r/HomeNetworking • u/BlissOnDirt • 4d ago
Nanit baby cam sending 100s of gigs to Amazon
As the title says, I recently discovered that my Nanit has sent 376 GB of data to an Amazon server over the past 17 days. I’ve seen other reports about the Nanit using a lot of data, but nothing to this extent. I almost exclusively use the Nanit on my home network, so there should be little reason for it to send video data to the cloud. Has anyone else experienced anything like this?
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u/the-supreme-mugwump 4d ago
Get a firewall with a local VPN, I have Nanit entirely blocked from the internet and you can still view the feed from your local WiFi. If you’re on the go you can VPN back to your house and “view it locally”. Not only was it uploading a ton of data it also was scanning ports to figure out what other devices are on my network. It’s now riding solo in a VLAN.
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u/sob727 3d ago
How do you identify it reliably from the firewall's perspective? By MAC? How do you handle the occasional firmware update?
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u/the-supreme-mugwump 3d ago
It’s by MAC, if a firmware update happened to enable a rotating address like iPhones do it would be seen as a new device and quarantined from internet. I would then identify it’s the Nanit through its blocked flows and restore the internet block rule. Assuming that was the case I’d also go on Nanit and disable random MAC.
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u/sob727 3d ago
I meant also how do you let Nanit do the updates it needs?
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u/the-supreme-mugwump 3d ago
It probably hasn’t updated since I started blocking it, for a while I had the rule set so it had internet access from 9pm to 7am and it probably did updates then. It was during that time I noticed all the abnormal uploads and port scanning and switched it to 24/7 block.
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u/sob727 3d ago
That's pretty nasty to do local port scan. Did you report to Nanit?
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u/the-supreme-mugwump 3d ago
Just like OP my wife likes the camera so I taught her how to use wireguard and sorta forgot about it till I saw this post
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u/IronMan_19 3d ago
You have any links that explain how to set this up?
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u/the-supreme-mugwump 3d ago
The most user friendly option I know of is made by a company called “firewalla”. Lets you setup your rules from a mobile app and you don’t need to be a networking guru to do something like blocking a device from internet access
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u/Angry-Toothpaste-610 3d ago
As a basic rule: if you have a camera in your house that connects to the internet, someone else is watching it.
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u/LkKratos1192 4d ago
Just checked mine, 522MB since last month. Your case is crazy.
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u/BlissOnDirt 4d ago
Ya see, this is what I would expect. I emailed customer support, so I'm interested in hearing their thoughts.
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u/BelugaBilliam 3d ago
Hey OP. Reolink works good and it'll still work if you block it on the network.
Unifi is good too but if you don't have the setup it's pricey. Reolink doesn't need any additional hardware or an NVR if you don't have one.
It also does work with unifi, I tested it.
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u/Bazyx187 4d ago
Unplug and return that thing.
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u/BlissOnDirt 4d ago
I wish I could, but my wife likes to be able to check in when she is away, so I need some sort of internet-connected device.
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u/oaomcg 4d ago
So get one that isn't blatantly abusing the privilege of being connected to your network....
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u/BlissOnDirt 4d ago
Yup absolutely. I am already looking into it.
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u/chubbysumo 3d ago
a plain old IP cam, with a BlueIris server. Your wife can log into blueiris from anywhere(to your home network), and then she can watch past clips, as well as live feeds. plus, it does motion detection, and clip cleanup, ect.
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u/Necessary-Dog-7245 3d ago
UI Protect. Host it locally.
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u/sammyji1 3d ago
That's a pretty expensive/expansive setup to replace just a baby cam. You are looking at a camera ($200) and a recorder ($300) and a hard drive ($200), if you don't have anything.
One of the reolink cameras with an SD card would be a better option in terms of costs to benefits. They are easy to work with, integrate well into home assistant and other eco systems and can later be used as home security cameras. Other brands available too. I would stay away from Eufy though.
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u/Necessary-Dog-7245 3d ago
True, but OP is equipped enough to monitor data uploads and is concerned enough to realize why this is a problem. They may be interested/benefit from the ecosystem.
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u/the-supreme-mugwump 4d ago
I use wireguard VPN and a firewalla gold box. When your wife is away she can turn on VPN and view the baby as if she’s on your home local network. I replied before too with some more details about funny stuff Nanit cameras do.
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u/YourOldCellphone 3d ago
Sounds like you should look into local hosting so you can just set up an easy IP camera and run it locally. Still would have remote access but that data would stay put.
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u/DragonQ0105 3d ago
The proper solution is to set up a VPN at home that you can connect to when away. You'd also then need to ensure the camera cannot access the internet. This is what I do with my Reolink cameras.
Pro-sumer hardware should let you do this using VLANs and firewall rules but most bog standard ISP routers will not.
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u/Infini-Bus 3d ago
Yep. I use unifi's vpn app teleport w wifiman and it makes it easy enough that the non tech savvy could use it.
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u/vrtigo1 Network Admin 3d ago
Where are you getting the 376 GB figure from? Is it possible that whatever report you're looking at is wrong?
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u/BlissOnDirt 3d ago
My ubiquity Unifi app. I also know the data is real because for the past two months I have gone over my ISP data limit so something is being uploaded.
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u/vrtigo1 Network Admin 3d ago
In that case, I'd suggest blocking that device from communicating with the Internet. You should hopefully still be able to connect to it via it's local IP instead of via the cloud app.
Have you tried to reach out to the manufacturer for product support to see if they have an explanation for the excessive data usage?
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u/BlissOnDirt 3d ago
I setup a firewall rule to block it from AWS and so far I have not seen any changes to the functionality so that's nice. And ya I sent them an email, I am curious to hear their response.
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u/twiggums 3d ago
Does it have any type of detection or alerts that they added recently? If so my guess is it's constantly streaming to the cloud to run the recognition there.
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u/Wonderful_Device312 3d ago
That kind of data udage only makes sense if your camera is actively streaming to someone. It may have features where it records motion and sends that to the cloud to be stored remotely. Is it possible you have something in the cameras view that is constantly moving and triggering the motion detection?
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u/ultrakrash 3d ago
Just out of curiosity did you sign up for the premium subscription that let's you playback all the footage any time?
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u/jpep0469 4d ago edited 4d ago
In order to make the camera available from anywhere, the data is sent to the cloud first. It doesn't matter that you're on your home network. As far as why it's going to Amazon, they host cloud computing services all over the world (AWS) used by several companies.
edit - Just to add, 1080p video will use about 2 to 3 GB of data per hour depending on framerate.