Video camera recommendations

Posted on
Wed Aug 08, 2018 5:35 pm
ken_jacobs offline
Posts: 187
Joined: Jul 23, 2005

Video camera recommendations

I need some advice on the purchase of wireless video cameras with central local storage. It would be nice to have the system integrated into Indigo. Any help would be appreciated.

Posted on
Wed Aug 08, 2018 8:46 pm
kw123 offline
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Posts: 8333
Joined: May 12, 2013
Location: Dallas, TX

Re: Video camera recommendations

there are many discussion around this question. it strongly depends

- what else you have
- do you want a homogeneous environment
- cost
- your skill / tech level
...

... and what you want to do with it ..


Karl
I am a happy user of 100% unifi cameras (12) with (full) integration into indigo : alarms, setup, picture paths ... all running on my MAC
But there are many other happy users with completely different setups

Posted on
Thu Aug 09, 2018 8:51 pm
mundmc offline
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Joined: Sep 14, 2012

Video camera recommendations

Knowing very little about your use case, I can tell you I run a fairly flexible system as follows. But please note, if I were to buy it again, I’d go Unifi cams and NVR (and plugin).
-Amcrest NVR
-Power over Ethernet switch (to keep camera traffic to NVR locally on that switch as much as possible)
-4 PTZ cams inside, 4 outdoor cams, all Amcrest (if you need it, I can find the model numbers, but they are the cheapest they made, because I don’t need crazy HD resolution)
-Security Spy on server Mac (because it is easier and more functional than scripting for the NVR as a source)

Posted on
Thu Aug 30, 2018 3:11 pm
Vig offline
Posts: 111
Joined: Oct 06, 2015

Re: Video camera recommendations

mundmc wrote:
Knowing very little about your use case, I can tell you I run a fairly flexible system as follows. But please note, if I were to buy it again, I’d go Unifi cams and NVR (and plugin).
-Amcrest NVR
-Power over Ethernet switch (to keep camera traffic to NVR locally on that switch as much as possible)
-4 PTZ cams inside, 4 outdoor cams, all Amcrest (if you need it, I can find the model numbers, but they are the cheapest they made, because I don’t need crazy HD resolution)
-Security Spy on server Mac (because it is easier and more functional than scripting for the NVR as a source)


Just curious, why do you use Amcrest NVR if you already have SecuritySpy?
Are there any plug-ins that work with certain appliance NVRs?

Posted on
Thu Aug 30, 2018 3:29 pm
mundmc offline
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Posts: 1060
Joined: Sep 14, 2012

Re: Video camera recommendations

Vig wrote:
Just curious, why do you use Amcrest NVR if you already have SecuritySpy?
Are there any plug-ins that work with certain appliance NVRs?


Good question. I had HOPED I could outsource all of the heavy lifting of video processing and storage from my server Mac to a dedicated box.

For the most part, it works as I like keeping terabytes of video separate. The big problem is the NVR doesn’t allow for jpg snapshots for refreshing images, and it doesn’t allow for easily-integrated triggers, hence Security Spy. I used a workaround for the snapshot for a bit, but I prefer Security Spy serving up the images to directly accessing the cameras.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Posted on
Thu Aug 30, 2018 5:23 pm
Different Computers offline
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Posts: 2533
Joined: Jan 02, 2016
Location: East Coast

Re: Video camera recommendations

I really love the Wyze cams and their open source hack firmware, but they would just be a part of another solution, probably involving SecuritySpy or Blue Iris.

However, at $25 and $39 each, they're pretty compelling.

SmartThings refugee, so happy to be on Indigo. Monterey on a base M1 Mini w/Harmony Hub, Hue, DomoPad, Dynamic URL, Device Extensions, HomeKitLink, Grafana, Plex, uniFAP, Fantastic Weather, Nanoleaf, LED Simple Effects, Bond Home, Camect.

Posted on
Thu Sep 06, 2018 4:39 am
ar26pt2 offline
Posts: 25
Joined: Jan 23, 2014

Re: Video camera recommendations

I have been pleased with my six Unifi cams outdoors, one indoor, and Unifi NVR. I don’t have any true integration but do have scripts setup that ping all the components every hour (any notify me of failures), and have control pages set up to view refreshing jpeg captures. There is a way to script SSH’ing into the nvr to turn off/on recording but I never spent the time. Has been running about 13 months now flawlessly. Unifi motion discriminator is pretty good but I do still have a HDD full of moths, spiders and windy days. Hope this helps!

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