Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z)

MacFun said:
The "cable pass through " hole seems a glaring mistake. A clean install would be to have the wires hidden, not coming out of the side... in a typical install the hole for wiring would be behind the cam. What were they thinking! Even if you use the junction box, which I'm not a fan of for most installations, the wiring should still come from behind the cam. Also, the cam is subject to water damage with that hole.
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I have one location where I have to use the "cable pass-through". It's not a typical install, and I'm glad the pass-through was there (vs. me having to Dremel it out myself). Like most folks, for the other installs, I have the hole facing downwards.

The camera should be water-tight, regardless. Otherwise it's likely to fog up on wet days, even if there isn't direct water contact.
 
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I have found a lot of great information on this site, since joining in 2017. The problem is remembering it all, so I started collecting "Cliff Notes", and am sharing this as a Google document. It has a table of contents and is searchable. There is alot of information covering from camera placement and selection to initial setup. It focuses on Dahua Starlight cameras, as those are all the rage now, but there is also information on the Annke 161DR cube camera and the LTS Doorbell camera. I have also incorporating a lot of great information from @mat200

Edit: This has been incorporated into the IP Cam Talk Wiki

Find the horizontal blue navigation bar at the top, and select "Wiki", then in the "Everything Else" category, click on "IP Cam Talk Cliff Notes. Here is a direct link: IP Cam Talk Cliff Notes | IP Cam Talk
 
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Do I want the Z or the new ZE model?

Not sure I understand the difference..

Thank you
 
giomania, wow. Your notes are incredibly helpful. I think I this point, since my budget is limited, I'll forgo an NVR or Blue Iris and just save to the best/largest SD card I can afford. I don't believe I'll need more than a couple days of storage. In the future, I'll add an NVR.

I'll also set up Open VPN to run on my router. I think it should be easy enough. I have an asus flashed with merlin firmware, which should support that. With this type of setup, will there be a way to log in to the camera remotely to view a live stream?

Edit: Also, can the camera be configured to save only motion events to the SD card? I don't have any interest in continuously recording.
 
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Ferroplasm said:
giomania, wow. Your notes are incredibly helpful. I think I this point, since my budget is limited, I'll forgo an NVR or Blue Iris and just save to the best/largest SD card I can afford. I don't believe I'll need more than a couple days of storage. In the future, I'll add an NVR.

I'll also set up Open VPN to run on my router. I think it should be easy enough. I have an asus flashed with merlin firmware, which should support that. With this type of setup, will there be a way to log in to the camera remotely to view a live stream?
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Yes.
 
MacFun said:
Understood, I was originally thinking that I would probably purchase a kit to get me started where the NVR and 4-8 cams come in a bundle like Swann or something. Yet, now I'm thinking that it would be cheaper to choose each item separately and I bet Swann is just a repackaged components from Hikvision and/or Dahua or as one guy said "CRAP". Also, it seems that it's a HikVision/Dahua world is striking a balance between quality and economy....
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SOME of the kits I looked at are Dahua or Hikvision OEMs AND can be a good deal, unfortunately it is not easy to tell - and many of the more affordable ones can be complete crap.

Example - ANNKE was selling a kit they claimed was POE - but on closer inspection it was not. It was some proprietary "sPOE" - but they keep calling it POE in the title.

Due to the challenges of finding quality in the kits - the general rule which Tangent points out applies.

tangent said:
Generally the kits are older models (higher profit margin) and lower quality cameras. Most are fixed focus 2.8mm which is a wider angle than you need in many instances.

The NVRs in kits from swann, lorex, qsee won't work with IVS or smart events like line crossing (AFIK) which give for more useful motion detection alerts.
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I have found one exception in a lorex 4K kit sold at Costco - which is a Dahua OEM at a price point lower than I can assemble something along the same lines by purchasing parts individually. Yes the lens is fixed, and that's typically going to give you a shorter ID distance - however as this is 4K the ID distance is much better than cameras with lower resolution. The 4K camera works well during the day and well lighted situations. The ID distance I calculated is 25 feet - about 2x more than the 2MP / 1080p cameras in the cheaper kits.

The kit's NVR has 2 remaining ports for additional cameras, so you can easily add 1-2 of the great performing starlight cameras pointed out here to it and get a decent setup for a good price. If I were to be buying a system today on a tighter budget than I spent, I would pick up that kit and add 2 starlights to it. Granted, I will not get the same quality of low light images, nor will I be able to best fit the FOV as I am currently with my varifocal cameras.

