I have a LaView LV-N9808C8E. It is quite a bit outdated, so I would not recommend that model, as the web interface requires Silverlight and the iOS app doesn’t work on the latest iOS.

BUT, it is basically an offline NVR with 1TB harddrive that records continuously from my 6 ip cameras (all wired with PoE directly to the NVR). I think this model supports up to 8 cameras.

Then, on my home server I run frigate with a Coral USB to pull the rtsp streams and do object detection. When objects are detected, the screenshots are sent to Home Assistant for alerts.

This gives me good real time notifications and nothing is exposed to the internet or any 3rd parties.

If I want to watch real time camera feeds, and I can use my wireguard vpn + vlc to watch an individual camera via rtsp (I used to be able to use the iOS LaView app when on my vpn, but it no longer works). If I need to go back and look at recordings, since the LaView NVR is continuously recording, I can go back and pull video directly from the device for the last few days.

This is where tools like bubblewrap (bwrap) come in. For opencode, I heavily limit what it can see and what is has access to. No access to my ssh keys or aws credentials or anything else.