Personal project

CameraDesk

Desktop viewer for a consumer camera cloud, via a signaling and WebRTC proxy

Status: Prototype
Role: Solo: protocol analysis, Node proxy, web viewer, MAUI client

Reconstructed vendor protocol
Hand-built TLS WebSocket relay
WebRTC live video
Web and desktop clients

The page logs in and wakes the camera through the Express layer, gets a ticket from the vendor API, negotiates over the relayed signaling socket, then receives media from the camera.

Architecture · 6 nodes · 1 flows

Service / compute
Client
External system
Synchronous
Async / loop

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How it flows, step by step

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What it does

A personal experiment to watch a home camera from a desktop app. A Node/Express backend logs in to the camera vendor's cloud, obtains WebRTC tickets and relays the signaling WebSocket, while a browser page and a .NET MAUI Mac Catalyst app act as clients.

The problem

The camera vendor only ships mobile apps. The goal was a desktop viewer with device status and controls, which required understanding the undocumented login, verification and WebRTC ticket flow.

What I built

Reconstructed the vendor's login, OTP verification and WebRTC ticket flow from captured traffic and app analysis.
Express REST layer exposing session, login, device status, attributes, control, dormancy and AI settings endpoints.
Custom WebSocket proxy that hand-builds the upgrade handshake and frames to relay signaling to the vendor over TLS.
Browser client negotiates WebRTC via RTCPeerConnection; a separate MAUI app with typed config and HTTP models targets macOS.

Key decisions and why

Local proxy instead of calling the vendor from the browser

A server-side layer can set the headers and request shapes the vendor API expects and handle the WebSocket upgrade that browsers cannot customize.

Endpoints configurable in appsettings

The MAUI client keeps API paths and probe toggles in typed options so protocol experiments can change without recompiling code.

Two clients over one backend contract

A zero-build web viewer allowed fast iteration on WebRTC, while the MAUI app explores a native desktop experience.

Tech stack

Languages: JavaScript (Node.js)C# / .NET 10
Frontend: .NET MAUI (Mac Catalyst)WebRTC
Backend: Express 5
Messaging: ws (WebSocket)
Other: mitmproxy traffic analysis