Best IP Cam

[Mike13]

I’m looking for one to stick outside and one for inside. Previously was using Foscam, but water got into the outside one and my son dropped the inside one. 

 

I like that the Foscam records to my synology NAS, but not essential.

 

I was looking at Nest (the newest with face zoom is very expensive) or a 3 pack of Arlo’s. I didn’t like how Arlos don’t record all the time.

 

What would you guys recommend?

[Paul_Powers]

Now this issue is also of interest to control the area around the house.

[Mrpseudonym]

Just embarking on a project to replace my foscams. So far ubiquity looks the best. Will record to nas (although they have a cost effective nvr), easy to manage remote access (no need to do port forwarding), good app, and POE so only one cable..

[blackslash]

Yes I would recommend Ubiquiti too. G3-Pro is perfect for outdoors or if you want 4K, then G4-Pro. For indoors G3-Bullets would work great, they also got cheaper models as well depending on the budget. 

[Mike13]

Just saw my own thread. I got Arlo Pro 2. Would I recommend them?

 

No. picture quality is not great. If you don’t plug them in you miss out on the first part of the movement (someone will make it to the porch before a recording kicks in). 
 

Worst part is that when you want to see something live it often doesn’t load, or it takes forever. This is because it connects to their servers first, from what I’ve read.

 

If it is recording, it also takes forever to load the live view.

 

It’s design and build seem Apple like and the app is decent, but the usability and picture quality are crap. Often really grainy and pixelated. Foscam was a much better picture. 

[cazzesman]

I have Eufy cameras.   Outdoor.   Comes with a indoor base station for wireless.   Been working brilliantly.   1080p.    Battery life is amazing then recharge via usb.   Set up was very easy.

 

great reviews all over the net 

 

Regards Cazzesman

[Mike13]

Thanks @cazzesman  I don’t think they were around when I was looking or didn’t come up in my research. Will keep them in mind when the Arlo’s finish their useful life. 

[Guest rmpfyf]

On 26/11/2020 at 5:42 AM, Mike13 said:

Just saw my own thread. I got Arlo Pro 2. Would I recommend them?

 

No. picture quality is not great. If you don’t plug them in you miss out on the first part of the movement (someone will make it to the porch before a recording kicks in). 
 

Worst part is that when you want to see something live it often doesn’t load, or it takes forever. This is because it connects to their servers first, from what I’ve read.

 

If it is recording, it also takes forever to load the live view.

 

It’s design and build seem Apple like and the app is decent, but the usability and picture quality are crap. Often really grainy and pixelated. Foscam was a much better picture. 

 

If you have the Synology NAS and like Surveillance Station, try Hikvision's range at securitywholesalers. 

 

Just did a job with some 8MP turret cams with IR and damn... it's a fantastic result. 

 

Would (certainly) not go a cloud solution if you're serious and expect results.

[Mike13]

12 hours ago, rmpfyf said:

Would (certainly) not go a cloud solution if you're serious and expect results.

 

Agree in hindsight. And probably getting someone else to install it with Ethernet rather than wireless. 
 

Hikivison and Foscam were the ones I was choosing between about 5 years ago for a baby monitor. 
 

Got Synology Surveillance Station but you have to buy more licenses. Which is fine, but if it’s not on the cloud couldn’t someone just take your NAS?

[Guest rmpfyf]

11 hours ago, Mike13 said:

Agree in hindsight. And probably getting someone else to install it with Ethernet rather than wireless. 
 

Hikivison and Foscam were the ones I was choosing between about 5 years ago for a baby monitor. 

 

This is exactly what we did. 

 

11 hours ago, Mike13 said:

Got Synology Surveillance Station but you have to buy more licenses. Which is fine, but if it’s not on the cloud couldn’t someone just take your NAS?

 

 

Licenses aren't expensive for what they are. 

 

Best way (IMHO):

• Run the cameras PoE 
• Have the NAS and the internal route (including the PoE injection) to a UPS
• Back it up 3-2-1 (three disks, two onsite, one offsite). You can push to a cloud alternately or additionally.

It's possible to do this with Surveillance Station and Cloud Sync working together. You'll want to be judicious about what you log and how or bandwidth goes silly.

[Mike13]

Makes sense. Good to know cloud is an option too. At the time I thought WiFi was would be fine, battery wouldn’t be too much hassle and Arlo would be much better quality than the other two brands. Wrong, wrong and wrong

 

10 hours ago, rmpfyf said:

Back it up 3-2-1 (three disks, two onsite, one offsite)

One question, how would you back up to an offsite disk?

[Mat-with-one-t]

I’ve been through all this recently, and considered all the possibilities.  In the end, for a whole bunch of reasons, I decided to use a separate NVR rather than a NAS, and I have all cam’s connected via Cat6 poe.

I would recommend Dahua cameras, and not really any others (including Hikvision).  I’d avoid “plug and play” styles already discussed here.  Many of them will have poor pictures (esp at night) and there are widespread issues with them being hackable.

I bought a car6 wiring kit - fiddly but easy to do yourself.  

