We have a simple home(1 floor. 1bath. 2rooms) We live in a calm neighborhood, we don’t own extremely expensive things. And he wants a camera inside our home? For what? This camera can also record audio. We have a child together, we work and we come home. Why do we neeed a camera inside? I feel like it’s an invasion of privacy! I love being silly inside our home. I love yelling. I love singing annoyingly when I’m alone. Should I feel disrespected? Should he feel disrespected? He’s bringing out the “what do you have to hide card”.
See a counselor together. There’s obviously something causing a trust issue, and it’s probably completely minor. A counselor can help you sort it out. My wife and I saw one years ago and it was awesome. We’re on a great path now but often I wish we still saw one with some regularity.
Your analogy about the phone is spot on. You’re not doing anything wrong but do you really want someone seeing your search history about “how long do hemorrhoids last?” Hell nah.
This question belongs in r/relationships I think.
I had the desire for cameras inside and outside cause live in not the worst but not the greatest area. My SO had no real issues with it so we went for it. A few weeks later I noticed myself going into a deep state of depression and it took me a while to realize that the inside cameras was making me very uneasy, feeling like I was being watched. Being a veteran with PTSD there were likely other things that contributed and made the matter even worse but really I felt like I wasn’t even living in my own home. I started tip-toeing, opening/closing doors slowly, and being as quiet as possible just for example. In retrospect this all feels a little dramatic but beforehand I never considered any of that being a possibility and it ended up making me feel a way I didn’t like of course. You need to talk with (not “at”) your SO about what they want and why they want it and then express your concerns whether that’s your feelings, emotions, safety, and/or something different with your SO. Discuss how there could be impacts not yet realized too. There is compromise here if some level of psychological safety is practiced on both ends.
I understand OPs hesitations.
I have done the following
- camera firmwares have been tweaked and are now local only and stream to my Home Server and all other access from other devices is blocked
- external access only via VPN. No Apps, no cloud etc
- notifications are sent over the cloud but hold only an alert, no Screenshots
- cameras are turned off when me or my partner are within 100m of our home. I did this with a simple USB switch so the cameras are getting no power at all.
- persistent notifications Camera On on different devices.
- using a good Firewall and a SIEM to monitor devices, traffic and access.
Maybe OP would be OK with a similar setup. I had wanted to use cams for presence and person detection but my partner vetoed that pretty quick.
I have found great relief being able to remotely connect and make sure things are ‘OK’. For example, we were away during a tornado. Another time, my hot water heater leak alarm went off, I was able to log in and verify that it was a false alarm.
Out of respect for my partner, I keep the mics off, unless I specifically turn them on to check.
I am a professional CCTV installer and I would recommend against this.
Consumer grade home tech products are way too easy to hack (there are a few darknet diaries episodes about this but a quick Google will show you plenty of examples)
In the rare occasion that we install cameras indoors, we generally wire their video feed via the intruder alarm which means when the alarm is unset (i.e you’re at home) - the camera is off. Not just ‘not being watched’ but completely powered down and disconnected from everything.
I work in the industry and I wouldn’t have one inside.
It would be interesting to know why he wants one, there may be other solutions for him…
Out of curiosity 'cause I’ve been thinking about this stuff for awhile (I’m going to be living alone soon and am a bit scared about it so was thinking of setting up a motion perimeter with human recognition) - what if it was a closed system with no Bluetooth or WiFi based cameras? All wired into a blackbox running a custom built service manager, no WiFi recievers on it, inside a literal locked box.
Still hackable?
If it has a way of connecting to the internet, then it can be hacked - but the risk with this kind of setup is much lower than with commercially available cameras that you can watch via a smartphone app. If you want to be able to view your feeds remotely, that’s where the risk comes in.
How are you going to view the live feed or recordings? If you are planning any kind of remote viewing, you’re going to need the internet and, boom, it’s now hackable. Easy? Maybe, maybe not. But unless you built the whole system yourself, you’re not going to know if any of that equipment has a security hole, or worse still, deliberately has a back door like many cheap Chinese cameras do.
The main way that these cameras get hacked is that they arrive with well-known admin user/pass combinations and use uPNP to request port forwarding on your router. Search engines crawling the web find your camera so it becomes searchable on Google and Shodan which is when it becomes a problem.
Now someone has access to what is essentially a small linux server, often with well-known exploits, sitting inside your network.Following some basic security steps ike changing the admin user/pass, disabling uPNP and blocking external traffic to/from your webcam will greatly reduce the risk.
The next risk comes from buying cameras that are designed to use an app as they’ll call home directly to enable you to connect without setting up port forwading or dynamic DNS. These ones are then at risk of your account and/or their home server being hacked and again gaining access to your camera.
I had multiple cameras indoors (nursery, lounge and kitchen) when our son was born as it allowed either of us to drop-in and say hi without having to disturb the other half e.g. when feeding or in the middle of play. These cameras were all standard IP cameras without fancy apps, on the same network as the rest of my devices but specifically blacklisted for external access in the firewall so only accessible via VPN.
Once he started nursery we took the cameras out of the lounge and his bedroom but left the one in the kitchen to keep an eye on the cooker and back door.
I got a couple cheap ones that call home to some Chinese server. I set them up when traveling to watch certain things. I don’t trust em lol
Then it’s a useless system, though what’s it going to do for you?
If you’re concerned about living alone, and want cameras for security, first of all, you should have a comprehensive security system, and it should be professionally monitored, which means that there does need to be outside access .
The monitoring service will attempt to contact you, and then contact police or fire as appropriate.
alarm systems, generally have off, away, and home modes. In home mode indoor cameras should be disabled.
Outside only I reckon. No need, unless you are away on holiday. Otherwise set it up so it turns off when you are home and only comes on when you leave, so it’s a security camera then. Why does he want it?
There is no way I would agree to that.
Have you asked him why he wants this?
Yeah this would be a hard no from me. People need privacy sometimes. Partners need to respect each other’s privacy. It’s super fucked up to assume that being in a relationship means your partner doesn’t get to have private time or personal space.
Hahaha someone is cheating 😭
talk to him?
This is the wrong subreddit for this. You need to talk to your husband and probably marriage counselling. This is gaslighting from your husband for your very valid concern.
I don’t feel like this is the wrong subreddit. Our subreddit should not only talk about how to enable everything automation, but also about the valid concerns of doing so in some cases.
I don’t think anyone reasonable would say this is not a valid concern. Hence this is a relationship problem, not a tech problem.
You can add as many kill switch as you want, but that doesn’t mitigate the risk of being video in your own home.
I absolutely agree. It is a relationship problem in the end. But what I find quite enlightening about this discussion here is the clear reasoning why it is not a good idea for many reasons. The advantage of “why not” just doesn’t even technically hold up compared to all the problems of “not secure against hacks”, “not really covering classical home security” or “just one person in control” and all the other ones I forgot. If the guy does not listen to his wife’s feelings (which is terrible…), then maybe at least when she has great arguments against it.
I’m going to install one but it’ll be physically off unless I’m not home. It’s only for vacation and trips away. I do mean physically unplugged.
It’s not about what you have to hide. I do not want to watch myself. Not when I’m making Dino noises making espresso. Not when I do something strange like trip over my own feet. Nope hard pass.
Motion detector at best.
Motion detectors won’t tell you that your smoke alarms are going off or which one of your dogs has learned to open the fridge. lol
sounds like you’re just looking for someone to tell you to be offended and that you’re correct. it’s kinda weird, not really the place for that