gatorheel
n3wb
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2017
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I'm putting together my first system and got a deal on a QCAM (Amcrest) NVR (PoE, ONVIF) and camera bundle. The bundle included only bullets and I'd like to swap one of them out to put a camera in the doorbell area of my front door. I don't need/want any of the fancy functions (smartphone, audio, doorbell etc)-- more important to me is that it's as discrete as possible since my house is over 100 years old and a big modern box on the jamb would really stick out.
My preferred install location is on a hollow column which is part of the front door jamp, right above the current doorbell button (which actually runs to a Raspberry Pi). I was thinking the smallest option would be something like a peephole camera with only the outer bezel of the end of the lens outside and the remainder of the unit inside the column. There are some cams on aliexpress that look good at first, but some of the reviews I've seen on this site for similar-looking cams are pretty poor (e.g. the TOP-201 that nayr shared).
The door is under a deep (~10 feet) porch, so another option would be to put a eyeball/dome cam on the ceiling over the door (e.g. Dahua HDBW4231F-AS) which is more discreet in that it's mounted on the ceiling, but once you do notice it it will really stand out. Also, the ceiling there is ~9 feet high, so it's not going to get as good a look at the person's face as column-mounted camera.
I looked at some villa panel options (e.g. Dahua VTO6100C) which are interesting, but a) they're less discrete than my ideal "peephole camera", b) if I'm going to have a button I'd want it to at least ring the doorbell, but I don't see an output on any of them which acts like a normal normally-open switch, and c) they're running a full embedded web server etc which really overcomplicates things, and I'm not even sure if it will interface to my NVR.
Anyway, just doing a bunch of research and if anyone has and idea I'd love to hear it. Thanks!
My preferred install location is on a hollow column which is part of the front door jamp, right above the current doorbell button (which actually runs to a Raspberry Pi). I was thinking the smallest option would be something like a peephole camera with only the outer bezel of the end of the lens outside and the remainder of the unit inside the column. There are some cams on aliexpress that look good at first, but some of the reviews I've seen on this site for similar-looking cams are pretty poor (e.g. the TOP-201 that nayr shared).
The door is under a deep (~10 feet) porch, so another option would be to put a eyeball/dome cam on the ceiling over the door (e.g. Dahua HDBW4231F-AS) which is more discreet in that it's mounted on the ceiling, but once you do notice it it will really stand out. Also, the ceiling there is ~9 feet high, so it's not going to get as good a look at the person's face as column-mounted camera.
I looked at some villa panel options (e.g. Dahua VTO6100C) which are interesting, but a) they're less discrete than my ideal "peephole camera", b) if I'm going to have a button I'd want it to at least ring the doorbell, but I don't see an output on any of them which acts like a normal normally-open switch, and c) they're running a full embedded web server etc which really overcomplicates things, and I'm not even sure if it will interface to my NVR.
Anyway, just doing a bunch of research and if anyone has and idea I'd love to hear it. Thanks!