MotionEye works very well. Read all the docs first before messing with the settings as they are not intuitive - trying to tweak the motion trigger settings is a bit of a pain (frames threshold, timeout, etc.) but can be done and there is a debug frame setting which is helpful. Works with the Raspberry Pi cameras but also with any USB cam as long as you choose the correct driver. I have an IR nightview USB cam that gives superior night shots and doesn't require additional power outside the USB connection. You can save all files locally or send them to any number of services - I have all my photos and videos dropped into Google Drive. I'm also using DuckDNS for external access to the IP cam port for a real-time view into my home whenever I am out and about. The network stream feature in VLC on mobile works really well for that. The only issue I've come across (and this was ~4 months ago) is that 8GB RAM Raspberry Pi 4's are more trouble than they're worth for this application - software support was very much lacking but the 4GB Pi's work very well.
I've been using MotionEyeOS for several months now. I setup a a couple of Pi3's with some cheap Logitech USB webcams. Works great from inside the house - I used velcro to tape the cameras pointing out from various windows around the house and in the garage.
I've had success with MotionEyeOS [0] on a Raspberry Pi. It used to be that a Pi ($35) plus the camera module ($25) meant ~$60 per cam but now that the Zero W [1] is out you can do Pi ($10) plus camera module ($25) plus the nifty official case that nicely accommodates a camera ($5) for ~$40.
MotionEye let's you store images or video locally on the Pi or has multiple cloud destinations available (Drive, Dropbox, your own custom FTP node). An email notification + dropping the files into Google Drive is stupid simple to set up. Plus you can configure just about everything from motion sensitivity to frame rate, etc. Most difficult setup is live stream which means you would need to VPN into your home network; certainly not impossible but still not turnkey simple. If there is a better open source solution for the Pi, I'd love to hear about it.
I have almost exactly the same setup. I can recommend motion-project on the Pi for taking the pictures and MotionEye android app for real-time watching. Works fine as a security cam too.
I run it on a Raspberry Pi 4. No camera is directly connected to it. All cameras are WiFi based and it records 10 streams of 720p/15fps over RTSP.
motionEye can also be used directly on Raspberry Pi Zero along with the Raspberry Pi Camera but I don't use that setup as getting night vision to work on it a hassle and expensive, comparatively. It works though :).
MotionEye OS is good as a camera surveillance system. Needs a USB camera or a Raspberry Pi camera. Takes a bit of tweaking to get the optimal camera settings (using a GUI), but then it works well.
LibeElec is useful as a home theatre setup, based on Kodi.
I started by using a NVR off AliExpress. It worked well until I added a camera from a different vendor, same brand though and it refused to be reliable and had frequent disconnections.
Moved onto ZoneMinder and after hours of setup I felt the UI wasn't good enough for a non-tech person. I want others in my family access the feeds with ease, ZoneMinder does not cut it.
While I was experimenting with cameras, I was also getting into HomeAssistant which had motionEye as a supported service. It was easy to add cameras and almost any camera could be hacked to have RTSP support and motionEye.
Motion-detection could be enabled on the Raspberry Pi's motionEye, offloading compute off the cameras. This was important for me as many of my cheap Chinese cameras lag/hang/shutdown on load.
The Raspberry Pi also has Pi-Hole installed which I configured to block all IPs and domains being used by the IP cameras thereby limiting its access to local network only.
As I kept adding cameras (10+), performance on Raspberry Pi started getting affected, so I added another Raspberry Pi and installed motionEye on it. Setup MQTT on motionEye to send notifications to HomeAssistant on motion/human detection. Added multiple HDDs (4) so cameras can write with less conflicts.
I still haven't got some cameras (Xiaomi) into this setup as I don't want to hack them yet. (The open firmware(s) lack features). But they do backup recordings to the same Raspberry Pi NFS and I plan to find something which can show motionEye and Xiaomi videos in one interface.
I just wanted to add, while I have an Arlo Pro as well, I've found the Raspberry Pi Zero solution cheaper and more reliable. The Arlo's camera quality is better, but the software often fails to capture someone walking by. I'm also more skeptical about how safe my videos are on Arlo's servers.
Second the idea of MotionEye OS - I have one running as a camera for the front door of my house, emailing me when it triggers to my phone's gmail account. So I have a kind of running "backup" of events if anything happens.
I use to run ZoneMinder on an old PC, but it was a bit flakey, way too crazy to set up for a home system; I had learned how to config and admin it over the last several years, but I was just plain tired of it. It's another great system for security cameras, but not really for a home, unless you have a ton of cameras that need monitoring, and don't mind the dedication of a beefy machine to the task.
MotionEye OS is more a distributed solution. It is possible to set it up so one install can monitor multiple cameras (in some manner - I haven't played with it), but I like it as a simple single IP camera turn-key solution. It basically can turn a Rasperry Pi into a cheap wireless IP camera that isn't locked down or tied to a proprietary ($) cloud system.
Using a RasPi Zero W and the cheapest camera you can find, you can build such a camera for under $50.00 USD off Amazon; probably cheaper if you shop around a bit more. The only cheaper option I've found (but it takes more to set it up properly) is the ESP32 camera modules that you can get.
I use motionEye to monitor RTSP feed from two IP cameras (Generic) on RPi 3(SSD, btrfs, zswap, ArchLinux ARM - headless, passive cooling - heat sink case) the feed averages around 30fps(720p) with motion detection. I had a third logitech c720 via USB but removed it to get better frame rates for the former and make room(CPU) for a SDR setup(To receive 433Mhz from other sensors).
Note: Generic IP cameras dial home for public identification on their apps and also would never receive security updates. I had to meticulously block all open ports using firewall. If you feel that's too much of risk, then I would suggest building a camera setup with RPi camera or ESP camera yourself to be used with motionEye.
Tried out Shinobi, Motion Eye, Zoneminder, and Blue Iris. Ended up using Zoneminder due to easy mobile usage (not Shinobi, or MotionEye on iOS) and being docker friendly (not Blue Iris).
Hardware: raspberry pi zero running gstreamer rtsp streams. Didn't want to deal with all the terrible cameras phoning some random server.
Mobile App: zmNinja. $5.00. Worth it in my opinion. Motion notifications, event montage review, live streams, everything I need.
HomeAssistant assists in enabling motion detection recording when our phones are not detected at home.
There are a few projects out there [0][1] that make it fairly simple to set up a motion detection capable solution with a simple USB webcam. I'm currently waiting on a cheap infrared camera from China ($4!) for use with my Pi, but I've done testing with an older Logitech HD camera and have had excellent results.
Outside of off the cuff experiments, most of my Pis are provisioned as MotionEyeOS[0] security cams. Each client can be linked into a central "server" so you can view them all at once, and lots of nice config options for storing or sending image and video either continuously or based on motion. I have the streaming set up so I can peek in from anywhere using VLC on my phone.
I have run a Raspberry Pi Zero W with 5mp camera and MotionEye software outside for 3 Christmas seasons to control an animated display. I trigger on movement and capture still and video images to the SD card and automatically upload them over WiFi to my ftp server. I can monitor a live stream anytime too. MotionEye does everything.
This setup runs in a small waterproof enclosure and runs a bit warm (35-45C) that dissipates any condensation or rain on the fisheye lens. This might help you with snow accumulation.
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