Camect NVR evaluation

Tdub2

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I wanted to take a minute to shout out about the new Camect NVR product I am using. I realize it is not fully production, is an Indiegogo startup and is a crowdfunded project, however it is hands down the best product I have used to eliminate as they call it "uninteresting" and "suppressed" alerts. The wasps, spiders, rain, wind, tree motion, shadows no longer haunt me in the middle of the night. The UI is a bit complicated and "by design" has limited options to tweak the behavior. The options present are excellent and aimed at using AI to learn about what the end-user considers an "interesting" alert and associated area. I don't want to spend my life setting up and constantly tweaking a camera security system.

The primary downfall IMHO is that it uses proprietary hardware. If you are a BI user that wants and/or needs total control over your environment, this is probably not a good fit. If you are a more casual homeowner that wants to use a product that does not require great technical knowledge and provides only alerts that are real, then IMHO, this is a product worth considering.

I have a six camera configuration, one Amcrest WiFi (inside use only) and five Dahua Starlight + IP cameras of varying resolution (2Mp-8Mp Eyeball). Two of those are at a separate location and connected via OpenVPN back into my local LAN. I started off using Blue Iris, which is a very capable product, but I could not tweak the multitude of settings to alert when I needed and not alert on uninteresting motion. There are several AI add ons available but I found short comings with them when compared to the Camect software.

 

jack7

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I have a Camect. IMO, the AI really is good.
 

CableCraig

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I just bought one today. I’m just getting started and decided that between BI and this that I like what this has to offer, especially with AI. We shall see! Now to figure out cams - I’ll search, read, or post about that soon.
 

Tdub2

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I just bought one today. I’m just getting started and decided that between BI and this that I like what this has to offer, especially with AI. We shall see! Now to figure out cams - I’ll search, read, or post about that soon.
Let me know if you want any camera settings suggestions. It is substantially different than what BI would work with.
 

fenderman

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Let me know if you want any camera settings suggestions. It is substantially different than what BI would work with.
It will work with any camera that works with BI. Frankly the camera recommendations on their website are horrific.
 

Tdub2

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I wasn’t referring to any of their recommendations. I was referring to my own person experiences with some of BI settings that did or did not work. For example, BI does not support H.265, VBR and smart codec without significant issues. I found that that combination worked very well with Camect software.
 

Tdub2

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IMHO. Understanding and managing the data stream rate is an important aspect of setup if you want to maximize recording duration that is limited.
 

fenderman

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I wasn’t referring to any of their recommendations. I was referring to my own person experiences with some of BI settings that did or did not work. For example, BI does not support H.265, VBR and smart codec without significant issues. I found that that combination worked very well with Camect software.
Incorrect and false. Blue iris has no issues with h.265 or vbr. If you had a different experience its 100 percent user error. Smart codecs create a dynamic iframe interval which causes problems when recording on motion only. These plus/smart codecs also result in a degraded image.
 

fenderman

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IMHO. Understanding and managing the data stream rate is an important aspect of setup if you want to maximize recording duration that is limited.
This is called a bitrate. Many threads discussing this topic.
 

Tdub2

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Camect doesn’t seem to exhibit the same artifact issues I experienced with BI Using the same video settings. Call it user error if you like. In the end, I am getting 10 to 15 correct alerts a day from Camect where I was experiencing 100 a day from BI when there is a lot of motion such as spiders, wasps, rain, etc... I spent 3 months setting BI up and tweaking to get to that point. I’m not an lT nor data novice as that was my expertise at a fortune five company.
 

Iemand91

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The primary downfall IMHO is that it uses proprietary hardware.
One of the founders mentioned in an earlier topic that you can buy the software alone and install it on your own hardware:
 

fenderman

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Camect doesn’t seem to exhibit the same artifact issues I experienced with BI Using the same video settings. Call it user error if you like. In the end, I am getting 10 to 15 correct alerts a day from Camect where I was experiencing 100 a day from BI when there is a lot of motion such as spiders, wasps, rain, etc... I spent 3 months setting BI up and tweaking to get to that point. I’m not an lT nor data novice as that was my expertise at a fortune five company.
Again, blue iris does not exhibit artifact issues. You have not setup blue iris correctly. You have also not setup blue iris motion detection correct. Blue iris also has sentry ai integration for 50 bux a year or FREE deepstack integration.
Somehow its always the IT experts who dont know how to follow basic directions.
You must also weigh false positives vs false negatives.
The biggest issue with camect is the weak hardware that limits you to 24MP and the device is choking at that limit. The nuc also has very limited internal storage on a 2.5 drive. Unacceptable. USB or nas storage as primary is not reliable.
You can easily run way more than 24MP on a 100 dollar PC and blue iris and pay for sentry for many years before you reach the cost of camect.
 
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