At Molnix, we recently faced the need to equip an area with security cameras. All of our sites up until now are managed by our providers, including security cameras. However, this new area does not have any. Before we start using the new area, we need our own security camera system. This is the start of an article series, where I describe our journey to having our own, open and trustable security camera system.

This post is part of a series

1. The open security camera project
2. MVP’s for the camera and existing alternatives
3. Scoping hardware options
4. Creating the case
5. Tackling mounting
6. Assembly and installation
7. Software stack
8. Security camera hardware or as a service from Molnix
9. The how-to for DIY people

As a proponent of open source, I first tried to find an existing good open source solution out there. After some searching, it seemed the world is not quite there yet. On the software side the situation is good, but for hardware I found very few options available. And the biggest issues seem to arise when be the combining of the two.

At the time of starting this series, we are about halfways through, so things may very well still change. However, I will try to cover topics in the order that we have gone through them.

Along the way, we have also received commercial interest for whatever the project will result in. Because of this, our goal has become twofold. This is also reflected in the two final parts of the series. The first one targets a commercially viable and available offering from Molnix. The second one shows how to do all of this yourself.

We will carry out the project as close to open source principles as possible. In other words, we will make the code, schematics and documentation available under either Creative Commons – Attribution – Share Alike license or GPLv2 or later license.

Discussion is welcome – the posts in this series will all have commenting enabled.

In the next post, I share the details of my findings when starting the project. Enjoy!