My partner and I have a trip planned in about 1.5 weeks, bur cat is unfortunately sickly right now. I'm tasked with setting up a couple of webcams in her favorite spots so we can check on her while we're away.
Currently we have 1 basic webcam, two functioning Linux desktops, a couple old hard drives i don't need, a domain name I have grand plans for but have never used, and enough experience with docker and self hosting to be dangerous.
If you were to set up a quick and dirty pet cam with a minimal budget and about a week to buy everything and get it all set up, how would you go about it? I really want a solution requires as little fiddling and config as possible.
I know I'll need at least one more webcam, and I've been researching NVR software all night only to arrive back at idk-what-I'm-doing after hours of reading. I could potentially stretch my budget up to something like a Qnap TS-216G (which is as close to a good solution as I've found) since I've been wanting to buy a NAS anyways. The QVR software suite seems like a nice solution for easy setup, but I really dont need any advanced AI features. Even basic stuff like motion detection and video storage I could do without, although they would be nice to have.
I've never made any services available from outside of my LAN either. From what I've read in the past, Tailscale may be the simplest solution for that, but idk if it's suitable for this type of application.
Edit: I guess I never should have brought up that our cat is sick. Most of y'all seem to think that I'm neglecting my animal or something because I didnt go into detail about all of the care plans that we have in place for her. Her illness is long term and managed by medications. She doesnt have flare-ups or any acute symptoms that are likely to cause an emergency. We have friends that she likes that will be visiting daily to feed and water her, spend time with her, and give her medicine. This camera solution is really just a little something extra to make my partner and I feel better about being away from her.
You could install ZoneMinder and set it up with your webcam. It will do recording and basic motion detection. You don't have to mess with any docker stuff, it just needs a recent version of Debian or Ubuntu. If you want to access it from a phone, I would suggest using the zmNinja app since the web UI sucks on mobile.
Some actual CCTV IP cameras would be better than a webcam if you can still find any that provide an RTSP stream and don't require any of that cloud crap.
Does zoneminder handle secure remote connections on it's own somehow? Or will I need a separate solution to access my LAN while away?
Zonemider is accessed through a web interface. Just enable HTTPS and put a lets encrypt certificate on the web server. Of course if you don't have a publicly accessible IP address, things get more complicated since you will need a VPN or some sort of tunnel.