Dahua NVRs as an upgrade from Unifi protect, or go straight to Blueiris?

mephisto_uk

mephisto_uk

Getting the hang of it
Dec 13, 2020
150
91
London
Not sure if this here is the right place, but I'm planning to move away from Unifi Protect and I'm considering Blueiris on a custom PC, or perhaps take a easier way and get a Dahua NVR. I've never used Dahua NVRs, or anything else than Unifi protect, so I've no idea how good/bad they are. I'm considering Blueiris because I can use any hardware I feel like and it has tons of options, but also a learning curve ahead. I'm wondering if I use Dahua cameras, will I be losing their "AI" and other clever stuff by using Blueiris or can blueiris use those clever camera features?

I've seen the NVRs on empiretech store from £250 to £400, I've about 6 outdoor cameras, perhaps will increase to 8 or 10, and have some 4 indoor cameras. I can build a custom PC for around the same money or a bit more, but I guess I can get a lot more power from it than using a Dahua NVR from what I can understand so far.

What are your thoughts guys?
 
There are already a lot of threads debating the pros and cons of NVR vs. BI. You need to find them and cut through the my chevy is better than your ford type arguments to find the real issues. (Being in the UK, I don't know if you relate to the ford vs. chevy example as somebody in USA). In some cases NVR is a better choice, in some cases BI is the better choice, and for people like me, either one does the job as well as I need it done. The one thing that struck me from the thread title, is if you think you will eventually go to BI, just go straight there now. Learning BI is even harder if you have to un-learn the NVR at the same time. If you get an NVR, get one with more channels than you think you need. I thought 8 was enough for me, took the advice and got a 16 channel NVR, and now I wish I had a few more channels.
 
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Yep, this is asked all the time.

Here is the most recent thread asking it and one of the replies is a link to all the other times this question has been asked....

NVR

Looking for some input on a Dahua NVR. I was originally looking at BI but after reading through many of its issues good and bad I’m now looking at the NVR. I haven’t ruled it out however. Just looks to be a bigger learning curve. In my reading here the NVR also has many of the same issue good...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
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tigerwillow1 said:
If you get an NVR, get one with more channels than you think you need. I thought 8 was enough for me, took the advice and got a 16 channel NVR, and now I wish I had a few more channels.
Click to expand...
And with BI, just add another POE switch, all the way up to the max of 64.
@mephisto_uk , should you decide to go with BI, be sure to:
 
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Ok, thanks for the links, I should have done more research about this topic. I was leaning towards BI as I'm testing it already with my unifi cameras and I'm liking what I'm seeing. After a bit more reading, I'm going for BI and custom hardware.

Regarding camera AI stuff, is that of any relevant to BI or the cameras just work as "dumb" devices and BI does all the heavy lifting? Just wondering as some Dahua cameras have some many bells and whistles like SMD 4.0, face detections, this and that, I'm not sure it has any relevant to BI.
 
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Good choice LOL.

Yes the camera AI is relevant to many people, but BI has way more motion setting granularity than the cameras.

There isn't really a best practice because every field of view is different and use case and needs are different.

To many here, BI motion is more than adequate for what they do.

To many here, camera AI is more than adequate for what they do.

To many here, using the BI AI adds additional functionality that the above alone can not do.

It comes down to testing with each field of view and which one gives you the most consistent results.

If you decide to go with the camera AI, then set up the IVS rules within the camera and let it do its thing!

Go into the camera and set up smart plan with IVS, then go to the IVS screen and draw IVS rules (tripwire or intrusion box) and then select the AI you want it to trigger on (human or vehicle).

Then in BI, there are a few places you need to set this up in BI (assuming you already set up the IVS rules in the camera GUI):

In Camera configure setting check the box "Get ONVIF triggers".

Hit Find/Inspect on the camera setting to pull the coding for the triggers.

Go into Motion Setting and select the "Cameras digital input" box.

On the Alerts tab uncheck the Motions Zones tab (those are alerting you to any BI motion in those areas in Zones A thru H)

On the alerts tab set up how to be notified.


Who uses Dahua AI capable cameras? Reliable AI for triggering events? Pro's/con's?

It has come to my attention that certain Dahua cameras come with built in AI that distinguishes between human & cars. I was unaware of this. Well, always saw the AI word used in the reviews but never really thought about it because I thought it was a Dahua NVR integration only. I am currently...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
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wittaj said:
Good choice LOL.

Yes the camera AI is relevant to many people, but BI has way more motion setting granularity than the cameras.

There isn't really a best practice because every field of view is different and use case and needs are different.

To many here, BI motion is more than adequate for what they do.

To many here, camera AI is more than adequate for what they do.

To many here, using the BI AI adds additional functionality that the above alone can not do.

It comes down to testing with each field of view and which one gives you the most consistent results.

If you decide to go with the camera AI, then set up the IVS rules within the camera and let it do its thing!

Go into the camera and set up smart plan with IVS, then go to the IVS screen and draw IVS rules (tripwire or intrusion box) and then select the AI you want it to trigger on (human or vehicle).

Then in BI, there are a few places you need to set this up in BI (assuming you already set up the IVS rules in the camera GUI):

In Camera configure setting check the box "Get ONVIF triggers".

Hit Find/Inspect on the camera setting to pull the coding for the triggers.

Go into Motion Setting and select the "Cameras digital input" box.

On the Alerts tab uncheck the Motions Zones tab (those are alerting you to any BI motion in those areas in Zones A thru H)

On the alerts tab set up how to be notified.


Who uses Dahua AI capable cameras? Reliable AI for triggering events? Pro's/con's?

It has come to my attention that certain Dahua cameras come with built in AI that distinguishes between human & cars. I was unaware of this. Well, always saw the AI word used in the reviews but never really thought about it because I thought it was a Dahua NVR integration only. I am currently...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
Click to expand...

I've decided to go camera AI and use ONVIF triggers, it is a good balance offloading the processing to the cameras and getting good detection rate so far I can see. So now, back to researching about camera models and get ready to order some :)
 
One thing you should consider is the phone app for push notifications. The Android BI app ($9.95) works poorly according to the most recent reviews which is a deal breaker for me. Maybe the IOS app works great?
 
Davahad said:
One thing you should consider is the phone app for push notifications. The Android BI app ($9.95) works poorly according to the most recent reviews which is a deal breaker for me. Maybe the IOS app works great?
Click to expand...

I just saw this, indeed lots of people complaining about the mobile app for Android. I'm curious if there are alternatives or the web interface can be used on Android? last update was mora than 6 months ago.
 
Use the native UI3 that is free and part of BI.

Simply open a web browser and type in the IP address of your BI computer followed by :80 or :81 or whatever your port number is.

BTW there is nothing wrong with the BI app - the complaints are user errors such as not understanding what IP address to type into the app.

I have both the paid app and UI3 and use UI3 99.9% of the time.

But for most, the only reason to buy the app would be for cameras with two-way talk and push notifications.

I have two way talk cameras and used the BI push for awhile but found the Pushover app ($5) to be better as the BI app would need either forwarded ports or VPN on while away to get the image with the push. Pushover app sends images regardless of whether connected to VPN or not.
 
Thanks for clarifying. I guess this would be a good candidate for integration into Home Assistant for notifications. It seems BI and HA are able to talk to each other.
 
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