Are Axis camera's worth it?

We have installed hundreds of Dahuas, and we had some failures. Then we switched vendors and we havent had a failure since (still Dahua). Dahua told me the prior vendor was selling older stock. We can make more margin and profit on a Dahua and still offer the customer a better price.

As far as SLA, our client base can take days or weeks before they even report a failure, so no high expectations.

I would not offer 24/7 warranty service unless there was a separate service contract in place. IME most service calls are wireless devices reset, switches reset, cameras reset. Camera failures are a small cause of calls for us.

So all in all Dahua is the better choice for us
 
What vendor was you using that was selling old stock ? And was this recent ?

im using all dahua on the system I'm putting onto our house , apart from 3 older acti 10mp mini-domes that will do wide angle coverage of non-critical areas

fr0m my research dahua is the way to go at the moment , but seeing as everything is now "computer" based this could change by the time I've finished this cup of coffee !! Lol

the company I work for has just finished installing an axis cctv system with axis a/c controlling the main electric gate at a power plant I'm working on in California .
it is upto the owner to find a 3rd party for maintenance , allthough we will look after the factory warranty on the equipment .
$60k afaik , and the only problem has been the intercom camera audio was changed out , and a couple of media converters got broken on install

in regards to the 24 hrs call-out , it had to be "offered" on every install we did to meet expectations of a trade association .
it couldn't be cell-phone based , and it couldn't be answering-machine based .
Once everything was in place to offer it , it was then decided it would be given for free as a sales incentive even if a maintenance contract wasn't taken out (built into leasing costs so that option was taken more often than not)
obviously , I had to have confidence in the equipment installed as I don't like getting woken up in the middle of the night :)
 
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having done a bit of research into Axis, the company seems great. i've never used any of their products so can't comment on that aspect
 
Here's my two cents.

I have setup with 9 M3026VE( mini dome outdoor, 3MP), they are so easy to configure, plug and play I'd say.


The Good and The Bad
They work amazing on daylight, not so much at night, specially this model with no Infrared light.
The 2k resolution is neat, but not enough to recognize a face 20 feet away.

The available embedded apps gives them such nice features like digital auto tracking or motion detection.
The axis video manager software gets better every year, 2 years ago I started using Milestone, a great pricey software, this year I switched to Axis Companion, works on Windows, iOS and Android.


The Ugly
2 years and a half later, 3 of my 9 cameras went dead, I didn't buy the warranty extension, so, I have to pay almost 50% of the cost of the camera on repairs, a barely 3 years life span for a $550 camera seems mediocre to me.


Day/Night comparison at full resolution
vlcsnap-2017-01-20-20h56m09s468.png vlcsnap-2017-01-20-20h55m34s164.png
 
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I have installed Axis before, usually in larger commercial places schools hospitals. They are nice solid cameras. Easy to install, configure, reliable etc,

I have also installed HIK visions, I believe the 10% failure rate and have experienced close to that. I hated installing them.. Support is not that great ether, spend too much time sitting in server room wait on hold for HIK. Spent too much time going back to uninstall and send back cameras.

Large expensive jobs you do not want call backs. With higher end cameras like Axis you are much more likely to get a good solid install, fast with no call backs. Cheap cams like HIK you will probably get some call backs if you are installing more then a few of them.

For my own use I have been buying HIK, they are a lot cheaper and I am willing to spend a little more time to save some money.
 
Axis cameras are features rich, though most users don't use half of them or even know they exist, these features play a part in the cost. Their companion line series cameras and NVR locked the features and as such are more affordable. This is suitable for users who wants slightly cheaper but ease to install system.
 
I have several four megapixel hikvision cameras in my house. I have the opportunity to purchase several two megapixel Axid dome cameras. Are these really that much better? They are the same price for two megapixels versus the four megapixel hikvision. I know there are hundreds of posts about one versus the other But I would like to know what you guys will install if you had the choice. I also realize that this forum is specifically about axis cameras but I'm very interested.
 
One main reason I wont buy Hik is their ownership by the Chinese Government and the back door hacking issues is another.
 
Coger2017 said:
One main reason I wont buy Hik is their ownership by the Chinese Government and the back door hacking issues is another.
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FYI - most, if not all, large companies in China are owned or partially owned by powerful people in the Party.
 
Greetings,

Axis had their flaws, and I'm sure there is few more to uncover.

By looking into several other brands, most of them seems to have the origin from HiSilicon, as you will see same rootfs over and over again with whatever brands FW you disecting, the only thing that differs is the apps (w/ big blob's) where most of them seems to have connections to Hikvision, Dahua, XM and/or TVT in one way or another. It's actually quite frustrating when you find something and trying to track down the source to the flaw(s), and you can't find the source and only find multiple other's sharing the same flaws(s).

Axis are still one of my main targets, and they have still many legacy things (my favourite) running that most probably carry some uncovered flaws, but my own comparison of whats inside the HW surface of what I've been looking into so far, I would defiantly choose Axis before any other brand as it's totally different to anything else I've seen so far, and with no traces at all from HiSilicon/Hik/Dahua/XM/TVT - and what I also like with Axis FW is that they moving more and more towards Poky from Yocto Project (that you may know is open embedded linux by Linux foundation).

