Dahua Wireless Stength

[camuse16]

Does anyone have either of the following cameras connected through wifi that can comment on distance?

http://www.dahuasecurity.com/en/us/pro_details.php?pid=1294

http://www.dahuasecurity.com/en/us/pro_details.php?pid=1204


I have a Foscam FI9805W that worked well over wifi but recently failed and am looking to replace it. I first looked at Hikvision but they do not appear to do well with wireless from my reading.

Thanks or any comments.

 

[fenderman]

Wifi will always have issues. Run cable, you have to power it anyway....if you insist on wifi, that camera should be usable since it has an external antennae. Also remember that ANY camera can be made wireless using a 10 dollar wifi bridge.
Note that particular dahua does not have IR led's built in.

 

[CaliGirl]

There are to many variables to measure wifi distance for a particular camera. The mount location, interference, wifi router, antennas all make such a difference. IF you can't eliminate those variables you aren't getting much of a real answer.

I have that same FI9805W and it looses it's wifi connection maybe once a month. The wifi router is 30 feet. away. A quick power cycle makes it work again. Except this is at a remote location so that camera can be down for 3-4 months until we can get to it. The guys on here talked me into running POE cable and I think they are correct. It will be much more reliable in the long run and the recording quality is so much better now.

If you are going too stick with wifi, I highly suggest a small digital timer that cycles the camera power every few days to keep it connected.

 

[camuse16]

Wifi will always have issues. Run cable, you have to power it anyway....if you insist on wifi, that camera should be usable since it has an external antennae. Also remember that ANY camera can be made wireless using a 10 dollar wifi bridge.
Note that particular dahua does not have IR led's built in.

Thanks fenderman. Good point on the bridge. The camera will be mounted on a garage that is 80-100' away from the house, and everywhere between (and around) is asphalt so I have to look to wireless option again for that particular cam. There is quite a bit of lighting between the house and the garage so ir is not a must. Some of the lights are solar, and the cam would be more of a wildlife cam in this instance. Other cams on the house are also observing/overlapping the same area, but this mounting location allows for view of the surrounding area, and a small pan and tilt would be a nice option..

 

[camuse16]

There are to many variables to measure wifi distance for a particular camera. The mount location, interference, wifi router, antennas all make such a difference. IF you can't eliminate those variables you aren't getting much of a real answer.

I have that same FI9805W and it looses it's wifi connection maybe once a month. The wifi router is 30 feet. away. A quick power cycle makes it work again. Except this is at a remote location so that camera can be down for 3-4 months until we can get to it. The guys on here talked me into running POE cable and I think they are correct. It will be much more reliable in the long run and the recording quality is so much better now.

If you are going too stick with wifi, I highly suggest a small digital timer that cycles the camera power every few days to keep it connected.

Thanks CaliGirl- I must have gotten lucky with the FI9805's. I have three of them and so far, 0 problems, along with 4 more installed for a friend with no problems.. We did have lightening take out one of the cameras, at least that is my thinking. We also had several lighting sensors go at the same time as the camera. I had a bad modem that I had to reset quite often but other from that they have been great starter cameras (for me anyway). It was a bit pricey to get into the better cameras when I first set everything up. I am looking to find one good wifi cam as I am limited for that one. I guess I could suspend a wire from roof to roof and run a cat5 cable along it but it would not be as clean as I want it. All of the rest of the cameras are wired and totally agree that it is the way to go. Funny as I have a timer sitting in my garage for about two years now ready to be installed if I encountered any dropouts as they seemed to be quite common. How are you liking your Dahua PTZ 4mp cam?

 

[CaliGirl]

Always good to hear when people have good wifi results. It certainly can serve its purpose. Not everyone has the time or energy to run cat 5 everywhere and there are some places that you just don't want to do to complexity. And with wifi you can unplug the camera and walk away and no holes are left. But, it sure is nice to not have to plug in cameras to the wall with POE and have the small cable at the power source outside instead of 120 outlet exposed to the elements. I still have a few wifi cameras inside the house. We'll see how they do over the winter as far as reliability. Might be better with the new wifi router I bought.

The Dahua 4mp ptz is fantastic os far. The zoom is incredible and the image very clear. With that said, it is not on the same level to compare FI9805. They are two very different animals. You could buy 6 FI9805 for the price of one 30x PTZ.

