I'm hesitant to go BlueIris route tbh because power consumption. What would be an appropriate NVR for a small setup with Dahua cams?
EDIT: Reolink RETURNED! Ordered Reolink System. Good setup?
- Thread starter Warptrooper
- Start date
I'm hesitant to go BlueIris route tbh because power consumption. What would be an appropriate NVR for a small setup with Dahua cams?
I took a look at a random selected Dahua NVR: Lite Series N42B1P 4 port 4k. 9 watts per NVR (not including hard drive wattage nor POE camera wattage).
For reference, a intel CPU comes in around 95 watts for big brothers, 65 watts for smaller brothers.
I mean....power consumption. $1 a month with a windows PC? Maybe $2 with a small POE switch? It's not like air conditioning unit
For reference, a intel CPU comes in around 95 watts for big brothers, 65 watts for smaller brothers.
I mean....power consumption. $1 a month with a windows PC? Maybe $2 with a small POE switch? It's not like air conditioning unit
I took a look at a random selected Dahua NVR: Lite Series N42B1P 4 port 4k. 9 watts per NVR (not including hard drive wattage nor POE camera wattage).
For reference, a intel CPU comes in around 95 watts for big brothers, 65 watts for smaller brothers.
I mean....power consumption. $1 a month with a windows PC? Maybe $2 with a small POE switch? It's not like air conditioning unit
It would be a lot since its 24/7 and our electricity is expensive. Doing the math a 100W PC would suck 73KWh for a whole month. Our rates are 13c/KWh plus delivery and extras and tax etc. Probably looking at easily extra 15 bucks every month just on power.
There is also the UPS. In the event of power failure a PC won't run very long on my spare 1500VA UPS. The NVR I assume will.
Varifocal beats a fixed lens almost every time - the ability to zoom in and dial it in to be able to get the face is what you need.
Too many people get fascinated with the wide angle views that Arlos and such can provide. But the picture is really no different than taking one from the same place as a cell phone - take that picture and then zoom in and it is a pixelated mess.
You would be shocked how close someone needs to be to a 2.8 or 3.6mm lens in order to ID them. The varifocal allows you to zoom in to "pinch points" and get a much closer shot. The trade off is the field of view or what you can see isn't as much, but you then get a clear picture of the person.
My neighbor was bragging to me how he only needed 4 arlos to see his entire property. His car was sitting in the driveway practically touching the garage door and his video quality was useless to ID the perp not even 10 feet away.
When we had a thief come thru here and get into a lot of cars, the police couldn't use one video or photo from anyone's system that had fixed 2.8mm cams - the arlo sure looks nice and gives a great wide angle view, but you cannot recognize anyone at 30 feet out. At night you cannot even ID someone from 15 feet. Meanwhile, the perp didn't come to my house but walked past on the sidewalk at 80 feet from my house and my varifocal zoomed in to a point at the sidewalk was the money shot for the police.
In fact my system was the only one that gave them useful information. Not even my other neighbors $1,300 4MP Lorex system from Costco provided useful info - the cams just didn't cut it at night. His system wasn't even a year old and after that event has started replacing with cameras purchased from @EMPIRETECANDY on this site based on my recommendation and seeing my results.
My first few systems were the box units that were all 2.8mm lens and while the picture looked great in daytime, to identify someone you didn't know it impossible unless they are within 10 feet of the camera, and even then it is tough. You are getting the benefit coming to this site of hearing thoughts from people that have been there/done that.
We all hate to be that guy with a system and something happens and the event demonstrates how poor our system was and then we start the update process. My neighbor with his expensive arlos and monthly fees is that guy right now and is still fuming his system failed him.
An NVR is going to be running 24/7 as well. An NVR is basically a computer that all it can do is that and usually not very well. I have had NVRs in the past and am now a BI user and will never go back. I didn't see my electric bill go up when I made the switch. I actually still have an old one going just for kicks. We had a power outage recently and the BI computer lasted the entire outage on backup power and the NVR did not - two separate backup units but the exact same model purchased at same time. You run the computer without the monitor on and BI runs as a service and you don't run anything else on it and the power isn't really as much as you think.
Too many people get fascinated with the wide angle views that Arlos and such can provide. But the picture is really no different than taking one from the same place as a cell phone - take that picture and then zoom in and it is a pixelated mess.
You would be shocked how close someone needs to be to a 2.8 or 3.6mm lens in order to ID them. The varifocal allows you to zoom in to "pinch points" and get a much closer shot. The trade off is the field of view or what you can see isn't as much, but you then get a clear picture of the person.
My neighbor was bragging to me how he only needed 4 arlos to see his entire property. His car was sitting in the driveway practically touching the garage door and his video quality was useless to ID the perp not even 10 feet away.
