Almost ready

[sebastiantombs]

Just keep in mind that the consumer level systems will fail when they are needed most. They may be easy and convenient, but they are not to be relied on.

A video system is for surveillance. A wired alarm system is for security.

 

[Flintstone61]

I have Hikvision and Dahua ( Empiretech) outside in Minn.....we get the deep freeze.....Polar Vortex etc....Nothing has failed outside in the last 2-3 years.....I don't play with the PTZ Motors when it's -20 though

 

[Daddymem]

So it looks like my budget should be more like $1500 ish give or take a couple hundred based on which cameras for Andy's sale and 4 cameras to start (1 for each side of the house)
$1400 for 4MP
$1600 for 8MP
A Lorex 8MP nocturnal 16 channel is about $1600. Are these Dahua or their own similar? Are all the Lorex Dahua so I could go with the 4MP and get the same camera?

So the question for me now is tradeoff of Lorex "plug and play" vs flexibility and control of BI system. As well as 1 stop shopping at Lorex vs piecemeal.

Then of course there is convincing the better half of either one and why one over the other....

 

[mat200]

So it looks like my budget should be more like $1500 ish give or take a couple hundred based on which cameras for Andy's sale and 4 cameras to start (1 for each side of the house)
$1400 for 4MP
$1600 for 8MP
A Lorex 8MP nocturnal 16 channel is about $1600. Are these Dahua or their own similar? Are all the Lorex Dahua so I could go with the 4MP and get the same camera?

So the question for me now is tradeoff of Lorex "plug and play" vs flexibility and control of BI system. As well as 1 stop shopping at Lorex vs piecemeal.

Then of course there is convincing the better half of either one and why one over the other....

FYI - most of the Lorex branded cameras I have seen this last year on lorex's website have smaller sensors ..

also most of the Lorex branded cameras are Dahua OEM .. yet often the Dahua OEM cameras you get from Andy will have better / more features in the firmware .. ( and imho the hardware probably is a bit beefier to handle those firmware features .. more memory and such .. )

 

[wittaj]

Yes Dahua makes Lorex, but keep in mind the Lorex all in a box kit is a very stripped down version of a Dahua camera and NVR with less than ideal MP/sensor ratios among other things, like bandwidth limited NVR and lesser quality. It is built cheap to sell cheap. And all fixed lens which usually won't cut it.

When we had a thief come thru here and get into a lot of cars, the police couldn't use one video or photo from anyone's system but mine. Not even my other neighbors Lorex $1,300 8MP system provided useful info - the cams just didn't cut it at night. His car was parked literally within 1 foot of the garage door and thus the cameras, so the perps where withing 8 feet of the camera and all he could tell the police is what time it happened....

His system wasn't even a year old and after that event has started replacing with cameras from @EMPIRETECANDY here based on my recommendation and seeing my results. Andy's cameras were literally plug-n-play with the Lorex NVR. By the time we got inside, the cameras were already showing on his monitor. He is still shocked a 2MP camera performs better than his 4k cameras and he cannot figure out why- it is because his 8MP Lorex system was on the same size sensor as the 2MP so his cameras need over 4 times the light. Sensor size and optical zoom is more important than MP. Further mine could run in color and his could not.

Chase sensor size, not MP. Lorex will put 8MP on the sensor designed for a 2MP camera and then it will be useless at night.

Do a search here of Lorex and see how many people were disappointed with that purchase and started replacing within a year or so.

Keep in mind the only true "plug-n-play" systems are the true consumer grade stuff like Ring, Nest, etc., that doesn't allow you to change any parameters on the cameras - they are all set to the same thing.

Even if you went with the Lorex, you would be a fool to run it on default/auto settings - at that point, might as well just go with Ring or Arlo...

So you would have to go into each camera and set it up for your field of view and adjust shutter speed, gain, brightness, contrast, etc. and at that point, it is the same as BI....