The honest comparison
Cost, quality, features, privacy — SecuraCV next to the systems you already know. Including the parts where they win.
Cost — 4 cameras, 5 years
The design target is a five-year horizon. Cloud pricing as of June 2026; full math and sources in the repo's strategy docs.
| System | Upfront hardware | Subscription | 5-yr fees | 5-yr total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ring (cloud) | ~$400 | Multi $9.99/mo · AI Pro $19.99/mo | $600–$1,200 | ~$1,000–$1,600 |
| Google Nest (cloud) | ~$400–$720 | Home Premium $10/mo · Advanced $20/mo | $600–$1,200 | ~$1,000–$1,900 |
| Eufy (local + cloud) | ~$630 | $0 · optional ~$3/mo/cam | $0–$720 | ~$630–$1,350 |
| Reolink (NVR) | ~$480 | $0 | $0 | ~$480 |
| UniFi Protect (NVR) | ~$720–$900 | $0 | $0 | ~$720–$900 |
| Frigate (self-host) | ~$440–$520 | $0 · optional Frigate+ ~$50/yr | $0–$250 | ~$440–$770 |
| SecuraCV | +$0 on an existing HA/Frigate stack · ~$440–$520 greenfield | $0, ever | $0 | hardware only |
Canary witness nodes add tamper-aware coverage at $27–$55 per DIY node — kits below. A $200 mini-PC pays for itself vs. any $20/mo plan in 10 months. Everything after that is $0/month, forever.
Features & quality
Where each system is genuinely good — and the two rows nobody else has.
| System | Live view / clips | Detection | Tamper-evident record | Works offline | Open source | Hackable hardware |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ring / Nest | Excellent apps, cloud clips | Cloud AI (faces, packages) | No | Degraded | No | No |
| Eufy / Reolink | Good apps, local clips | On-device AI | No | Mostly | No | No |
| UniFi Protect | Excellent local NVR | On-device AI | No | Yes | No | No |
| Frigate | Best-in-class local NVR | Local AI (Coral / GPU) | No | Yes | Yes | BYO cameras |
| SecuraCV | Via Frigate, unchanged | Via Frigate + on-sensor (Canary Vision) | Yes — signed & hash-chained | Yes — LAN-only by design | Yes, Apache-2.0 | ESP32 + printable enclosures |
Video quality is whatever your RTSP cameras and Frigate deliver — typically better than cloud-cam compression. Canary Vision runs person detection on the sensor's own NPU; no pixels leave the device.
Privacy
The difference between a policy and an architecture.
| System | Footage location | Faces / plates | Cloud dependency | Vendor can see footage | Deletion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ring / Nest | Vendor cloud | Yes — identification is the product | Total | Yes (policy-limited) | Policy |
| Eufy | Local base + optional cloud | Yes, on-device | Partial | Historically murky | Policy |
| Reolink / UniFi | Local NVR | Optional | None–partial | No | Manual |
| Frigate | Local | Via add-ons | None | No | Retention config |
| SecuraCV | Local, auto-deletes in 24 h | No — no code path exists | None — enforced by invariant | No — nothing leaves the LAN | Enforced in code, not policy |
Ring's business model is retaining and analyzing footage. Ours is architecturally incapable of it — the privacy rules are invariants in code, not promises in a policy.
Built for people who build
If any of these is you, you're going to have fun here.
Home Assistant people
+$0 and +5 minutes on your existing stack. Witness sensors, a daily digest, and a Verify Now button appear automatically. Frigate keeps doing what Frigate does.
ESP32 tinkerers
TOFU pinning and Ed25519 chain verification on a $7 board. The Lab's emulator is the shipping C++ compiled to WebAssembly — try the firmware before you flash it.
3D-printing makers
Parametric OpenSCAD enclosures — GoPro-style hinges, TPU gaskets, heat-set insert options — with print-validated STLs. Free forever, kits optional.
Homelab / self-host
$0/month, nothing phones home, one compose file next to your Frigate, an end-to-end doctor check, and an SBOM generated in CI.
Canary kits planned pricing
Hardware kits: real boards, printed enclosures, hardware packs — pre-flashed, so out of the box it's "power on, point it at the glass, done." Wi-Fi joins by scanning a QR code off a display (or your phone's share-Wi-Fi code); your credentials never touch us. Released devices are sold in the store, built to order in small weekly batches; in-development devices get a waitlist, not a buy button.
Canary WAP firmware released
Presence sensing through the Wi-Fi field itself — no camera, no mic. The canary.local dashboard device.
- XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense, pre-flashed
- High-endurance microSD
- Printed enclosure + hardware
- QR quick-start card
Canary Vision firmware released
Person detection on the camera module's own NPU — no pixels ever leave the sensor board.
- XIAO + Grove Vision AI V2 + OV5647
- Printed case with GoPro-style hinge
- Wall / tripod mounting hardware
- Pre-flashed, QR onboarding
Watch Station in development
The bedside glance — a round touch display with the living canary. Try its real firmware in the Lab today.
- XIAO ESP32-S3 + 1.28″ round touch display
- Printed puck + stand
- No camera, no mic — by construction
Canary Dash in development
The household poster — every witness on one 4.3″ wall panel, with QR onboarding for new canaries.
- ESP32-S3 4.3″ IPS touch panel
- Printed frame + stand, PSU included
- Mints the joining QR for new devices