Partly because of your help, I now have a pretty decent HA set-up with lights and motion sensors. I was wondering if I could again pick your brain/ experience with the next step I need to take: add a camera.
A few days ago I bought a TAPO camera, and to my disappointment it was practically impossible to get it working without an app + account. Luckily I could return it.
I now want to avoid making the same mistake 😬 And I would love to hear how you approached this.
I would second reolink. I have all POE cameras including the doorbell. Love them, the HA integration is fantastic and they have no internet at all. Separate vlan with only access to HA, no DNS, nothing else. No need for an account, just plug it in and connect it to WiFi.
I’m clearly a noob in all of this, but don’t these things contradict each other: “PoE cameras” and “connect it to the wifi”?
yes and no. POE doesn’t have to be exclusive, you can also charge them via normal cable. In my case, for example, I don’t have them connected to ethernet but to wifi.
Ha correct they do, in my case. I meant to say POE. All my cameras are hard wired into my switch via an Ethernet cable so they are powered by my network switch. After that it automatically gets an IP address and you can browse to the webpage if it supports that. If you want to have it integrate well with HA make sure to double check the models work with HA first.
So they’re connected to the network, but only the network inside the house (think LAN), so no internet
But are they connected to the router with an ethernet cable (which is what PoE implies, if I understand it correctly) or through wifi?
PoE implies Power Over Ethernet. It just implies it gets power from an Ethernet cable. It doesn’t imply connection to the wider Internet.