A free network video recorder for macOS
Security footage that never leaves your home.
Hearthlight records your security cameras and understands what's happening, entirely on your Mac.
Requires an Apple silicon Mac running macOS 12 or later.
Bring your own cameras
Hearthlight speaks RTSP, the protocol most IP cameras already use. Even a $40 camera works.
Finds people, cars, and animals
Package gone missing? See who came to the door in seconds instead of fast-forwarding through the day.
Nothing to sign up for
No account, no email. We never learn who you are.
No internet required
When your internet goes down, every camera keeps recording.
It won't fill up your Mac
You decide how much space it gets. When that's full, the oldest footage goes first.
View from anywhere Coming
Check on your home from your phone. End-to-end encrypted, and footage still lives only on your Mac.
The deal
Hearthlight is free. Everything it does today stays free, and no feature will ever move behind a paywall. Eventually we'll sell optional cloud extras, like remote viewing and off-site backup, because servers cost money.
Recordings are ordinary files on your own disk: Matroska video, SQLite metadata. Delete Hearthlight tomorrow and your footage still plays.