Homekit Secure Video

I replaced a Tapo camera with an Eve camera, and the latter uses Homekit Secure Video instead of streaming my front door to a server in Huizhou.

Eve Outdoor Cam

The camera I bought was an "Eve Outdoor Cam", which is by all accounts identical to every other outdoor home security camera on the market. But here's the useful specifics the manufacturer and sellers put right at the bottom of the description:

• It comes with a wall-mount, you'll want a masonry drill bit.
• It comes with Wago lever connectors, and takes 3-wire mains.
• It uses 2.4GHz wifi.
• On-network streaming is P2P, off-network is bridged via a Homepod/ApTV.
• There is no local storage, your only off-net option is an iCloud subsription.

Obviously, that last two will be a deal breaker for some. In iOS 16.2 Apple added "Advanced data protection for iCloud". Which is 'end-to-end' encryption for iCloud, and provided you have an iCloud plan, your camera recordings are included. Of course, you also need either that Homepod or Apple TV to do the encryption. I do think the Apple TV is actually the best TV-box-thing going right now, incidentally.

I categorically do not believe Apple when they say it's end-to-end. I don't trust anything they say when it comes to privacy. But, these cameras aren't in my house - they're just at the entrances. I'm already getting caught on my neighbours front-door camera when I leave and come home. To a point, GCHQ and the NSA have already won.

Apple Home

Apple Home is kind of shite. There's odd bugs all over the place. My camera's date picker has the correct date, but the wrong weekday. This has apparently been a bug from day-one.

Some stuff is difficult to find. I have door/window sensors (hall-effect), but to see which doors/windows are open, I either need to go into 'security', then 'activity history' and parse the list of events, or go through each room individually. Just show me an overview please. The key point of these products is to tell what you've left open on the way out the door.

It isn't the worst interface in the world. But man, it doesn't feel remotely polished.

Airplay Update

I turned on IGMP Proxying, and now everything seems to work. Which I suppose makes some sense? Well, not really. Everything on the home network is untagged. I suppose the Alta access points might be doing something - but they're just as opaque as Apple.