I’m looking to buy some security cameras for my mother in law. I currently have a small server with plenty of storage at my place that I’d prefer to use on at least a temporary basis to keep costs down. Are there any self hostable cameras that support a built in VPN? I currently use tailscale for my network but I’m open to learning something else. Alternatively, can they run over a tailscale subnet router? I don’t use that yet but if I could place a cheap node in her place to help her access footage and my other services via subnet routing I’ll do that too.
I did this using a router to handle traffic for about a year between sites 240 miles apart. The only downside was it used a lot of bandwidth. Maybe it can be done with some IP cameras, but I expect they’d be expensive commercial models. OpenWRT compatible routers can be dirt cheap.
If your MIL’s router supports OpenWRT or you can replace it with one that does, you can use a VPN and PBR (Policy Based Routing) to your home router or server and do exactly what you want with any camera that supports RSTP (Real Time Streaming Protocol). That includes most cheap wired TP-Link cameras and plenty of others. PBR on the router at your MIL’s home would be used to route all traffic from camera IP addresses to your server.
I used Frigate software and Home Assistant for occupancy detection/alerts and Wireguard for transport. It worked perfectly but I eventually got around to adding 2nd server.