Only my 0.02$ to the thread
 
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Gerred-S said:
Indeed for most of the so called low level users MJPEG streaming is way to expensive and useless.
But for people who buy such expensive Axis camera’s quality means something for them otherwise they would pay 1/3 of the price and buy a cheap Chinese camera.
And when you really want to have the best video stream with the possibility to grab the best frames out of the stream people will be highly interested in MJPEG because that is the only stream delivering this high quality option.
But like said before it’s only for people who want to pay for it while their network specifications has to be way higher than just for using the simple low level H.264 stream.
Network operation and implementation cost are much higher but dedicated MJPEG stream users are willing to pay the price for the better stream.
But once again when you just want to see something on your camera don’t do it and stick with H.264 because MJPEG is too expensive.
When you are interested in the smallest details yes MJPEG is way more interesting than H.264 :)
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Specs are h.264/5 as standard in the industry...mjpeg is an old dated unused protocol..being an amateur inexperienced user you believed the spec was referencing mjpeg.
its only amatuers like yourself who dwell on it... h.264 is NOT blurry or delayed, that is why I know you have no clue as to what you are doing...
mjpeg is not better in "dark scenery" its all about the sensor..you simply have no clue as to what you are doing...sad...if you want to record a movie for cinema, go buy a camcorder...
mjpeg is useless in todays high res cameras....stop being stupid..you will catch the finest details if you setup h.264 properly and set the camera up properly....why are you using mjpeg to compensate for improper installation and lens choices?:facepalm: you are the typical amateur
 
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Gerred-S said:
Strange that just because I have a different view on certain items I’m at once an amateur, stupid and inexperience user :) It’s quite interesting to see this happening while you do not even know me or my background :) At least it tells something about your way of thinking and about your willingness to see things from an other perspective. I do not even want to convince you please continue living in your own bubble and keep on happy with H.264 :)

For people who want to learn something else than the shouting H.264 lobby is trying to convince them I can only tell those people please do a test by yourself and you will clearly see a big difference between H.264 and MJPEG quality when you use the same camera of course
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I know you...I can tell from your posts that you have no experience but for a few cheap cams you own...you simply have no clue as to what you are doing...:wtf:...mjpeg is inefficient both from a network standpoint and from a storage perspective....perhaps you should think about why manufactures have abandoned it....you must know better than them...the expert lol...again, buy a camcorder...
 
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If you give H.264/H.265 enough bit rate, it is just fine. Give it too little and it'll look like shit. The same applies to mjpeg, except it needs an order of magnitude more bandwidth to look okay. The only benefit of mjpeg is that it is a much simpler format, easier to write code for and harder to screw up the implementation.
 
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Brad_C said:
If you are farting around at home then cheap Chinese cameras are fine. Where Axis shines is in long term reliability, not fabricating their spec sheets and their after-sales support. It was only a couple of years ago we were seeing 10% failure rates on Hik cameras, and they are supposed to be top of the Chinese pile.

We saw a manufacturing defect with a batch of Axis cameras. Once identified, Axis not only shipped replacement cameras direct to the clients sites (and there were a couple of hundred of those across Australia), but they then paid for a tech to go to each site and replace and re-configure the cameras. That's standing by your product and a level of support you have to pay for. Cheap Chinese cameras don't come close to the long term reliability and quality of established brands like that yet. I'm sure they'll get there, but my experience with Hik official tech support has been bad enough that I would not let them near any of my clients. With Chinese cameras you absorb the cost difference (or more) on your first service call, so you pay more up front for a reliable product and a manufacturer that stands behind it.

An example is the recent security vulnerability with Axis gear. You know that when you upgrade the firmware to fix that vulnerability you won't break the camera because they actually test and QA their firmware properly. The release notes are comprehensive and accurate, and they don't spend more time screwing their clients and region locking than fixing the firmware. You pay for that quality.

Of course, as I said for those farting around at home, sure use cheap Chinese cameras. I certainly won't be specifying them any time soon for real work though.

My comments stand as well for Axis as most of the established brands (Axis, Bosch, March Networks, Indigo Vision, Panasonic, Pelco, Samsung.. and so on). There's a reason they are more expensive. Quality and performance.
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Yes I agree with you absolutely. As CEO of Analytics Engineering we are partners with Axis, Hikvison and Daihua. We have installed over 150 Axis cameras and when the market started complaning about price-added some hikvision and daihua cams. My first observation-just hold an Axis ourdoor cam in your palms and compare that with a Daihua nad Hikvison-the Axis camera looks well done and heavier. Now lets talk about reliability. Out of the 150 cameras installed about 6 years ago i have only changed 2 and their cameras support is great. Meanwhile i have installed Hikvison over a year and have replaced 2 already. If i have a large installation, i will go for Axis knowing i will have my peace of mind after installation
 
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Ebow Sam-Monney said:
Yes I agree with you absolutely. As CEO of Analytics Engineering we are partners with Axis, Hikvison and Daihua. We have installed over 150 Axis cameras and when the market started complaning about price-added some hikvision and daihua cams. My first observation-just hold an Axis ourdoor cam in your palms and compare that with a Daihua nad Hikvison-the Axis camera looks well done and heavier. Now lets talk about reliability. Out of the 150 cameras installed about 6 years ago i have only changed 2 and their cameras support is great. Meanwhile i have installed Hikvison over a year and have replaced 2 already. If i have a large installation, i will go for Axis knowing i will have my peace of mind after installation
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Probably because you dont know what you are doing...posts like yours are deliberately misleading. You claim to have installed 150 axis cameras six years ago and two failures. You then note that you replaced 2 hikivision cameras since installing some "over a year ago". How many hikvision cameras did you install? 5 or 500? what does over a year ago mean? 1.1 years or 6 years? Where the hikvision cameras in the same environment as the axis? how did they fail. Nice try though to push users towards cameras that cost 5-10x the price.
 
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We all purchase what we can afford--no other choice.
I have been saving my pennies for an Axis system and will continue.
Like Ebo said and I agree, reliability and support are critical, but again it comes
down to what one can afford.
 
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