The real issue is, do yo want a “visual deterrent”, or do you actually want footage (day and night) that you can save, review and make out detail?  The latter will be more expensive and camera choice needs to be considered.

 

Mat 

Edited November 29, 2020 by Mat-with-one-t

[BioBrian]

41 minutes ago, Mat-with-one-t said:

separate NVR

 

Is there a particular one you'd recommend Mat?

[Mat-with-one-t]

Again, I went with Dahua.  

It also depends upon what functions you want.  My cam’s will do things like tripwire, motion detection, and so on.  The more expensive cam’s have things like face recognition, number plate recordings, etc, but those cameras cost a lot, and you need to make sure the NVR matches them.

 

so, as an example, my NVR is a Dahua (confusingly also known as “Alhua”, NVR5216-16p-4ks2e

 

The separate NVR means you get something designed for purpose, and not sucking up processing power from your computer or NAS.  The one you choose will depend on what cam’s you get, and how many of them, and whether they will be POE.  

 

Start with cam’s.  It is likely that each one will be a bit different, depending on what you want it to do.  The most fancy will likely be out the front of your house.  Cheaper or simpler in other areas.....

 

Shoot me a PM and I can point you to a guy who was really useful.  I sent him pics of where I wanted cam’s, and what they’d look at, and what I wanted them to be able to do, and I went from there.  There’s a lot to learn!

 

mat

[Guest rmpfyf]

8 hours ago, Mike13 said:

One question, how would you back up to an offsite disk?

 

Cloud Sync in the usual Synology Disk Station Manager application will do it well.

 

2 hours ago, Mat-with-one-t said:

Again, I went with Dahua.  

It also depends upon what functions you want.  My cam’s will do things like tripwire, motion detection, and so on.  The more expensive cam’s have things like face recognition, number plate recordings, etc, but those cameras cost a lot, and you need to make sure the NVR matches them.

 

so, as an example, my NVR is a Dahua (confusingly also known as “Alhua”, NVR5216-16p-4ks2e

 

I have one Dahua camera in my fleet and it's the flakiest of the bunch - my Hikvisions are rock-solid. Would suggest they're ultimately comparable - many price points, revisions, etc. 

 

So long as your software supports your camera's functions all is fine. Motion detection in a general sense it's computationally crazy. 

 

2 hours ago, Mat-with-one-t said:

The separate NVR means you get something designed for purpose, and not sucking up processing power from your computer or NAS.  The one you choose will depend on what cam’s you get, and how many of them, and whether they will be POE.  

 

 

Depends how much grunt you have on your NAS and what your video compression's like off your cameras - 8 cameras here, most 6/8MP, all is well on a shared NAS. Would suggest (irrespective of how you run things) to run a LACP 2-cable bond to the NVR box. 

 

There's really nothing 'designed for purpose' in NVR land. The requirements of an NVR aren't really that onerous, unless you have silly-long PoE runs, a mega number of users, visial inferencing with dedicated hardware or you really, really want to have your switch integrated into your NVR. 

 

Just get PoE cameras. Much simpler. 

 

CAT6 is overkill for the application but nice to have, and not expensive. 

[MosfetMainac]

Similarly I use Hik wired cameras, their accusense ones have human detection, line crossing etc. and a speaker and mic built in which is surprisingly handy!, also their IR illumination is very good for a low end/ mid low camera. The thing that trips most people up is looking for an event if something happens and this is where I’d recommend NX Witness. You need a small server and you buy licenses per camera but it’s an absolutely superb product. Most people can’t believe how easy mine is to use, amazing pic quality, even on a mobile phone, and it has advanced search features for example, If a ball went missing from your yard, you simply draw a square around where the ball is/ was in previous footage and smart search it, You’ll usually find out within a few seconds when it moved.

Edited December 18, 2020 by MosfetMainac

[Mike13]

On 19/12/2020 at 5:27 AM, MosfetMainac said:

If a ball went missing from your yard, you simply draw a square around where the ball is/ was in previous footage and smart search it, You’ll usually find out within a few seconds when it moved.

That’s handy.

[Marc]

On 31/10/2019 at 1:50 PM, blackslash said:

Yes I would recommend Ubiquiti too. G3-Pro is perfect for outdoors or if you want 4K, then G4-Pro. For indoors G3-Bullets would work great, they also got cheaper models as well depending on the budget. 

 

I've got 10 cameras - a combination of Dahua and Foscam. The G4-Pro is a significant cost over those. Is the upgrade worth it?

[ChupaChups]

On 20/12/2020 at 9:28 AM, Marc said:

 

I've got 10 cameras - a combination of Dahua and Foscam. The G4-Pro is a significant cost over those. Is the upgrade worth it?

Please this before investing more Unifi video products - UniFi-Video Products End of Life Announcement

https://community.ui.com/questions/UniFi-Video-Products-End-of-Life-Announcement/dc529d39-0e58-43cc-96f0-8f0eed0d002c?page=2

 

[blackslash]

UniFi video was not the best, so they transitioned to UniFi protect which is a good system. Not perfect but its getting there. 
 

Quality wise it is much better than Dahua. Haven’t really experimented Foscam so can’t say. Price difference is steep so thats something to consider.