Bottom line is that you can find deals in kits, but it takes a lot of work to weed the better deals from the trash and even then it will be a compromise compared to complete DIY customized kit.

If you really enjoy this hobby DIY customization is one of the great things we enjoy - and since I picked up a 16 port NVR I can add EVEN MORE cameras! ;-)
 
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mat200 said:
SOME of the kits I looked at are Dahua or Hikvision OEMs AND can be a good deal, unfortunately it is not easy to tell - and many of the more affordable ones can be complete crap.

Example - ANNKE was selling a kit they claimed was POE - but on closer inspection it was not. It was some proprietary "sPOE" - but they keep calling it POE in the title.

Due to the challenges of finding quality in the kits - the general rule which Tangent points out applies.



I have found one exception in a lorex 4K kit sold at Costco - which is a Dahua OEM at a price point lower than I can assemble something along the same lines by purchasing parts individually. Yes the lens is fixed, and that's typically going to give you a shorter ID distance - however as this is 4K the ID distance is much better than cameras with lower resolution. The 4K camera works well during the day and well lighted situations. The ID distance I calculated is 25 feet - about 2x more than the 2MP / 1080p cameras in the cheaper kits.

The kit's NVR has 2 remaining ports for additional cameras, so you can easily add 1-2 of the great performing starlight cameras pointed out here to it and get a decent setup for a good price. If I were to be buying a system today on a tighter budget than I spent, I would pick up that kit and add 2 starlights to it. Granted, I will not get the same quality of low light images, nor will I be able to best fit the FOV as I am currently with my varifocal cameras.

Bottom line is that you can find deals in kits, but it takes a lot of work to weed the better deals from the trash and even then it will be a compromise compared to complete DIY customized kit.

If you really enjoy this hobby DIY customization is one of the great things we enjoy - and since I picked up a 16 port NVR I can add EVEN MORE cameras! ;-)
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How did you figure out the real contents of the Lorex 4K kit? Do you have a link to that kit? It would be cool to have a few known kits decoded such that we knew which DVR and which cams are being supplied. It might be a good starting point for some and you customize from there.

Rob
 
MacFun said:
How did you figure out the real contents of the Lorex 4K kit? Do you have a link to that kit? It would be cool to have a few known kits decoded such that we knew which DVR and which cams are being supplied. It might be a good starting point for some and you customize from there.

Rob
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Hi Rob,

During my journey to get a good security camera solution I started by purchasing and using less than satisfactory cameras and paying attention to the kits available at Costco as well as various online vendors. Learned A LOT here in terms of what to look for, and at the time none of the kits I saw seemed to be able to provide what I was looking for - so I purchased a number of Dahua starlight cameras as well as a Dahua NVR.

Recently Costco put up a kit on display, and the cameras looked like the Dahua square bullet camera case which I had purchased, the screen on the NVR looked like the screen on my NVR. The kit is not available online at Costco - only available in some local stores. Thus I suspect deal may not last.

I'll PM you with more info.
 
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NGL said:
last question .. do I care if it is PAL or NTSC for the US?
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not really, different frame rates possible from one or the other - but probably not really that big of a deal for most security camera needs
 
Hi, I'm getting ready to purchase one of these. Can anyone confirm that they have no problems with push notification on the iOS app ?
 
Hope we are not hijacking the thread but ...

With regards to installation.. is there enough room on the back of the unit to hide the wiring/pigtails/poe connection inside the case if mounting flush to stucco or will you need an extra junction type box?

Thanks..
 
NGL said:
Hope we are not hijacking the thread but ...

With regards to installation.. is there enough room on the back of the unit to hide the wiring/pigtails/poe connection inside the case if mounting flush to stucco or will you need an extra junction type box?

Thanks..
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looney2ns said:
No room.
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Indeed. Recommend a junction box PFA137 or PFB203W wall mount - the wall mount is better imho for water resistance. Other options are pushing the wiring back into the wall or soffit - or surface mounting the wiring ( which may make it easy for someone to cut if they can reach it - so I don't like that option as much )
 
Is push notification only supported if you buy the Dahua NVR? Or does push notification work without the Dahua NVR? Please confirm, thanks.
 
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