My partner and I have a trip planned in about 1.5 weeks, bur cat is unfortunately sickly right now. I’m tasked with setting up a couple of webcams in her favorite spots so we can check on her while we’re away.
Currently we have 1 basic webcam, two functioning Linux desktops, a couple old hard drives i don’t need, a domain name I have grand plans for but have never used, and enough experience with docker and self hosting to be dangerous.
If you were to set up a quick and dirty pet cam with a minimal budget and about a week to buy everything and get it all set up, how would you go about it? I really want a solution requires as little fiddling and config as possible.
I know I’ll need at least one more webcam, and I’ve been researching NVR software all night only to arrive back at idk-what-I’m-doing after hours of reading. I could potentially stretch my budget up to something like a Qnap TS-216G (which is as close to a good solution as I’ve found) since I’ve been wanting to buy a NAS anyways. The QVR software suite seems like a nice solution for easy setup, but I really dont need any advanced AI features. Even basic stuff like motion detection and video storage I could do without, although they would be nice to have.
I’ve never made any services available from outside of my LAN either. From what I’ve read in the past, Tailscale may be the simplest solution for that, but idk if it’s suitable for this type of application.
Summarized TL;DR:
Trip > Cat
Sometimes you gotta cancel to be a good human. I’ve done it before.
Im gonna shit on your self hosting journey here for a bit. I’m sorry.
There is a reason sick people are in a location where people are close by to be able to react fast if shit hits the fan. What are you gonna do when you see your cat not moving at her favorite spot for too long? When are you gonna be sure she needs help? Then you call someone close by that needs 20 min to get there? And then another 30 to get to a vet? Does someone have a key to you apartment? Are they authorized to spend whatever at the vet?
Keep your ass at home and save the money until your cat is healthy again. Or give her into care so she is safe and not alone like any social animal like cats should not be for extended periods of time.
Respectfully, this.
How are you feeding this cat, while you are gone?
Get someone to take care of the cat while you are away. Either relatives, friends or some kennel/petcamp. You will feel better knowing the cat is in good hands if it’s condition should worsen and the cat will feel safe.
This is not really a technology question. I would pull a favor and see who can check in on your car/live in/take it in. I have a ton of animals and it’s hard to get people that don’t bail out so I resort to questionable people that are pretty much homeless and we’re 100bucks goes a long ways. Or pull a favor from family
You could install ZoneMinder and set it up with your webcam. It will do recording and basic motion detection. You don’t have to mess with any docker stuff, it just needs a recent version of Debian or Ubuntu. If you want to access it from a phone, I would suggest using the zmNinja app since the web UI sucks on mobile.
Some actual CCTV IP cameras would be better than a webcam if you can still find any that provide an RTSP stream and don’t require any of that cloud crap.
Honestly, if you only have a week to go, might be easier to just get some Reolink cams and set those up. Jumping through hoops to use desktops with webcams is more work than you need.
