Camera reliability?

[danmc13]

2 failing in a three week time frame points to a likely surge that may have damaged components..

As I said, they were installed on two separate houses in different locations. Also I'm not connected to the grid. Well other than to charge my batteries, so the chances of that are extremely remote.

Also nothing else has been damaged at my home or the neighbours.

 

[fenderman]

As I said, they were installed on two separate houses in different locations. Also I'm not connected to the grid. Well other than to charge my batteries, so the chances of that are extremely remote.

Also nothing else has been damaged at my home or the neighbours.

Sounds strange. You connect to the grid to charge your batteries?
Regardless youve had bad luck. If you blame the brand despite it's known great reliability, move to one of the 50 other options on the market.

 

[danmc13]

Sounds strange. You connect to the grid to charge your batteries?
Regardless youve had bad luck. If you blame the brand despite it's known great reliability, move to one of the 50 other options on the market.

I'm on Octopus' Energy's Agile tariff. I charge from the grid when I get paid, it's free or if it's extremely cheap and there's been little sun for a few days in a row just to top up. The rest of the time they are charged by solar power.

Seems so. Between myself and the neighbour we have another 3 of these cameras still online. I'll report back if anymore go down.

 

[JohnKol]

There is a direct metal connection between the devices.

You're not talking about a power surge then, you're talking about a lightning strike; a power surge does not behave the way you describe it, plus all electronic circuits have built-in measures (either fuses, or specially designed traces) to prevent power surges from destroying the electronics.

Search the net to see what happens to pc's/routers etc after a power surge coming via ethernet.

I don't need to search the net; I'm an electrical engineer that works in the electronics manufacturing industry.

The components of a switch are different than those of a camera, the price is irrelevant.

The components in essentially all modern electronic equipment are pretty much standard, and they do not differentiate reliable devices from unreliable ones. The quality and reliability of a product is determined by the quality control procedures each company places in its manufacturing process: if a company wants to establish itself as a quality manufacturer, then it places strict quality controls that invariably mean a greater than 20% reject rate; as a result, this loss will make the products that enter the market more expensive (but of higher quality). On the other hand, if a company decides to have a 1% reject rate, then it relaxes its quality controls and sells the sub-par components to the cheap distribution channels (e.g. Amazon) without any warranty.

 

[fenderman]

You're not talking about a power surge then, you're talking about a lightning strike; a power surge does not behave the way you describe it, plus all electronic circuits have built-in measures (either fuses, or specially designed traces) to prevent power surges from destroying the electronics.



I don't need to search the net; I'm an electrical engineer that works in the electronics manufacturing industry.



The components in essentially all modern electronic equipment are pretty much standard, and they do not differentiate reliable devices from unreliable ones. The quality and reliability of a product is determined by the quality control procedures each company places in its manufacturing process: if a company wants to establish itself as a quality manufacturer, then it places strict quality controls that invariably mean a greater than 20% reject rate; as a result, this loss will make the products that enter the market more expensive (but of higher quality). On the other hand, if a company decides to have a 1% reject rate, then it relaxes its quality controls and sells the sub-par components to the cheap distribution channels (e.g. Amazon) without any warranty.

A power surge does occur in the way described and for many reasons other than lighting strikes. Again these surges destroy all sorts of devices hence an entire industry for surge suppressors - something you did not have installed.
If you are in fact an electrical engineer - which I doubt - why dont you open the camera and determine why it has failed?
Are you suggesting that there is a component in the camera that tested out of spec at manufacturing but was shipped anyway - yet this faulty component lasted 5-6 years in your cameras then suddenly failed - and coincidently another camera by the same manufacture failed at almost the same time after so many years?

As an "engineer" you would understand that your 11 cameras in the same location are insufficient to draw any conclusions....You need to look at installers who have thousands of these out there. If they had an 18 percent failure rate they would be using a different brand - even if that failure is after 5 years....If you ask those installers they will probably indicate a 1-2 percent failure rate after 5 years if that.

 

[Teken]

I believe some clarity and facts need to be presented into this conversation before half truths and miscomceptions over take reality. Almost all modern eletronics are designed to a price point because it needs to sell. The obvious exception are those that relate to the millitary even than it must pertain to some kind of budget / price.

