Review-Dahua Starlight IPC-HDW5231R-ZE 800 meter capable ePOE

Excellent advice, thanks! I'm probably obsessive about trying to find appropriate placement to make the most effective use of the cams. But, hate to see them damaged. Which has happened in the past n one area. Sometimes, it's just the cost of doing business I reckon.

Yes, I'm slowly starting to mount pairs from opposing angles as you mentioned as I buy cams and run cables. Totally loving these Starlight turrets and replacing older Hiks etc. Adding enough now that it's approaching time to ponder a PC upgrade, lol...

@EMPIRETECANDY Ordered my first camera from you. Hopefully, I wont get the one with the defective lens.

trumee said:

@EMPIRETECANDY Ordered my first camera from you. Hopefully, I wont get the one with the defective lens.

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Lol, not such crazy fail rate, the new ones we sold seems no report in the past 45days.

My recent units are perfect. Thank you Andy @EMPIRETECANDY

I got my camera today from @EMPIRETECANDY and have it working with Zoneminder. My unit shipped with version "System Version 2.622.0000000.23.R, Build Date: 2018-03-30". Is that the latest version?

Anybody got the Focus and Zoom controls working within Zoneminder?

I cant find NTP support in the camera. Is there a setting for that? Found it in System>General.

trumee said:

I got my camera today from @EMPIRETECANDY and have it working with Zoneminder. My unit shipped with version "System Version 2.622.0000000.23.R, Build Date: 2018-03-30". Is that the latest version?

Anybody got the Focus and Zoom controls working within Zoneminder?

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20180523 Firmware for DH_IPC-HX5X3X-Rhea
Here you can download the FW in May.23rd. Thanks.

Stupid question: do I need a splitter for power or does the cam take poe?

POE

EMPIRETECANDY said:

yes, will check it out. Maybe still go with the sliver color only.

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I would definitely buy black. I am looking to do 12 cams. My soffits are dark stained T&G wood.

Quick question.

I have 1 camera above the garage door covering the driveway.
The camera starts recording via tripwire; I have 3 of them covering the entire driveway zigzagging all over the place. So if anything moves; it should record it.

Most of the time it does; however I noticed more and more that sometimes the recording starts with the (moving) object already in the frame.
For instance; we have a trap set. Twice now; the animal was already inside the trap when the recordings starts. One instance I was using a flashlight to see something and a minute later my dad did the same thing; the recording only started when he was watching with the light.

I think this late recording only happens during the night so I think it has to do with the fact the camera just doesn't get triggered/not sensitive enough since these animals can be quite stealthy (dark fur, dark night etc.)

Is there a setting I've missed or is it just the fact the camera might not always pick the movement quickly enough?

In low contrast situations I had the same problem. Takes the camera longer to identify the object. You can try to use profiles and bump the nighttime contrast setting up some and see if that helps.

This won’t help directly with that, but instead of using Tripwire and making a zillion lines inside an area, you can do an Intrusion Zone and check the boxes for crossing both ways as well as “object appears”. Same functionality, just looks cleaner.

aristobrat said:

In low contrast situations I had the same problem. Takes the camera longer to identify the object. You can try to use profiles and bump the nighttime contrast setting up some and see if that helps.

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I bumped the contrast to around 60 (I had it on 50). Let's see if it helps.

This won’t help directly with that, but instead of using Tripwire and making a zillion lines inside an area, you can do an Intrusion Zone and check the boxes for crossing both ways as well as “object appears”. Same functionality, just looks cleaner.

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Ok, I will look into that. Tripwire was very intuitive to setup; I don't know all the details about Intrusion Zone.

Correct me if I'm wrong; if I were to setup a zone (for example the paved driveway) and check "Cross" it will only start recording when something crossed the border "line"?
If I were to check "Appears" it will start recording when something appears within the zone?

Since these pesty stone martens can stay within the intrusion zone for several minutes; am I correct to say that the checkbox "Appears" is specifically for that kind of situation since that with that checkbox checked; it will stay recording as long as it takes/the animal stays moving within the zone?

