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-evident 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 — no internet required | 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 | Your hardware — clips stay in Frigate; the kernel records no video | No — no code path exists | None — enforced by invariant | No — we run no server that receives it | The kernel's signed log: pruned in code after 7 days by default, configurable · clips: Frigate's retention setting |
Ring's business model is retaining and analyzing footage. Ours has no identity pipeline to run over it and no vendor cloud to keep it in — the privacy rules are invariants in code, not promises in a policy.
How long each thing stays. Clips stay in Frigate until its own retention setting deletes them. The kernel records no video: where it reads frames itself, it holds at most 30 seconds of them in memory, and seals a frame into its encrypted vault only while you arm the vault with a break-glass token; a sealed frame stays until you delete it. A Canary WAP seals an alarm frame to your key only once you arm it, and keeps the newest 20 on its card; no timer prunes the WAP's own signed record there. What the kernel keeps day to day is the signed event log, and its retention pass prunes it after 7 days by default (1 to 365 days in the Home Assistant app).
Built for people who build
If any of these is you, you're going to have fun here.
Home Assistant people
One command on your existing stack adds witness sensors, a daily digest and a Verify Now button. 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, no cloud account, no telemetry, one compose file next to your Frigate, an end-to-end doctor check, and a committed, schema-checked SBOM.
Not sure where to start? Seven starter builds earn their keep on day one — and if you're wondering whether you need a computer at all, the tiny screen vs. Raspberry Pi answer is shorter than you'd think.
Canary kits planned pricing
Each kit is a board, a printed enclosure and hardware, pre-flashed: power on, scan the QR, done — your Wi-Fi credentials never touch us. None is for sale yet: a boxed device with a radio needs FCC authorization first (why). Maker builds are yours to print and flash today; previews get a waitlist, not a buy button.
Canary WAP maker build · firmware released
The recommended first build: presence through the Wi-Fi field itself, a mic that listens for knocks and alarms, and the canary.local dashboard.
- XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense, pre-flashed
- High-endurance microSD
- Printed enclosure + hardware
- QR quick-start card
Canary Vision maker build · 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 preview · 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 preview · 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, USB-C cable
- Mints the joining QR for new devices
Canary Vision Pro concept · config-only
The flagship sensor for low-light, high-stakes spots — starlight imaging and on-device sound classification, wired in through the same webhook adapter as Frigate. No new firmware to build.
- Rockchip RV1126B, 3 TOPS NPU
- 8 MP starlight sensor
- Coarse claims only — no captions, ever, cross the wire