What wifi router model are you using? How do yo know when the cable modem needs to be reset? That is my fear this winter bc if the modem locks up all of this technology is sitting dead for months. I have a cheapo modem that Suddenlink provided us

 

[bp2008]

How do yo know when the cable modem needs to be reset? That is my fear this winter bc if the modem locks up all of this technology is sitting dead for months. I have a cheapo modem that Suddenlink provided us

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FWORL1Y

This is a pretty decent item to have if you have an unreliable internet connection at a remote site. It is not the most user-friendly thing to set up auto ping (for one thing, you have to enter IP addresses, not domain names), but it can be configured to detect when the internet is down and power cycle any or all of the 8 outlets when it happens.

 

[camuse16]

Always good to hear when people have good wifi results. It certainly can serve its purpose. Not everyone has the time or energy to run cat 5 everywhere and there are some places that you just don't want to do to complexity. And with wifi you can unplug the camera and walk away and no holes are left. But, it sure is nice to not have to plug in cameras to the wall with POE and have the small cable at the power source outside instead of 120 outlet exposed to the elements. I still have a few wifi cameras inside the house. We'll see how they do over the winter as far as reliability. Might be better with the new wifi router I bought.

The Dahua 4mp ptz is fantastic os far. The zoom is incredible and the image very clear. With that said, it is not on the same level to compare FI9805. They are two very different animals. You could buy 6 FI9805 for the price of one 30x PTZ.

What wifi router model are you using? How do yo know when the cable modem needs to be reset? That is my fear this winter bc if the modem locks up all of this technology is sitting dead for months. I have a cheapo modem that Suddenlink provided us

Also good to see you have a set up that you are happy with..

I have all of my outlets installed in weatherproof enclosures so I am good there. They would never survive the winters here without it!

Good to hear the Dahua is working out for you. I am in the process of upgrading everything (one camera at a time) and a PTZ is definitely part of the plan. The foscam's have definitely served me well for the 5 yrs.. The 30x PTZ would be great here as I am located at a high point in my town overlooking a bay

I have a modem and router connected to switches right now. It is a Actiontec from my ISP, is near bulletproof compared to me last set up. I have had very few issues with it since it has been installed about 2-3 yrs ago.

What I had before that from my ISP was a nightmare. It was a comtrend modem connected to a linksys router. I was resetting weekly at one point. I tried a number of routers and all of them required resetting from time to time. I knew it needed resetting as I lost ALL of my wireless devices-cameras, laptops, ipads, etc.. Sometimes a reset did not do it and it required power cycling in order to get things working again. I guess that is why fenderman said that with wifi you will always have issues This problem may have been sorted by someone other from me at the time, as I had very little knowledge of networking..

In your case a timer for you modem / router may be a good idea, along with camera reboots every couple of weeks/month unless you see that your cameras run perfectly during the times that you are in the summer and you do not feel reboots are required..

I installed some cameras for a friend that travels South for a couple of months over the winter and all of his cameras are wifi. If there there are issues with his modem/router when he travels I call his ISP and have them remotely rest his modem. He typically only has problems if there are internet problems such as power failures due to downed lines over the winter. In addition to this, I reboot his cameras remotely for him every couple of weeks and so far so good. This is 3 years now for him with good cameras each time he travels.

You may be able to have your ISP reset it remotely as well. Worth a phone call, unless you have already been down that road..

I always tend to do what keeps things working, they may not be the most efficient, correct or the easiest, but, so far so good..

I actually have one pan and tilt camera that is a camera that I move around from place to place that I have on a insteon on/off module. Given my ISP can reboot my modem remotely, my thinking was that I can then to have them reboot if required, in turn, power cycle my camera if I ever had the need. The power cycling works like a charm for turning on and off the camera but so far I have never needed it, and it is yet another device that you have added that can fail I guess..

 

[nayr]

yeah CaliGirl, its cheaper and easier to just get a lil digital timer.. set it up so ON time is like 3:01AM and OFF time is 3:00AM and plug it into your cable modem.. you can use an analouge timer too but they usually are like 15min intervals and thats a lil extreme.

since its a remote location nobody will be annoyed @ 3am watching netflix when the internet drops out.. and if there ever is an problem most you have to do is wait a day for everything to power cycle.. if you guys tend to party hearty and sleep in at the cabin.. move it later, mebe 6-7am.

Your NVR/Cameras also have an auto-maintain feature that can be setup to do a reboot once a week, its not advised to run this unless you having issues but since your not visiting the cabin all winter long it could be a nice saftey net.

I power cycle my AVR every night with a simple timer like this, if I dont then after a week or so the HDMI encryption fucks up and the display goes blank.. then I have to manually power cycle it anyhow.