Buying advice: Is this (DS-2CD2142FWD-IW) a good choice?

[ZyBeR]

I'm looking to setup a surveillance system, but as I have no experience with these camers I'm going to start with one to make sure they are what I'm looking for.

So this one will be mounted outdoors and be pointing to my house.
The triangle I'm looking to film is about 14m wide and each side (seen from the camera) is 4m and 13m.

I do want English firmware which can be updated if needed. Is this camera below a good chooise?
And yes, I want Wifi as it makes installation so much easier for me.

Let me know what you think and if you have any better suggestions please post links

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Neutral-English-Version-IP-Camera-4-0-megapixel-V5-4-1-CCTV-Camera-POE-Security-System/32701450363.html?spm=2114.13010208.99999999.268.35NcHe

 

[fenderman]

But a turret..you will likely have issues with ir reflection using the dome.

 

[fenderman]

https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/14424-Turret-Vs-Bullet-(new-installation)?p=131278&viewfull=1#post131278

 

[ZyBeR]

But are there any wifi turrets?

 

[fenderman]

But are there any wifi turrets?

First, wifi is a terrible choice for security cameras.....run a wire. Second choice, use powerline. Third, ANY ip camera can be made wireless using a cheap wifi bridge.

 

[ZyBeR]

Why are they terrible? If you have a large installation I can see the issue, same with a large wifi or lot's of wifi's in this air disturbing the signal.

Do you mean they dropout? Are they unreliable? Do the video stream lagg over wifi?

 

[fenderman]

Why are they terrible? If you have a large installation I can see the issue, same with a large wifi or lot's of wifi's in this air disturbing the signal.

Do you mean they dropout? Are they unreliable? Do the video stream lagg over wifi?

yes, drops etc...hire someone competent to run a cable...you need to power the camera anyway. Wifi cameras are not like laptops and phones, dropped packets corrupt video.

 

[nayr]

if your recording externally you need wires from the video source to the recording destination, or you WILL miss video.. you need a reliable connection as your cameras are going to be sending data 24/7/365 nonstop and will not tolerate interruption or interference.. since it's a shared resource it will not scale, you will quickly hit a point where you cannot add any more wireless devices without everything crumbling apart.. for most people they hit that with there 2nd HD Camera.. unless you really detune your quality, then you might get 3-4 on Wifi and will be ripping your hair out.

oh, and anyone can knock your cameras off your network when they are on WiFi.. thats absolutely horrible for security.

There is no such thing as a 'wireless' security camera, they dont run of internal batteries so you have to plug a wire into something somewhere.. just do it right the first time.

 

[ZyBeR]

My goal is to trigger an event on motion which then runs a series of action in my home automation system, one being sending a push notification with a snapshot from the camera.

I'm not sure if I want to record everything or just on motion and I haven't gotten into NVR-stuff yet.. What's the recommendation on that?
BlueIris or are there other options out there? I would prefer if I could run it on a small system, I refuse to have a desktop pc setup just for this.

 

[nayr]

If your going to use a PC NVR, such as BluIris you need to dedicate the machine too it.. if you try to multi-purpose it you wont get reliability easily.

I recommend you record continuously and use motion events to flag the timeline, cameras built in motion is not reliable enough to send out notifications/snapshots as you'll get more false alarms than real ones.. HDD Storage is cheap, no reason not to record all the time so you can rest assured you wont miss anything.. even stuff like gunshots fired out of frame can allow you to provide an exact time to LEO.

Your home automation system will work much better if you use real motion/presence sensors directly and just pull a snapshot off your video system when triggered, video detectors have too much delay and noise to be much use honestly..

 

[ZyBeR]

Thanks for all info Nayr, this is turning out to be jungle.. I don't want to drill holes and pull wire all around my house and I don't even have network in my garage so that's why I'm hoping to solve this wirelessly.

Is there any setup that will work over wifi, there are lot's of wifi cameras out there so it can't be completely useless?
Would running separate wifi be of any help?

 

[nayr]

Wifi is for WebCameras, that are not recording remotely.. all those wifi cameras out there are for checking on your dog/kids/parents from time to time.. they work great for intermittent use and because your rarely viewing more than one at a time you can put plenty of them about.

all that changes once you start using them as video surveillance devices that need to record remotely, you have to run wires.. running a separate wifi network wont help much, you only have 3 channels to utilize without overlap and in any urban area they are already being used by many other access points and appliances, such as your microwave oven.

If you cant drill holes then you should start investigating if your house is capable of supporting a PowerLine Ethernet network, its capable of sending data over the AC mains already in your walls.. but the throughput is still not anywhere as good as you can get with normal wired ethernet, which can scale to pretty much any size.

for ~1080p cameras you can get ~2-3 on a Wifi 2.4GHz channel if your lucky..
you can get 8-12 on PowerLine network if your lucky..
you can get 64+ cameras on wired ethernet networks w/out any luck at all.