As it relates to consumer products that means designers will include / exclude parts, components, design elements to meet said price point. In the extreme (very common) companies will simply use cheaper components to attain said price point or to allow them to incoprorate some feature.

This is why MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) testing and standards were created . . .

Does every company conduct MTBF testing???

No . . .

So how would they know how long something is going to last / not last??

They can't . . .

As it relates to one of the comments from a member here where they stated every device incorporates surge protection. That is simply incorrect and completely false. Now, if one was to strech the comment out to encompass that all electronics incorporate some form of voltage regulation that would be true.

Voltage regution is NOT surge protection in the purest form . . . If someone said whelps these devices have fuses, resistors, breakers, etc. See thats's surge protection!

No . . .

Surge protection is an active design element that incorporates components, board level, eletrical protection that limit the amount of voltage going back into the AC Line (VAC). Some of the various components that make a SPD (Surge Protective Device) are MOV, SAD, GDT, Transformers, Optical, etc.

As it relates to so called QA or quality control that in no way address's poor design / cheap parts. Anyone old enough on this forum to grow up in the 60~90's know companies built things to last.

Is this the case in 2023 fuck no . . .

Is it because we are too stupid to make something last 99999999999999999999 years like the Voyager probes??? Is it because we don't have the technology or advanced knowledge to do the same???

No . . .

It's because the mentality of humans in 2023 and beyound is to make things disposible with a finite service life! So when people spout off about QA and everything is the same - give your head a shake because that's simply horse shit.

As it relates to surges almost 80% of said events are seen and created within the home / building. That means everytime a motor, inductive load, etc turns on / turns off it will introduce a surge event on the powerline. This is why its important to have and deployed a tiered SPD outside and inside of the home / building.

There are five types of SPD's that span Type 1 ~ Type 5 . . .

In a residential home the most commonly seen are Type 2 / 3 installed. Assuming the home owner had the common sense and knowledge to install one. Type 1 SPD's are installed at the service entrance (Meter) Type 2 are installed at the service panel (breaker) Type 3 are installed at the POU (Point of Use) like outlets.

Type 4 are installed at the device like a AC, HVAC, Fire Control, etc . . .

Regardless of the Type of SPD in use all of them wear out and ultimately need to be replaced. A SPD will NOT protect a connected device from voltage sag (Brown Out) nor will it protect a device from a Voltage Rise (Over Voltage) condition! Only an AVR device will assist in the need to buck / boost the line voltage.

Having said that even a AVR device, SPD, will not protect you from Lightning . . .

The work around (partial solution) for more than a hundred years to address the impact of lightning is proper low resistance Earth grounding (<5 ~ 25 Ohms) and proper shielding to reduce the impact of direct lightning strikes. In 2023 our knowledge and understanding of lightning has grown and now we Try to actively negate positive ions in the air to reduce the buildup of (attraction) to a structure / area.

Induced voltage (EMF) from lightning is extremely hard to counter because it requires everthing to be properly shielded / grounded.

Regardless, just wanted to put out there some facts - carry on . . .

 

[JohnKol]

Are you suggesting that there is a component in the camera that tested out of spec at manufacturing but was shipped anyway

You have a very simplistic view of electronic devices; it is not a black or white call, and it hasn't been for at least 60 years. A complex device like one of these cameras we are talking about will go through a hundred tests (a few of them BTW being about surge protection) during its manufacturing process, and the outcome of each test will be rated on a scale; at the end of the process each camera will receive an overall score according to rules established by Quality Assurance, and will be placed in one of, let's say, five Quality bins, A through E.

At the same time, Sales and Marketing have divided customers into Tiers: Tier 1 (highest) are the OEMs and Government agencies, Tier 2 would be large customers, Tier 3 small or occasional customers, Tier 4 would be Value Distributors (Best Buy, Costco, etc.), and Tier 5 would be general (cheap) distribution (Amazon, eBay, consolidators, etc.). So the company will allocate products from Quality Bins A+B to Tiers 1+2 with full warranty (let's say five years), Bin 3 to Tier 3 with 2 or 3 years warranty, Bin D to Tier 4 with 1 or 2 years warranty, and Bin E to Tier 5 with maybe one year or no warranty.

why dont you open the camera and determine why it has failed?

