DaveInSavannah
n3wb
Hello everyone! I'm a low voltage contractor who intermittently installs and services camera systems for my existing commercial customers. Most of my customers are small retail environments with a single dedicated DVR/NVR. I've been selling mostly LTS branded Hikvision equipment, but I get called out to service a variety of systems from cheap walmart boxed systems up to 130 camera dinosaur aged systems in department stores. Most of my installs are HD-TVI cameras due to their price point and ease of troubleshooting.
I spend a lot of time dealing with ever cycling new managers, 3rd party firewall services, corporate IT rules, surprise 3rd party installed network upgrades, carried grade NAT, wonky mobile apps, outdated web servers, and GUI interfaces with broken English instructions. I tend to not bill enough for dealing with those issues when onsite for quoted installs, and I don't ever bill for one-off support phone calls. What I would like to do is introduce a monthly billing plan to my customers that revolves around that remote connectivity and support, and use that income to create some infrastructure.
My ideal goal would be putting together something like what company X offers. They install their own CentOS based NVR or add an Intel Nuc on to an existing dedicated DVR. I was intrigued by the Nuc addon since you can introduce some security and ease of accessibility to an older existing camera system. Both the Nuc and the CentOS NVR auto dial home to their company server. This allows customers to have one simple remote access point via web page or mobile app for any of their camera systems. The interface is very stripped down for end user level of control. It also means that company X isn't relying on 3rd party servers or questionable software that the camera manufacturer threw together.
I do have a small homelab with a couple of older Dell Poweredge servers running Proxmox for testing purposes. I'm not adverse to renting more reliable/secure server space if needed. I also have a retired software engineer family member eager to pitch in. Please note that this is not for remote backup or constant remote streaming. I need a simple and standardized end user interface for when a store owner needs to review an incident and I need some remote diagnostics for when they call me with a problem.
What kinds of remote services are you offering now to your customers? What software package or services provide a good compromise between reliability, ease of use, price, and security? Are there any decent open source packages that would be a good start? How compatible are they? Most of my customers are willing to spend $1k-4K on hardware, so nothing exotic here.
I spend a lot of time dealing with ever cycling new managers, 3rd party firewall services, corporate IT rules, surprise 3rd party installed network upgrades, carried grade NAT, wonky mobile apps, outdated web servers, and GUI interfaces with broken English instructions. I tend to not bill enough for dealing with those issues when onsite for quoted installs, and I don't ever bill for one-off support phone calls. What I would like to do is introduce a monthly billing plan to my customers that revolves around that remote connectivity and support, and use that income to create some infrastructure.
My ideal goal would be putting together something like what company X offers. They install their own CentOS based NVR or add an Intel Nuc on to an existing dedicated DVR. I was intrigued by the Nuc addon since you can introduce some security and ease of accessibility to an older existing camera system. Both the Nuc and the CentOS NVR auto dial home to their company server. This allows customers to have one simple remote access point via web page or mobile app for any of their camera systems. The interface is very stripped down for end user level of control. It also means that company X isn't relying on 3rd party servers or questionable software that the camera manufacturer threw together.
I do have a small homelab with a couple of older Dell Poweredge servers running Proxmox for testing purposes. I'm not adverse to renting more reliable/secure server space if needed. I also have a retired software engineer family member eager to pitch in. Please note that this is not for remote backup or constant remote streaming. I need a simple and standardized end user interface for when a store owner needs to review an incident and I need some remote diagnostics for when they call me with a problem.
What kinds of remote services are you offering now to your customers? What software package or services provide a good compromise between reliability, ease of use, price, and security? Are there any decent open source packages that would be a good start? How compatible are they? Most of my customers are willing to spend $1k-4K on hardware, so nothing exotic here.
