This was posted 10 months 12 days ago, and might be an out-dated deal.

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iCloud+ with Apple HomeKit Secure Video from $1.49/Month 50GB, $4.49/Month 200GB @ Apple

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iCloud+ with Apple HomeKit Secure Video from $1.49/Month 50GB, $4.49/Month 200GB @ Apple
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miasommers on 10/02/2024 - 16:51 apple.com (1578 clicks)
Last edited 12/02/2024 - 13:45 by 2 other users

As you’ve probably heard, Ring (doorbells, security cameras, etc) have increased their monthly fees for recording. Their plans are now $4.95/month for one device and $15.95/month for more devices).

People assume Apple is overpriced, but when it comes to recording and storing video, Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video (HKSV), is actually cheaper, plus it reportedly has better privacy features compared to Ring, et al.

If you have one video source (ie a video doorbell like the sweet Aqara G4 which is $239 delivered at Amazon or $259 direct from Apple ) then it runs natively in the Apple Home app and you can have unlimited video storage for that one device. It doesn’t even contribute to the 50GB of iCloud space included in the iCloud+ plan and best of all it’s only $1.49/month vs Ring’s $4.95)

You can have up to five cameras if you sign up to the 200GB+ iCloud plan which is $4.49/month vs Ring’s $15.95/month.

No additional apps to install. It just all runs natively on your Apple gear.

As an aside, having even the cheapest iCloud+ subscription is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to have a custom domain email address ([email protected]), as it’s included in any iCloud+ subscription.

FWIW I’ve been running this for a couple of years and it’s integrated into the Apple TV and HomePods perfectly. When the doorbell is pressed a Picture in Picture (PIP) of the person at the door pops up on all of the Apple TVs in the home and the Apple HomePods announce the name of the person at the door. Pretty cool - and not very expensive.

Hopefully hopefully to someone 😊

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  • Leho on 10/02/2024 - 16:53
    +18

    Been this way for ages - use Scrypted to bring rtsp cams into homekit, free nvr and storage :)

    • miasommers on 10/02/2024 - 16:54
      +2

      Absolutely. Whenever I tell friends and family who whinge about Ring doorbell costs they’re always pleasantly surprised. Often they already have an AppleTV and HomePod, so it all works seamlessly for them.

      • J B S on 10/02/2024 - 17:04

        So to do this with my ring doorbell/Google nest hubs do I need RasPI to run homebridge and my MacBook Pro to set it all up? I don’t want the hassle of getting a RasPi to integrate it, is there an easier way?

        To use Scrypted do I need a dedicated pc to run it, I’m a bit confused with it all

        • miasommers on 10/02/2024 - 17:05
          +1

          I used to run HomeAssistant to do this. But ended up selling my Ring doorbell and just getting the Aqara G4 which runs natively on Apple HomeKit. So much easier in my opinion!

          • J B S on 10/02/2024 - 17:08

            @miasommers: Yeah that’s what I thought. Ive got a ring doorbell, ring outdoor camera and 4 nest hub max’s so its not going to be a cheap exercise for me unfortunately so I can’t really go down the Aqara route

    • OzBerghainer on 10/02/2024 - 19:38
      +4

      Yep Self-hosted is the way to go. Personally run Frigate NVR on Unraid, ties in with the rest of my plex server storage. AI object detection and unlimited configuration, all open source. Got my GPU (that's dedicated for Plex transcoding) to decode & encode the rtsp feeds, as well as the AI detection through a tensorrt model.

  • huggle on 10/02/2024 - 17:11
    +1

    My Arlo Doorbell only works like 20% with Scrypted and HomeKit, it doesn’t trigger motion sensor nor record video. Still don’t know how to fix it

    • miasommers on 10/02/2024 - 17:14
      +1

      I found my old ring doorbell was fairly reliable with HomeAssistant. There wasn’t a major issue. I just got to an age where I thought, it’s probably easier just to go native devices and tbh I’m happy with it.

  • atj on 10/02/2024 - 17:16
    +10

    As an aside, having an iCloud+ subscription is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to have a custom domain email address ([email protected]), as it’s included in any iCloud+ subscription.

    If you do this don't use an @icloud.com (or @mac.com or @me.com) email associated with the same Apple ID with your domain registrar. Should something happen to your Apple ID you don't want to make it difficult to recover your domain too.

  • Gumbootboy on 10/02/2024 - 17:19
    +1

    "Apple HomePods announce the name of the person at the door" - what? how?

