A friend of mine is helping me with setting up a Linux-based homebrew security system set up. He’s currently using Wyze cameras, but they are faulty and have ads on them, so I’d like to find something more open-source/closed system that I can control completely. Any recommendations or pointers in the right direction would be great.
For the first one sure, if you are running a pi already. For the next ones, the cost of a pi plus a pi camera is more than the rest of this per channel.
For switches, new POE should be under 12$cad per port, 5mpx poe camera can be gotten retail 50-100$
Wire is still a significant cost if you aren’t terminating your own wire, so look around for cheap long patches.
A pi would be cost of the pi, case plus power supply plus camera each, you could do wifi so you might be able to get away from the cost of the cable. If you do that you should upgrade your wifi AP.