Canadian newbie here! have 4 cameras and will be expanding

[GrahamR]

Hey all,

I currently have 4 cameras (2 in the yard, 2 in the kids rooms)

Right now i have a mix of Unifi g3's (bullet, outdoors) and Wyze for baby monitors with the RTSP firmware. Trying to consolidate down for soluitions and i think i'll be moving to BI for recording to get out of the unifi lock-in.

I've got a couple more drops to service, so i'm looking at the PTZ stuff for outdoors on the garage, and something for the kids playroom/basement.

Time to dig in and get reading

 

[Hammerhead786]

Welcome to the forum. Be sure to check out the Cliff Notes and Wiki.

 

[SouthernYankee]

The problem with a PTZ is in general it is pointing in the wrong direction when the action occurs. A PTZ with auto tracking may work. It normally recommend to use multiple cameras for 100% coverage 100% of the time.

For the garage it is recommended that you use two cameras, one on each size of the door no higher than the top of the door. Not sure abot NS,Canada but south of the border we have alot of car door checkers.

Please read,study,plan before spending money.
--------------------------------------------
My standard welcome to the forum message.

Please read the IP Cam Talk Cliff Notes and other items in the IP Cam Talk Wiki. The wiki is in the blue bar at the top of the page.

Read How to Secure Your Network (Don't Get Hacked!) in the wiki also.

Quick start
1) If you do not have a wired monitored alarm system, get that first
2) Use Dahua starlight cameras or Hikvision darkfighter cameras if you need good low light cameras.
3) use a VPN to access home network (openVPN)
4) Do not use wifi cameras.
5) Do not use cloud storage
6) Do Not use uPNP, P2P, QR, do not open ports,
7) More megapixel is not necessarily better.
8) Avoid chinese hacked cameras (most ebay, amazon, aliexpress cameras(not all, but most))
9) Do not use reolink, ring, nest, Arlo cameras (they are junk), no cloud cameras
10) If possible use a turret camera , bullet collect spiders, dome collect dirt and reflect light (IR)
11) Use only solid copper, AWG 23 or 24 ethernet wire. , no CCA (Copper Clad Aluminum)
12) use a test mount to verify the camera mount location. My test rig: rev.2
13) (Looney2ns)If you want to be able to ID faces, don't mount cams higher than 8ft. You want to know who did it, not just what happened.
14) Use a router that has openVPN built in (Most ASUS, Some NetGear....)
15) camera placement use the calculator... IPVM Camera Calculator V3
16) POE list PoE Switch Suggestion List


Cameras to look at
IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED Review IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED (Full Color, Starlight+) - 4MP starlight
IPC-T5442TM-AS Review-OEM 4mp AI Cam IPC-T5442TM-AS Starlight+ - 4MP starlight+
IPC-T2347G-LU Review of the Hikvision OEM model IPC-T2347G-LU 'ColorVu' IP CCTV camera. (DS-2CD2347G1-LU)
IPC-HDW2231R-ZS Review-Dahua IPC-HDW2231RP-ZS Starlight Camera-Varifocal
IPC-HDW2231T-ZS-S2 Review-OEM IPC-T2231T-ZS 2mp Varifocal Starlight Camera
IPC-HDW5231R-ZE Review-Dahua Starlight IPC-HDW5231R-ZE 800 meter capable ePOE
IPC-HFW4239T-ASE IPC-HFW4239T-ASE
IPCT-HDW5431RE-I Review - IP Cam Talk 4 MP IR Fixed Turret Network Camera
DS-2CD2325FWD-I
N22AL12 New Dahua N22AL12 Budget Cam w/Starlight -- low cost entry

Other dahua 4MP starlight Dahua 4MP Starlight Lineup

My preferred indoor cameras
DS-2CD2442FWD-IW
IPC-K35A Review-Dahua IPC-K35A 3mp Cube Camera

If interested in Blue Iris and other setup items see the following post

Newbie Starter Guide to IP Cam System – VPN setup – Computer Hardware – Blue Iris – Dahua Cameras

This is an intermediate / newbie guide for people just starting out looking for a surveillance setup. I know this setup might not be for everyone and there are many options. You can find a lot of this information in the Wiki: IP Cam Talk Wiki | IP Cam Talk A great place to start in the Wiki...

ipcamtalk.com

Camera Sensor size info Sensor Size Chart Generally bigger is better

Before asking a question search the forum first...
The best way to search the forum is to use Google Advance search

Google Advanced Search

set site or domain to ipcamtalk.com

Read,study,plan before spending money ..... plan plan plan
Test do not guess

 

[GrahamR]

Thanks guys! these guides are awesome.

right now we have a single g3 bullet pointing from the left corner of the garage, down the driveway, garage is detached and 90 degrees to the house, and the driveway is 120-140 ft long.

My goal after seeing some of the other setups would be to have something to trigger the PTZ, or even have it focused "down the driveway" to track people coming to the house.

the kids playroom is the one causing me the most grief - 40 ft long, 15 ft wide, couple "play zones" camera in one far corner, about 6.5 ft off the ground (low bulkhead)

I'm sure ill have some questions I was point here from a discord and told to look at BI and Dahua gear

this guide seems pretty solid so far! Newbie Starter Guide to IP Cam System – VPN setup – Computer Hardware – Blue Iris – Dahua Cameras

@SouthernYankee - that welcome post is amazing (I just noticed the link I found is in it too)

 

[gwminor48]

Hello @GrahamR , welcome to the forum.

 

[GrahamR]

So for a quick update to these adventures - I spent 4-5 hours last week trying to get shinobi working as a docker with my Wyze cams and Unifi gear, i could get unifi, but wyze caused nothing but issues so i bailed, and came here to find more camera and software ideas.

I then fired up an (admittedly) under resourced windows server VM, installed blue iris, and had all 4 cameras working and recording motion (that needs tuning) in under 30 minutes with the eval license.

needless to say, i am now speccing out a BI build, but will be buying my license later today and give a bit more juice to the VM for now.

i noticed a lot of the dahua cameras seem to have AI/detection in the camera that can alert back to BI, which is likley what i will go with (as i assume that would lighten the server load)

thanks so much all!