You clearly don't understand the complexity of these devices. Sure, I can put them on the bench and measure them... but against what? Who's going to tell me what the specs are? Moreover, someone has to give me the Firmware source code because everything is controlled by it, and even if I were to get my hands on it, the code for such a device is about 300,000 lines; do you have any sense of how long it would take to go through that?

If they had an 18 percent failure rate they would be using a different brand

No they wouldn't if the competition was equally bad or worse.

 

[fenderman]

You have a very simplistic view of electronic devices; it is not a black or white call, and it hasn't been for at least 60 years. A complex device like one of these cameras we are talking about will go through a hundred tests (a few of them BTW being about surge protection) during its manufacturing process, and the outcome of each test will be rated on a scale; at the end of the process each camera will receive an overall score according to rules established by Quality Assurance, and will be placed in one of, let's say, five Quality bins, A through E.

At the same time, Sales and Marketing have divided customers into Tiers: Tier 1 (highest) are the OEMs and Government agencies, Tier 2 would be large customers, Tier 3 small or occasional customers, Tier 4 would be Value Distributors (Best Buy, Costco, etc.), and Tier 5 would be general (cheap) distribution (Amazon, eBay, consolidators, etc.). So the company will allocate products from Quality Bins A+B to Tiers 1+2 with full warranty (let's say five years), Bin 3 to Tier 3 with 2 or 3 years warranty, Bin D to Tier 4 with 1 or 2 years warranty, and Bin E to Tier 5 with maybe one year or no warranty.



You clearly don't understand the complexity of these devices. Sure, I can put them on the bench and measure them... but against what? Who's going to tell me what the specs are? Moreover, someone has to give me the Firmware source code because everything is controlled by it, and even if I were to get my hands on it, the code for such a device is about 300,000 lines; do you have any sense of how long it would take to go through that?



No they wouldn't if the competition was equally bad or worse.

LOL, if you cant place it on a bench and determine its fault, get a refund on your alleged degree. Send it to a pro on youtube who has no degree and actually repairs devices for a living....


You clearly do not have a grasp on high school level statistical analysis yet you claim to be an engineer. Your sample size is 11, all installed in the same location and despite being a self-proclaimed "engineer" you have not even examined the camera to determine the failure. Do you even know if its the POE module? Some basic testing that any novice can perform would give you that answer.

Your entire logic is nonsense as your cameras have lasted 5-6 years...what bin were they put in?


You are making wild assumptions as to dahua’s quality control process yet you have no determined the cause of your failure and have no clue as to how they operate. Pulled directly out of your ass.



The bottom line is that there are thousands of users on this forum as well as thousands of installers who install dahua and would not do so if their failure rate was 18 percent – even after 5-6 years. I have hundreds of these cams installed for years with a few water ingress issues after many years….thats all. Again it could be that particular model.



You came here with a question and others have answered that their experience has not been like yours. What else do you want? A free replacement after SIX years? FUCK OFF.


No camera manufacture has an 18 percent failure rate after 5 years...you again are speaking out of your novice ass. Incredible... Why would you assume they all do based on your experience with 11 cameras....no way you hold an engineering degree, no way.

 

[TonyR]

I believe some clarity and facts need to be presented into this conversation before half truths and miscomceptions over take reality. Almost all modern eletronics are designed to a price point because it needs to sell. The obvious exception are those that relate to the millitary even than it must pertain to some kind of budget / price.

As it relates to consumer products that means designers will include / exclude parts, components, design elements to meet said price point. In the extreme (very common) companies will simply use cheaper components to attain said price point or to allow them to incoprorate some feature.

This is why MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) testing and standards were created . . .

Does every company conduct MTBF testing???

No . . .

So how would they know how long something is going to last / not last??

They can't . . .

As it relates to one of the comments from a member here where they stated every device incorporates surge protection. That is simply incorrect and completely false. Now, if one was to strech the comment out to encompass that all electronics incorporate some form of voltage regulation that would be true.

