[stopadvertising]

Every time I try to buy some device that is LAN only and doesn't talk to the net, ever, I usually find zero options or few crappy, expensive choices. Why anyone would install a camera that then talks to some corporation's cloud is beyond me, I have zero interest in that.

[ohazi]

The problem is that LAN only can't be verified as long as that LAN also has a route to the public internet. It could be LAN only for the first week so that it passes your initial smoke test, and then goes on to do whatever it wants. Or a firmware update could add new mothership pinging features.

If you want LAN only, you really need to put the device on a LAN that is actually isolated, and use a trusted device to bridge that gap so that you can shuttle commands and responses from your actual network.

I cobbled together my own system that works kind of like this using a raspberry pi and hostapd, and it works quite well for most things.

[mikestew]

If you're looking specifically for cameras, go get some Foscams, and use something, anything but the software that comes with them. I use a Synology NAS that can talk to cameras, but there are tons of other options that can talk to generic cameras. The only time the cameras have any interaction with the internet is when the Synology decides to send the stream to my phone. As far as the cameras know, there is no internet.

And if you dig around and aren't all that choosy on features, you can often find Foscams on close out or otherwise dirt cheap. Some I have were $35, with panning; no optical zoom at that price, though.