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Stacks / Monitoring

Medium

Frigate

Cameras you run locally. Frigate is MIT — Ring and Nest without the footage in someone else's building.

The problem

Ring and Nest (Google) sell cameras plus a hosted clip vault. You wanted RTSP, local detection, and recordings on a disk you own. Frigate is MIT (NVR + realtime object detection; optional Google Coral). Home Assistant is a common neighbor, not required. This is not Ring's attention-zone SKU, Nest's every doorbell feature, or Immich's photo timeline. A GPU or Coral helps; a tiny Railway container is often the wrong box.

Replaces

Ring / Nest

Replace Ring Replace Nest

Estimated SaaS saved

$1,200

per year, small team, before lock-in

Start on Railway

Immich if this is a camera roll, not an NVR

Sponsor this stack Tip jar

Placeholder: Frigate wants cameras, a large recordings volume, and usually a Coral or GPU. A home NUC or a GPU host is the honest path; Railway is rarely enough. No one-click template in this repo yet — Start on Railway. Photo libraries stay on /stacks/immich-photos.

The stack

Cost table

You stop payingTypical / yearSelf-host instead
Ring / Nest camera vault (household)$1,200Frigate + recordings on a volume

Agent setup prompt

Replace Ring or Nest cameras with Frigate (https://frigate.video).

- RTSP cameras you already have (or buy). Persist config and recordings. Optional Coral/GPU for detection.
- Confirm one camera and one event. Do not claim every Ring/Nest doorbell SKU. Write AGENT_PROMPT.md.
- A photo timeline is /stacks/immich-photos — different job.

Also as markdown: /stacks/frigate-nvr.md

FAQ

Do I keep the Ring/Nest hardware?
Only if it speaks RTSP or you can bridge it. Many vendor cameras are closed. Budget for cameras Frigate documents.
Why not Immich?
Immich is a phone camera roll (/replace/google-photos). Ring/Nest is live cameras and an NVR. Frigate is that job.