Voltage regution is NOT surge protection in the purest form . . . If someone said whelps these devices have fuses, resistors, breakers, etc. See thats's surge protection!

No . . .

Surge protection is an active design element that incorporates components, board level, eletrical protection that limit the amount of voltage going back into the AC Line (VAC). Some of the various components that make a SPD (Surge Protective Device) are MOV, SAD, GDT, Transformers, Optical, etc.

As it relates to so called QA or quality control that in no way address's poor design / cheap parts. Anyone old enough on this forum to grow up in the 60~90's know companies built things to last.

Is this the case in 2023 fuck no . . .

Is it because we are too stupid to make something last 99999999999999999999 years like the Voyager probes??? Is it because we don't have the technology or advanced knowledge to do the same???

No . . .

It's because the mentality of humans in 2023 and beyound is to make things disposible with a finite service life! So when people spout off about QA and everything is the same - give your head a shake because that's simply horse shit.

As it relates to surges almost 80% of said events are seen and created within the home / building. That means everytime a motor, inductive load, etc turns on / turns off it will introduce a surge event on the powerline. This is why its important to have and deployed a tiered SPD outside and inside of the home / building.

There are five types of SPD's that span Type 1 ~ Type 5 . . .

In a residential home the most commonly seen are Type 2 / 3 installed. Assuming the home owner had the common sense and knowledge to install one. Type 1 SPD's are installed at the service entrance (Meter) Type 2 are installed at the service panel (breaker) Type 3 are installed at the POU (Point of Use) like outlets.

Type 4 are installed at the device like a AC, HVAC, Fire Control, etc . . .

Regardless of the Type of SPD in use all of them wear out and ultimately need to be replaced. A SPD will NOT protect a connected device from voltage sag (Brown Out) nor will it protect a device from a Voltage Rise (Over Voltage) condition! Only an AVR device will assist in the need to buck / boost the line voltage.

Having said that even a AVR device, SPD, will not protect you from Lightning . . .

The work around (partial solution) for more than a hundred years to address the impact of lightning is proper low resistance Earth grounding (<5 ~ 25 Ohms) and proper shielding to reduce the impact of direct lightning strikes. In 2023 our knowledge and understanding of lightning has grown and now we Try to actively negate positive ions in the air to reduce the buildup of (attraction) to a structure / area.

Induced voltage (EMF) from lightning is extremely hard to counter because it requires everthing to be properly shielded / grounded.

Regardless, just wanted to put out there some facts - carry on . . .

So you are alive! We didn't hear from you for quite some time......maybe you just didn't have anything to say, right? Well, any way....good to hear from you.

 

[TonyR]

I'm an electrical engineer that works in the electronics manufacturing industry.

Repair? or Maintenance? or Manufacturing? or Design? or Sales?

The components in essentially all modern electronic equipment are pretty much standard, and they do not differentiate reliable devices from unreliable ones. The quality and reliability of a product is determined by the quality control procedures each company places in its manufacturing process

So product design, including discrete component selection, plays no part in a manufactured product's dependability and longevity?

 

[tigerwillow1]

A complex device like one of these cameras we are talking about will go through a hundred tests (a few of them BTW being about surge protection) during its manufacturing process, and the outcome of each test will be rated on a scale; at the end of the process each camera will receive an overall score according to rules established by Quality Assurance, and will be placed in one of, let's say, five Quality bins, A through E.

This is surprising to me. I worked for a rather large company that built complex devices and we never sorted the non-component devices. They passed the manufacturing tests or they didn't. CPUs and memory chips are tested and bin-sorted, but the user-level devices went directly to shipping or rework.

 

[JohnKol]

Does every company conduct MTBF testing???

Every company that offers warranty on their products, absolutely. Otherwise, how would they know how much warranty to offer?

 

[Teken]

So you are alive! We didn't hear from you for quite some time......maybe you just didn't have anything to say, right? Well, any way....good to hear from you.

Life priorities had me at the short hairs for awhile! Merry Christmas to you and yours!

