Are Unify cameras good?

[sebastiantombs]

Personally, I think the LED equipped cameras are more like a gimmick than a useful source of light. The white LEDs are more like using a cell phone flash as a flashlight, bright really close, but not much light past a few feet. To make matters worse there is at least one model that comes without an IR cut filter which means it can't see IR light. All of my 5442s have IR illumination available although I don't use it on all of them. It all depends on the light available in each, specific, location. Here's a screen cap from a 5442, no IR on in the camera but there is an external IR illuminator behind the fox. The lighting in the scene is moonlight and a street light about 150 feet away.



This little fella is a regular visitor who tries to make my neighbors chicken coop his personal Colonel Sanders.

 

[sorka]

I’ll never understand how it is a subpar product is able to capture a small percentage of the market. While offering subpar video quality at neck breaking prices?!?

Many of my co-workers with unifi networking added cameras because they're "all-in" on the eco system. That's how.

I already had BI and many different brands of cameras plus many of my cameras are integrated directly into my home automation system that is agnostic to my networking topology. The only thing my topology relates to for iot devices are the ones that are on a VLAN that doesn't have access to the rest of the internal network but can still be reached from the internal network. One of the isolated VLANs can still get out to the internet and the other VLAN devices can't even get out. So my Ring doorbell would be an example of an iOT device that is on the VLAN that can get out to the world but since there's no reason for the Ring to have access to my internal network, it's on an isolated network. All of that is is configured VLANs and firewall rules between the LAN, WAN, and VLANs on my Unifi network.

I'm all in with Unifi, just not the cameras.

Screen shots of my Unifi maps with and without clients.

 

[Ihadablackdog]

So I’m confused on model numbers and how it works.

Is 5442 the sensor? I thought the one I linked to (with the led lights) was “the “ 5442 referenced, but it turns out there are different versions.

Think of a BMW car….the “series” dictates the model (3 Series, 5 series etc) and the following numbers the engine, 325i, 530d….. the letter being the fuel type. Can you explain camera model numbers similar to that?

looking at YouTube videos of the 5442 led camera, colour at night seems to have a watercolour appearance on some videos?

Which is better in low light, with led trying to stay in colour, or ir in black and white.

Probably varies depending on use case but is there a general feeling? I know the camera needs light to get a good image and then motion blur at night could be an issue.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Cameras are not cars. The base model, 5442 in this case, indicates the sensor size and basic electronics of the camera. Think of the various models, AS, ZE and so on, as the various options that come in a specific car model.

The built-in white LEDs are not very powerful, on the level of a flash in a cell phone camera being used as a flashlight. I'd stick with models that have built-in IR LEDs. They can be augmented with external IR illuminators very easily. As an example I have a large external IR illuminator that lights up my back yard enough for my cameras to be able to see over 200 feet out. That is with no external lighting at all and with no motion blur at all.

 

[Ihadablackdog]

So I think the ir would be better for me, and therefore the correct camera would be this one

https://www.dahuasecurity.com/asset/upload/uploads/cpq/DH-IPC-HDW5442TM-ASE_datasheet_20200622.pdf

(which is the same as the other one I linked to, but with ir instead of white led).

I'm guessing that with enough light it would stay in colour anyway, and then switch to ir when light levels fall.

My reasoning is that there is a street light on the street really close to my house which I think would give plenty of light when it is on, because they changed the street lights in the UK to White LED lights instead of the old type which had an orange tinge to them.

However, they also now switch the street lights of for most of the night! Not sure, but think its about 1am to 6am? Never understood the logic, other than money saving....but being switched on at night is kind of what they are there for!

So when the light is on I think it will be fine, but then when it goes off, it gets quite....err...dark! So switching to ir would be better than having to have the white LED's on all the time, and as you say, would they be powerful enough anyway?

With the ir camera I have the choice of installing a white light security light to detect motion and still get colour or install an ir light like you linked to, to give more coverage without lighting the street up. This might be useful for my back garden.

 

[wittaj]

You will be shocked how much light these cameras need to stay in color. Most of us have to force color in the settings.

It can stay color with auto/default settings, but once you set up proper shutter speeds to eliminate blur, most of these kick into B/W.

But many of us will force the camera to stay color in order to get clothing color, color of person, etc., but we have cameras with IR then able to better pick up details.

I have a Full Color type camera and the LED light on it is a gimmick. It helps for a small diameter circle, but it is no different than going outside at pitch black and turning on your cell phone light - it is bright looking directly at the LED light, but it doesn't spread out and reach very far. Fortunately I have enough ambient light that I do not need the little piddly LED light on and the picture quality actually looks worse with it on, but it performs better than my other cameras when tested at the same location due to my available flood light. But without some light, a camera with infrared capability is the safer bet. Many here with the camera with the LED light on it do not use it for the very same reason - it's dispersion is not very far and doesn't light up near as well as putting a floodlight up.