I did all the zigzagging of the tripwire detection because of that. I could have have made a square box of tripwire around the driveway but then the recording could stop if the animal stays within the driveway. But with intrusion zone and both "cross" and "appears' boxes checked; it should work the same?

I am considering buying the NVR4104-4KS2 with a 1TB Purple drive recording 24/7 in combination with tripwire/intrusion so I never have to worry about not recording something* but I only have a very simple setup of only 1 camera and no plans adding more. Adding another ~€150 for a NVR and HDD is not really something I want right now.


* Recording 24/7 would have helped several weeks ago when a wannabe burglar was walking around the street but just outside our driveway so nothing got recorded.
The only reason why I know he was there was the fact he woke me up with the car engine running/car door closing. My dad and I followed him down the street and I took some pics with my DSLR of his car and (part of) licence plate. Distributed the facts to our neighbourhood Whatsapp group and the police.
Never saw him again...yet...

EDIT: oops; this post got a bit longer than I wanted

nymphaeles said:

Thanks @looney2ns for location of the log.
Yes, firmware 2018-03-30. System Log indicates that interface eth0 was off-line but didn't tell why. For the second time the cam went off line at 7:33 AM, system log doesn't have any significant info, except for a last motion detection was at 7:31:55AM. The cam came back to Blue Iris UI after a good 5 minutes. When I have some time today, I'll revert firmware to see if that helps.

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Did you fix this connectivity issue? I am having the same issue with losing connectivity. Can you please share some details? Thank you

Bravo79 said:

Did you fix this connectivity issue? I am having the same issue with losing connectivity. Can you please share some details? Thank you

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9 times out of 10 its a cable issue...use a solid copper cable and the 568B wiring scheme.

Bravo79 said:

Did you fix this connectivity issue? I am having the same issue with losing connectivity. Can you please share some details? Thank you

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@Bravo79
No, but the cam seems to function correctly after a reboot, so I set a schedule to reboot the cam. That seems to mitigate the issue. Most likely, it's a bug or a memory leak in its firmware.

So should we stay away from the latest firmware?

nymphaeles said:

@Bravo79
No, but the cam seems to function correctly after a reboot, so I set a schedule to reboot the cam. That seems to mitigate the issue. Most likely, it's a bug or a memory leak in its firmware.

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Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

fastsvo said:

So should we stay away from the latest firmware?

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

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As always, if it's not broke don't fix it.

fastsvo said:

So should we stay away from the latest firmware?

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

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@fastsvo
firmware updates fix bugs, security vulnerabilities, and introduce new functions. However, if not implemented carefully, they also generate new bugs. For this particular model, I find firmware version 2018-03-30 relatively usable. That's what I have on my cams. Newer firmware could be better, but you have to try it out to see if it works for you. I do that too, when a newer firmware is out, I'll try it on a cam and see how it goes. If it doesn't meet my needs, I go back to a stable one. Firmware upgrade and downgrade process, fortunately, is relatively safe and straight forward.
Cheers

So far this camera is not working for me. Andy sent me 20180813 Firmware and I upgraded it and it oked for like 4 hours and it started to lose connection and connects again. I check the recording on he NVR and it shows that it lost connectivity 4 times at night. When I checked in the morning the camera is not found. I disconnect it and reconnect it and it worked and then lost connectivity a couple times then it went off without being able to reconnect anymore. I tried to disconnect it and put it on a different PoE switch with no luck. I tried to put it on a different cable without any luck. There is a green light inside the camera which was on when I did a factory reset from before. Now that light is not on at all. I tried to reset to factory for 1 minute 3 minutes and 5 minutes nothing worked. Andy thinks that camera is dead. This camera from the start didnt work. It was on a firmware from March 2018 and it was rebooting (disconnecting) every minute.

The ping shows "destination host unreachable" and a couple of time out. The camera IP is change from 192.168.1.108 to something else

Personally, I'd replace the cable to the camera or bring it in and connect with a patch cable just to be sure the cable is good. Sounds like connectivity problems to me, but you can't rule out the camera until you check/replace/test that cable.