    • miasommers on 10/02/2024 - 17:23
      +4

      There are two ways:

      1. Within the Home App you click on the camera and choose face recognition. You then see thumbnails of all your visitors. You give them and name and it then uses that info to announce when they return. My regular Amazon guy even gets a mention 😂

      2. Link your Apple Home account to Apple Photos and it uses that data around who is labelled as who in your photos to announce who is at the door.

    • apoy98 on 11/02/2024 - 11:57
      +2

      Can a security camera be setup to Push this announcement to my fone if a particular person is seen without pressing a doorbell?

      Think violation of restraining orders

  • Floydthebarber on 10/02/2024 - 17:31
    +1

    I’m about to move into our new house and want to set up HomeKit with my Apple TV’s.
    Does anyone know of a good resource for researching smart home things?
    Cameras/locks/doorbells etc

    • miasommers on 10/02/2024 - 17:33
      +2

      Lots on reddit r/homekit

      I also like https://homekitnews.com/

      • Floydthebarber on 10/02/2024 - 17:36

        Awesome thanks!
        Got some research to do

    • Leho on 10/02/2024 - 17:55
      +4

      homeassistant for devices
      scrypted for cameras + doorbells

      automations done through homeassistant, control done via homeassistant OR homekit

      works incredibly well for years for me

      also move as much as you can to zigbee with zigbee2mqtt OR zha, you will realise wifi devices are shit

      (feel free to pm me if you need help, i have a huge smart home setup)

    • J B S on 10/02/2024 - 18:01

      FYI List of devices that are natively compatible with Apple home:

      (https://www.apple.com/au/home-app/accessories)

    • Gmaster on 10/02/2024 - 22:21

      Loving my Aqara Indoor Camera E1 for monitoring the dog. Works with Apple HomeKit Secure Video beautifully - stores the last 10 days on iCloud. The pet detection is sweet! Sign up to the Aqara Australia newsletter and you'll get a discount code and free shipping

      • Floydthebarber on 11/02/2024 - 12:12

        Do you have any other Aqara products?
        Currently using Arlo Pro 2 cameras and not really liking the functionality/smarts.
        Plus it costs me $12pm at the moment

        • Gmaster on 11/02/2024 - 14:23

          Don't have any other Aqara products at the moment.
          One of the main things that drove me to the E1 camera is the flexibility of data. You can use the camera standalone without the Aqara Hub, and have the choice of live stream only, recording to iCloud, Aqara paid cloud storage, or recording to an internal 512GB microSD card.
          I personally hate the idea of paying for yet another subscription service in 2024.

  • 1Kenobi on 10/02/2024 - 17:57

    Thanks

  • kgree92 on 10/02/2024 - 18:26

    I tried to set up ring with scrypted through apple home app but it just doesnt work seamlessly. So much lag

    • seniordoc on 25/02/2024 - 08:45

      could you tell me how to ling Ring doorbell to Apple iCloud, and show it in Amazon Echo display?
      Thank you.

  • bcYield on 10/02/2024 - 18:36

    Is homebridge still working and recording?

    • miasommers on 10/02/2024 - 19:05
      +1

      I’m not sure sorry. I did have it working pretty well a few years ago but felt like it was easier to buy a HomeKit compatible doorbell and cut out the middleman.

  • prodrome on 10/02/2024 - 18:46
    +1

    Thanks Op. Bought 1.

    Ring sucks btw. Pops up late most of the time.

    • miasommers on 10/02/2024 - 18:48
      +1

      Agreed! We have done a few experiments with our setup and the button pressing on the doorbell to showing up on all the Apple TV time/ding dong is less than a second!

    • idonotknowwhy on 10/02/2024 - 20:34
      +1

      Yep, I (profanity) up buying Ring. Motion Detected -> if I'm lucky I see the back of the postie leaving my doorstep, otherwise it's just ghost parcels appearing.

      Wish I'd joined the cult (Apple) 6 months earlier…

  • mini_wombat on 10/02/2024 - 18:53

    Sounds like a great idea. Still have a old Ring doorbell (V1) which seems pretty slow. Only think I like it the picture on the Alexa devices. I wonder if it is possible to have the Apple recording and announcing and the picture on the Alexa at the same time (I don;t have my TV on all the time and to see a pic of the door on a smaller always on screen (like the Alexa or Google) is handy. Not sure if this works.

  • tedzozb on 10/02/2024 - 18:55
    -2

    Stick with my PoE hard drive.

    • Leho on 11/02/2024 - 02:12
      -1

      idk about you but i've never heard of a poe hard drive. perhaps you mean an nvr with internal hard drive, with a poe output for the camera?

  • Skatez on 10/02/2024 - 19:00
    +1

    Awesome tips thanks Mia.

    • miasommers on 10/02/2024 - 19:11
      +1

      You’re welcome!

