Cheapest viable camera in 2023?

Hardware
1

Hello,

They are quite a lot of cheap $5 to $10 wifi cameras these days on AliExpress (and others), such as:
https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/1005006038118198.html
https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/1005005058400839.html

Can any of these cameras be integrated with HA? If yes, which ones?
If not, what would be the cheapest camera that works with HA at this point in time?

Thanks,
Cyrille

2

They dont state if they have ONVIF or rtsp for generic integration.

I would personally not buy them especially because they clearly state that they need an app.

Instead of buying a pig in a poke i would personally recommend reolink-cameras.
They dont cost 5€ but you will always know how those things will behave

And if you want to look for budget-cameras from ali: at least try to get one which directly says that it supports onvif and/or rtsp.

3

This particular a9 mini cameras have a quite extensive thread here in the forum:

Long story short: Doesn’t looks like there is a custom firmware yet allowing easy use in HA - but something is in the works!

As of today the esp32 cams cost around 5€ and work completly locally with esphome

4

Don’t waste your time or money on Reolink. I recommend an Amcrest 4MP camera with RTSP, ONVIF, and a local web GUI interface.

6

Like i said: Any Camera with RTSP and ONVIF is a general recommendation from me.
My personal recommendation is Reolink since I wanted to provide something where OP can do some research.

What is your Answer on OPs questions?

7

While other cameras from reolink or amcrest here cost easily 10 times more (OP asked for the cheapest viable camera)

8

Hello,

Thanks for the answer. Indeed the Amcrest cameras are significantly more expensive than the cheap ali-express stuff… and, setting the PTZ function asside, I do not see why they are so expensive… Cameras are cheap these days and there is no reason for such high prices…

Anyhow, as a person with reasonable experience with arduino, I will try to see what I can do with the ESP32 route.

Cyrille

9

On AliExpress you can find ONVIF cameras with RTSP streams, I bought this 360 camera on promotion for 17,90€ https://a.aliexpress.com/_EvU7BnR
What’s important is that they mention ONVIF on it, this way you are almost sure you will have access to the RTSP