass through which is what I'm using.  Many cams offer MJPEG primary or sub streams but I don't use them.

I will say this...  I'm running it as a VM and I started out with 2 cores / 4Gb RAM and now I'm up to 8 cores with 8Gb RAM.  I have a 720p door intercom and 2 4k color night vision cams so far. Long story short.  ZM need a a good amount of resources.  The busier your system is the more you would probably need, especially if you are running continuous, are normally reviewing events or monitoring the system live.

Using the web interface works on mobile pretty well too unless you a reviewing an event from a continuously recording cam. Desktop there is fine.

I would say, compared to the mainstream offerings out there, ZM offers the same functionality and can do that across a wide array of cameras.  Most security device companies are talking the cloud route and it the implementations are not going well for a myriad of reasons.  I spent almost a year going back and forth with one vendor whose local people just don't get it and that was with me showing them their solution didn't work and where their failure points were.  If you are worried about vendor lock in (you HAVE to with this stuff) and want to truly own your security solution then you have to build it out yourself.  ZM for me is going very well so far.  The two other offerings I know about about are Shinobi (https://shinobi.video/) and Xeoma (https://shinobi.video/... ; not sure this one is actually FOSS).

For what it is worth...  What has been happening to the security industry now, is what happened to the voice industry about 15 years ago.  Its just as bad if not worse.  Its one thing to have to buy new phones and a new pbx- maybe run some new drops for PoE handsets if you don't go the DECT or wifi path.  Its another to have to replace a security system... cameras, NVRs, door strikes, sensors, controls, power units and get that all to play nice. More products are coming out all the time to help make it easier to deploy complete and capable systems.

--
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Keith C. Perry, MS E.E.
Managing Member, DAO Technologies LLC
(O) +1.215.525.4165 x2033
(M) +1.215.432.5167
www.daotechnologies.com

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