IP Security camera's that support OpenWrt?

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

Hi all,

To my surprise I saw some security camera's in the ToH. From there I was wondering if there are any outside (dome) IP camera's that would support OpenWRT. Especially, since there is supposed to be some software in (OpenWRT!) which can send out a video feed already!

2

Isn't she whole point with surveillance cameras, to send out a video feed?

3

Changed the post, the idea is that the IP camera runs OpenWRT.

4

See https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_minimal_all?dataflt[Device+Type*~]=cam for Cameras which are supported by OpenWrt.

5

My guess is the OP would like to run something open-source rather than a mystery-meat distro from Shenzhen. So would I: I have a few of these things and I have to keep them on an exclusive firewalled VLAN and pull the video off them with RTSP using careful rules. It'd be nice not to have to be quite so paranoid, maybe even let the camera write directly to the NAS.

1 Like
6

ding ding ding, exactly what I meant... and it's so sad this is the status quo.

Any idea how difficult it would be to port OpenWRT to some generic Hikvision (or whatever brand)? What kind of chips are they using? I did some searching, but can't really find any info on it. Who knows... maybe some have a well-known chip!

7

Not Hikvision, but an example for Dahua:

8

The esp32-cam might actually come close (despite there not being any chance of OpenWrt support), respectively a RPi-0w v2 (which could be supported by OpenWrt).

Obviously neither of them would be turnkey solutions (nor anything like a dome camera by itself), but at least there is full driver support available.

The problems just are:

  • the supported devices are old - and no longer for sale
  • the existing 'modern' replacements aren't supported and may never be (proprietary camera drivers/ video acceleration, non-mainline supported SOCs, probably not even wireless drivers (hisilicon)
  • the diy solutions are lacking in terms of casing, ruggedness or video quality (video sensor and lenses) - and require quite some diy to work sufficiently well (especially on the powersaving side)

Both of the later options are solvable, but not in a fortnight.

1 Like
9

@tmomas see now that is interesting. Apparently, it's rather common to have a HiSilicon chip in it (post is from a year ago, so at least I am hopeful those are still available haha). I did came across the following project: https://openipc.org/ . They do support HiSilicon. So maybe steps could be as follows: (1) hunt down a cam with HiSilicon (2) merge some of the drivers from the OpenIPC project into OpenWRT (never done something like this, let me know if this is more complicated than it seems to be) and we are golden!

This might help: https://kojenov.com/2020-09-15-hisilicon-encoder-vulnerabilities/#firmware-analysis

@slh good points, I considered a RPI too, but indeed (like you said) the casing and ruggedness are a thing. Even another solution could be to take a analog camera, convert it to USB, connect it to the PI and then put OpenWRT on it....

Update:

This is a thing too: https://www.openhisiipcam.org/

Maybe a model that could work: https://www.hisilicon.com/en/products/smart-vision/public-security/IPC/Hi3516EV300
(CPU: Arm Cortex-A7@ 900 MHz, 32 KB I-Cache, 32 KB D-Cache/128 KB L2 cache )