I have enough light at this location that the little LED white light on the camera didn’t make a difference. So with this 1/120 shutter speed, I wanted to see if the camera could perform with only the white light from the camera and the flood lights turned off. As you can see from this video, it never recognized me at these settings. You would need to run 1/80 shutter with just the white light to be able to start to make a person out, but the image is way too dark. But if I run a slower shutter to make the image brighter, then I get blur.

The average Joe will not spend the time to calibrate and will just leave the settings on auto and love the great still image they get and then just accept a blur/ghost motion at night. When do we need these to perform - at night!

Keep in mind that with the shutter at auto, it is a nice bright image and looks like noon at midnight, but motion was a blur...once you dial the camera in to actually be usable, you see the limitations...

https://ipcamtalk.com/data/video/77/77700-cde61f6b1c11ec86c9d2aa035a02742b.mp4

 

[KenAllen15]

Does anyone know if it is possible to use hik or dahua cameras with Unify protect?

 

[Left Coast Geek]

Does anyone know if it is possible to use hik or dahua cameras with Unify protect?

thats a negatory, the Unifi Video system is closed and proprietary, you have to use their cameras, their NVR. their cameras do not work with anyone elses software, and their software doesnt' work with anyone elses cameras.

 

[Ihadablackdog]

So, after about a hundred years, I've finally got the revised quote from my alarm company for the CCTV with Dahua equipment.

The cameras are: DH-IPC-HDW5442TM-ASE (IPC-HDW5442TM-ASE) (having 4 cameras) and the NVR is : NVR4108-8P-4KS2 which I think is NVR4108/4116-8P-4KS2 Having a 4TB HHD which will hopefully give approx 1 month continuous record, although I'd be happy with anything over 14 days.

Going with 2.8mm camera's. I think I know the pros and cons of this lens, so hope it will be ok. I can always change the camera later on if I want to.

Ridiculously slow with the changes to the quote, and normally I'd have given up and gone elsewhere, but I liked how they were going to route the cables and I know (from having my house alarm installed and maintained by them for over 20yrs) the actual service is top quality (quality of installation, service calls etc etc).

Any comments on the equipment? I'm eager to go ahead with it (as its been over a month for this quote and my first post, about Unify, was on 6th May!) and will run it past the wife tonight (got to do that, right!)

 

[Ihadablackdog]

Um...been thinking about this again. The price increased by about £700 to change the cameras and nvr which I find expensive (although I don't know the individual costs, and it was like getting blood out of a stone to get the model numbers from them on the original quote, so no chance they're going to give me an itemised breakdown).

Also thinking again about 2.8 vs 3.6 etc. Is there a price difference between lens sizes on the same camera model?

 

[wittaj]

I think you should just skip them and purchase/install yourself.

There is usually no price difference between the 2.8 vs 3.6.

 

[Ihadablackdog]

haha, I nearly added that to the question. Although I'm not interested in running the cables....cos I would've done so otherwise, but I was wondering if they would just run the cables and I could then source and fit the cameras.

Problems I see with this is liability if there are problems (i.e. if I blamed the wiring and they blamed the cameras?...although a cable tester would soon sort that argument) and the other problem, because I dont have an itemised bill, they could still rip me off on labour as I dont know how much was labour/cable and how much was camera equipment!

 

[wittaj]

A 700 increase alone can get close to purchasing just the cameras LOL. They are screwing you over.

This outfit will charge you a premium to just run the cables because they are not getting the huge markup on the cameras.

Find a low-volt electrician to run the cables. Get 3 quotes.

 

[Ihadablackdog]

That makes sense. To be honest, if it had been a couple hundred then I probably wouldn't have questioned it but yeah, 700 makes me wonder if they just added the 4 cameras I specced and didn't remove the ones they originally quoted for

 

[Ihadablackdog]

Haha, just found those cameras on a uk site for £180 (including vat). I suspect they would get them cheaper than retail prices.

Going to give them 1 chance to explain the pricing to me and check they deducted the cost of the old cameras.

Probably wasting my time, but I’m intrigued to know.

 

[Ihadablackdog]

So I rang them and asked about the prices….the guy tried to waffle off some crap but just wouldn’t break down the quote into installation cost and equipment cost. He basically said the price quoted was what they will charge and they don’t break it down.
When I said I can get the cameras for £150 he just kept quiet…..
He basically said the quote is the price, take it or leave it! Said he didn’t have time to break it down….surely, it’s the total cost minus what ever he charges for the equipment, and as he has that info to hand, 10 minute job max!
Obviously the way they do business, don’t think they liked it when I initially said I wanted to know the model numbers of the original quote as I found out they weren’t Dahua cameras like he said (I think they are rebranded, but still, not what he said).
He then said they now can’t do it for 12 weeks (was 2 week lead time previously)….obviously just doesn’t want me as a difficult customer
But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for such info, at the end of the day it’s my money.
So my attempt to stick with a local company who I thought I trusted didn’t pay off and the fact they are so cagey about the costs makes me think they are overpricing. Just tell me the costs so I can see where the extra came from and I’d be happy, but refusing that info leaves a sour taste.