CareTV Free Camera Companion — v011

August 17, 2026

CareTV's free educational web companion should show households how to connect both a modern open PoE IP camera and an existing proprietary surveillance system to the same browser-based CareTV stream grid.

Reference examples

Front-door / documentary camera candidate

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B099RBDCCG

Existing proprietary-surveillance bridge

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P5WT3F1

New public companion page

https://caretv.org/dementia-clock/camera-companion/

The page explains the two complementary upgrade paths:

Direct IP camera: 4K, low-light, PoE over RJ-45 copper Ethernet, network-addressable video.
HDMI bridge: take the HDMI output of an existing closed DVR/NVR and convert it to an IP video source using the encoder's advertised protocols.

CareTV free-app architecture

The longer-term free application target is now formally:

Dementia Clock + Multi-IP Stream Grid + Full-Screen Stream Switcher + browser compatibility layer.

Resident-facing control remains simple while the CareTV server handles differences among RTSP, ONVIF, WebRTC, HLS and camera codecs.

Public education goal

The educational material should make clear that a household does not necessarily need to replace an entire existing surveillance installation. A modest HDMI-to-IP bridge can preserve the existing system, while one good standards-oriented PoE camera can demonstrate a more open future path.

Filename: caretv-free-camera-companion-poe-front-door-and-proprietary-hdmi-surveillance-bridge-2026-08-17-v011.html
Daily-build permalink after upload: https://8k.art/beta/_daily-builds/2026-08-17/caretv-free-camera-companion-poe-front-door-and-proprietary-hdmi-surveillance-bridge-2026-08-17-v011.html
Public companion target: https://caretv.org/dementia-clock/camera-companion/