 

[JohnKol]

The bottom line is that there are thousands of users on this forum as well as thousands of installers who install dahua and would not do so if their failure rate was 18 percent – even after 5-6 years.

Before you commit to being a full-time Dahua apologist, maybe re-read my original post where I said that even Andy stated that the useful life of these cameras is 5-6 years.

FUCK OFF.

Ah, too late, you are fully committed.

 

[Teken]

Every company that offers warranty on their products, absolutely. Otherwise, how would they know how much warranty to offer?

Your reply can’t be taken seriously or the past statements you’ve made, since. You do realize depending upon where a company conducts business said warranty is governed by law!

You really believe one of richest and successful companies today such as Apple, based their warranty on MTBF?!?

These cheap cunts only offer 1 year on hardware that costs thousands of dollars! A warranty is only as good as the company willing to back it up. ‍

There are literally millions of reviews and forum posts about every company that didn’t stand by their warranty including the cheap cunts like Apple!

Samsung, one of worst companies today offers 1~10 warranty on various memory products. Yet these dirty shits go out of their way to deny any warranty claim!

Why???

Because the company is / was run by a corrupt asshole . . . One only needs to google what happened to the CEO.

A warranty (or duration) is not a true measure or metric of quality today. In the past like said warranty had meaning unlike almost everything today!

 

[JohnKol]

Repair? or Maintenance? or Manufacturing? or Design? or Sales?

Test Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Firmware Engineering, Failure Analysis, Reliability Engineering, and Quality Assurance Product Management currently.

So product design, including discrete component selection, plays no part in a manufactured product's dependability and longevity?

There are so many teams with so many people involved in product design these days (including component selection) that there are no bad designs anymore, not even mediocre ones. Moreover, the requirements for a product are known at least two years in advance, so you know before you even start the design proper what obstacles you will face. The differentiators are company/team structure (which determines turnaround time), team dedication (willing to work long hours? Weekends?), and personnel.

 

[fenderman]

Before you commit to being a full-time Dahua apologist, maybe re-read my original post where I said that even Andy stated that the useful life of these cameras is 5-6 years.



Ah, too late, you are fully committed.

There is a language barrier. What does useful life mean? There are thousands of members here with dahua cameras older than 5 years with no failures. After 5-6 years of life out of a camera is perfectly acceptable however there is not an 18 percent failure rate.
You are falsely stating an 18 percent failure rate for both dahua and other brands on a sample size of 11 cameras - different models too boot.
Seems like you are trying to shake down andy. To that I say go fuck yourself. You are a shakedown artist.
What data do you have other than your 11 cams?

 

[Teken]

Test Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Firmware Engineering, Failure Analysis, Reliability Engineering, and Quality Assurance Product Management currently.



There are so many teams with so many people involved in product design these days (including component selection) that there are no bad designs anymore, not even mediocre ones. Moreover, the requirements for a product are known at least two years in advance, so you know before you even start the design proper what obstacles you will face. The differentiators are company/team structure (which determines turnaround time), team dedication (willing to work long hours? Weekends?), and personnel.

No bad designs?!?!

You can’t be serious??? Do you live under a rock??? There are millions of examples of bad designs one perfect example is every domestic car maker in North America! That silly thing called a recall which covers almost every device and gadget!

Jesus, please stop blabbing on as you look very stupid.

 

[JohnKol]

This is surprising to me. I worked for a rather large company that built complex devices and we never sorted the non-component devices. They passed the manufacturing tests or they didn't.

That's how we were too up until... maybe 15 years ago? The competition became too fierce, we were leaving too much money on the table with our reject rate, so we had to implement a waterfall process to bin our products; we simply couldn't afford to be selling prime products with full warranty to distribution channels when our competitors were offering near junk in comparison.

What was your first pass failure rate? Ours was about 25% at LPR, we were celebrating if we could bring that down to 15% by VPR.

 

[JohnKol]

These cheap cunts only offer 1 year on hardware that costs thousands of dollars!

They offer 1-year warranty to direct consumers. Their Warranty structure is completely different for OEM and other large customers; Apple is both a customer and vendor of ours, and their products come with much longer warranties.