  • damonism on 10/02/2024 - 19:28
    +1

    If you have a Unifi setup with Unifi cameras and Unifi Protect (which already means you have more money than sense), Scrypted/HKSV is awesome. Replaced a bunch of cheap Chinese cameras with Unifi G5 cameras and it had been absolutely flawless. Alerts and streaming is pretty much real time. I have Scrypted running on a Synology DS918 on Docker, and it’s dead simple to set up from there.

    An expensive option, but if you’re an OzBargainer you’re no doubt getting all this stuff when it’s cheap anyway.

    • meowsers on 10/02/2024 - 23:00

      Our neighbours must think we are crazy because we got a G4 PTZ as an evaluation unit. Finally has auto tracking to make us seem extra creepy. Have also added an AI360 out back but you need a special viewer for that ie the rtsp stream seems a bit funky. The rest are G4 Pros in 4k with a UDM Pro and of course battery backup / failover WAN2 to an LTE router with dual sims.

      • L45er on 11/02/2024 - 06:41
        +2

        Can also proxy non-unifi cameras into Protect using this > https://github.com/keshavdv/unifi-cam-proxy.

        Im running a unifi network but have synology surveillance station as NVR (24/7 local recording) with Hikvision PoE cameras. Then using Home Assistant with Scrypted addon to feed those cameras into HomeKit Secure Video. Scrypted has a Synology plugin.

      • djz on 11/02/2024 - 13:23

        Wow, how did you manage to get the G4 PTZ as an evaluation unit? Those things are a couple of grand aren’t they?

  • atlas on 10/02/2024 - 20:54

    Do you get these video storage benefits if your iCloud+ account is from India?

    • DrKB108 on 10/02/2024 - 21:17

      Yes

  • Maxdax on 10/02/2024 - 22:15
    +2

    Showing me $4.49 for 200gig - what am I doing wrong ?

    • Pixel Spam on 10/02/2024 - 23:04
      +1

      Are you already on the $1.49/50gb plan? It doesn’t show the plan your currently on.

      • Maxdax on 11/02/2024 - 06:52

        Yes I’m on that plan - how to get this 200gig, cancel that first ?

  • Farrba on 11/02/2024 - 06:03
    +2

    whats the option for eufy cams?

  • PopCounty on 11/02/2024 - 07:04
    +3

    Why someone would report this deal? Unbelievable.

  • chrig on 11/02/2024 - 10:20
    +1

    Can you use this for normal storage? Such as phone backup?

    • Skatez on 11/02/2024 - 10:26

      That is the main purpose of ICloud. It backs up all your photos and other stuff on your iPhone or iPad. You get the basic 50gb package for free and then it’s about $5 a month to upgrade to 200gb and so on if you wanted even more.
      Edit 50gb is $1.50. I thought I had some amount for free at the beginning. Maybe 20gb or something.

      • DoctorCalculon on 11/02/2024 - 10:49

        Maybe 20gb or something.

        A measly 5GB per month <— the free plan.

        • Skatez on 11/02/2024 - 14:35

          Thanks. Yeah it didn’t last too long before I upgraded it.

  • TheMatrix on 11/02/2024 - 11:22

    I am quite new to this. See if I get this right: I have iCloud subscription (2TB), Ring video (4 of them actually). To connect Ring to Apple Home I need to run Scrypted on a Raspberry Pi (or something similar) then use Scrypted to connect Ring video to Apple Home. After this , I can use Apple Home to answer my Ring Door bell and record video events to iCloud (without needing a Ring subscription). This is right ? Many thanks.

    • DoctorCalculon on 11/02/2024 - 11:56

      connect Ring video to Apple Home

      Any camera / door bell with RTSP and/or ONVIF support should work with Scrypted.
      Scrypted then becomes the "magic sauce" for HomeKit connectivity.

  • Daabido on 12/02/2024 - 18:49
    +1

    Simpler solution;
    https://youtu.be/fkUNokNnD38

  • seniordoc on 15/02/2024 - 18:42

    I have a ring doorbell 4. I just join icloud+. However I don't know how to use it to store the video. I don't want to pay the Ring's monthly fee (or pay a bit less)
    Can anyone give a step to step instruction, how to store the Doorbell video locally or iCloud+?
    Many thanks.

    • mini_wombat on 10/03/2024 - 16:40

      The ring doorbell does not support Apple HomeKit Secure Video. Not possible out of the box.

  • jm_928 on 03/03/2024 - 13:36

    Has anyone been able to record footage from Arlo wireless cameras this way. I have mine connected to HomeKit and can view them live and get activity notifications, but can’t see options to record or person detection.

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