Alright what do you guys have? Been wanting and researching for a while now but figured this is always a solid place to ask first before I pull the trigger. Features I'm looking for is: - outdoor cameras. - if at all possible, wireless as there will be quite a few buildings I want to watch not close to one another. - ability to have/add up to at least a half dozen cameras or better. - recording capabilities. - able to look at from phone and TV would be great. - good night vision. Anything else to consider? Recommendations? Not doing ADT or any of those systems. Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
We have Arlo cameras with the subscription think it is 10 a month or something like that. You have to recharge them and need more charging in the cold.
Haven't but alot of crap going around lately. Want to try to get ahead of it as well as just having the ability to watch our place if we're gone and to keep an eye on the place while the wife and kids are alone during planting and harvest. Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
I kind of regret getting mine since it basically means that there are a whole lot of Chinese hackers with pics and videos of my neked ass walking around the house. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
This is what my company does. I do security systems, cameras, door access control and I set up networks for res and commercial. You can get an 8 port NVR ( camera recording system) it will have networking capability. Meaning that you can view it remotely on any web browser and you can also download an app depending on what brand of choose. I wouldn’t recommend wireless. There for the most part junk unless there get close to our WiFi router and you have to replace battery’s. Over a distance they will go in and out of picture and you’ll be bummed out. If you want to connect buildings you can use ubiquiti antennas to get network to buildings to add cameras. You just need to Have internet at your main building then the rest is a breeze. I would recommend using cat 6 cabling and the NVR would power the cameras with POE. Also you can get 4K cameras and you can get fixed or cameras you can move around with zoom capabilities (PTZ-pan,tilt,zoom) It’s all come a long way, any questions just PM me or you can call me. I can get any system from distributors too. Not sure how involved you want to get. Lmk
I have one that is hardwired and installed by local company. I have app based access from laptop and phone as well as the ability to watch on TV in the house. Suncrest obviously knows what he is talking about, avoid Wi-fi if possible. I don't pay anything for monitoring etc. In fact if something goes down the company has come back and fixed at no charge. My biggest complaint is playback can sometimes fall short of expectations and the power cord for the system has died a couple times. I now keep a couple extra power cords at the house in case it goes down I have immediate solution on hand.
You can also setup motion alerts so you can get notifications when the cams detect motion. You can run an HDMI cable from the back of the NVR to a monitor so you have the views in the house in your office or wherever ya like. That is where you’ll use playback when your not on your phone.
A good dog that specializes in protection might be a good idea. I know mine keeps an eye on the place and would surly protect if needed. I have both. I have 9 cameras at the bar and my dogs at home. When people know or can see that cameras are present, they deter a lot of bad intentions. Just throwing out ideas. Personally, I am more content with my wife being armed while in the company of our dogs than with the cameras. The cameras are more for watching property than they are for protecting loved ones.
It is amazing with dogs and cameras. When our cameras detect they send a text to my wife's phone it has a different tone than a regular text. The dogs have figured it out and when they hear the tone they start growling.
Gun toting wife and dogs are key, a few years back I got my wife a .38 s&W 642 and my dogs chase birds away from the yard haha. Cams are nice to keep an eye out for sure, I see some weird **** sometimes tho.
We like our Arlo cams. Some are wireless and get signal from our Wi-Fi router at home. Others that we use out at the farms are operated by cellular signal. You can screw them to a tree in the middle of nowhere as long as you have cellular signal. All can be accessed from phone or computer. They also have speakers so you can talk to your favorite trespasser and scare the crap out of them. My wife may have startled me a few times when I was closing a gate.
Yeah I hate it when I get home go to walk in the garage and the wife says you're home early from her desk at work.
I just put in some Blink (Amazon prime account needed) cameras. They work fine for me since I just want to watch the front and back of the house, they are mounted plenty close enough to get good wifi signal. I can set the length of video (has audio too) and time between videos before taking another one. My wife maintains a Prime account, so we were able to both download the app on our phones and just use her sign in to get it working on both phones. Night vision reach is fairly impressive for such a cheap little unit. Battery life remains to be seen, but I have it set up to send me an alert when they get low in a specific unit. Pros: Wireless, no wires to run. Super easy to mount, two screws. Pretty decent quality videos and pictures. Night vision range is impressive to me for such a small and cheap unit. Can set length of videos it takes and how long to pause between motion triggers. Has audio. Can also be set up to talk through them, such as having a conversation with a person at your front door. App is super easy to navigate. Cameras can be specifically named whatever you choose, and can be disabled / re-enabled with one tap. Cons so far: The "schedule" you're supposed to be able to set for them to be active doesn't work at all. I scheduled them to be inactive during daylight times that someone is home, but the camera's are still taking video and sending them even during "unscheduled" times. It's easy to just go into the app and disable specific camera's, but then you have to do that every day and remember to turn them back to active before going to bed. Have to mount them where no one could possibly reach them without some effort. The camera units simply snap onto the mount, it would be very easy for someone to just steal them. You'd still get a video of them doing it, but someone blocking their face would just walk away with them with little effort. Wouldn't be that hard to make a lock box type of enclosure for them like game camera's have, but still.
We have Wyze brand cameras. Not sure where she bought them, Home Depot? but they are wireless, can be placed anywhere, also have audio like Fletch mentioned. Can be viewed via phone app, sends notifications when they detect movement and can be set to record and save clips of set length etc. Bonus is they are cheap and the batteries last over 2 weeks with a full charge. Video and audio is very clear and you can zoom quite weill on the video and stills.
I've got a "wireless" that I got several years ago, cheap China system 8 channels and I got 4 cameras with it and got 2 more discounted price. It's still working for the most part, but I wouldn't reccomend getting one from my experience. The ones I have mounted to the exterior of the house do pretty well. Daytime images aren't too bad, lose a lot of quality being a wireless video feed. Mine isn't truly wireless, still has to be plugged into an outlet and also has an ethernet cable on it to pair it with the NVR. Nightime images are fair as far as surveilance goes, I can see what is going on and keep a tab on things, but when it comes to fast movement or the need of high res. images for identifying people it would not foot the bill. The furthest camera from the NVR on the back of the garage worked intermittently at first, put a 30ft coaxial cable on to extend the antenna closer to the house and it helped. Bought a repeater and put at the window closest to it and worked well for about 2 weeks and then just stopped working. Infrared lights come on but no signal. Not sure if it lost pairing or mechanical failure. In hindsight I would have went hard wired with POE and gone through the unwanted hassle one time and had it several years behind me now. Instead it is now in my future. Here's a daytime video recorded with phone of the monitor over the weekend. Evil Knevil neighborhood kid that lesrned about objects in motion tend to stay in motion...