When we had a thief come thru here and get into a lot of cars, the police couldn't use one video or photo from anyone's system that had fixed 2.8mm cams - the arlo sure looks nice and gives a great wide angle view, but you cannot recognize anyone at 30 feet out. At night you cannot even ID someone from 15 feet. Meanwhile, the perp didn't come to my house but walked past on the sidewalk at 80 feet from my house and my varifocal zoomed in to a point at the sidewalk was the money shot for the police.
In fact my system was the only one that gave them useful information. Not even my other neighbors $1,300 4MP Lorex system from Costco provided useful info - the cams just didn't cut it at night. His system wasn't even a year old and after that event has started replacing with cameras purchased from @EMPIRETECANDY on this site based on my recommendation and seeing my results.
My first few systems were the box units that were all 2.8mm lens and while the picture looked great in daytime, to identify someone you didn't know it impossible unless they are within 10 feet of the camera, and even then it is tough. You are getting the benefit coming to this site of hearing thoughts from people that have been there/done that.
We all hate to be that guy with a system and something happens and the event demonstrates how poor our system was and then we start the update process. My neighbor with his expensive arlos and monthly fees is that guy right now and is still fuming his system failed him.
An NVR is going to be running 24/7 as well. An NVR is basically a computer that all it can do is that and usually not very well. I have had NVRs in the past and am now a BI user and will never go back. I didn't see my electric bill go up when I made the switch. I actually still have an old one going just for kicks. We had a power outage recently and the BI computer lasted the entire outage on backup power and the NVR did not - two separate backup units but the exact same model purchased at same time. You run the computer without the monitor on and BI runs as a service and you don't run anything else on it and the power isn't really as much as you think.
Last edited:
biggen
Known around here
- May 6, 2018
- 2,734
- 3,132
An NVR is a PC but without any input on its components. Unless you are computer illiterate and can't build your own, there is no reason to buy one of these.
You can build a PC to be a power sipping energy efficient tree hugger or a power gulping monster. Its your choice how you build it.
Another excellent response. I posted in NVR section too and some responses said 20-30W load so something like this would be great.
I was just worried having multiple cams might peg the CPU high drawing 100W all the time but it seems that's not the case.
Ordering the case today to build this BI machine.
Plus this way I can put my spare parts to good use.
I am running a 4th gen I5 in a refurbished Dell Inspiron tower. 256 SSD and a 4TB Purple WD drive and onboard Intel graphics.
Tweaking BI is an art form. I have 6 cams running right now and I need to do the substream trick on them to reduce my CPU load, which is hovering at just over 50% right now.
This is a fun hobby-- and useful-- and nerdy. Enjoy!
This question is kind of like asking a room full of mechanics what the best motor oil is....
IMO--- cat5e is just fine. If I was building a brand new house, I would likely use cat6....
I just bought a 1,000 ft box of Riser-rated (CMR) Cat5e and have strung about 600 feet of it so far adding new connections in my house.
Here is what I bought. This cable has a fairly stiff outer sheath.
btw--- the cool thing on this cable is that it is numbered every foot 0001 to 1000, and done showing length in and amount left, as in 0110/0890 after the first 110 feet. That is a REALLY handy feature I had not seen before. I have the starting and ending footage written on the box for each run (there is a place to do it). I also wrote on each cable the run code-- L1 = Living Room 1, L2, L3, etc... that was on both ends. I pulled 5 cables together from the basement to the attic, then across the attic into my garage attic. Two of them were for the garage (G1 & G2) and the other three went back down the wall from the garage into my living room (L1 L2 & L3).
I use Monoprice. Just received my second box of this today:
CAT5E BULK ETHERNET CABLES - HDMI Cable, Home Theater Accessories, HDMI Products, Cables, Adapters, Video/Audio Switch, Networking, USB, Firewire, Printer Toner, and more!
Monoprice, Inc. (DBA. MonoPrice.com) specializes in the wholesale distribution of world class cable assemblies for home theater, PC, and high technology industries. MonoPrice.com offers a wide range of products from standard PC products, network cables, and HDMI cables to custom cable assemblies...
www.monoprice.com
I REALLY like Monoprice stuff--- I have speaker mounts and a tv mount from them, as well as wall plates for 5.1 surround at the receiver and at each mounted speaker. Excellent!
mat200
IPCT Contributor
- Jan 17, 2017
- 15,399
- 25,952
Hi @Warptrooper
Start with the PC as you're in a challenge with income at the moment.
If you really need to you can even try Dahua's software smartpss on a PC if you're really in a pinch. ( free ) Tho most here will easily say the $50-60 for Blue Iris is well worth it, of course depends on your finances.
double my electricity rates. wow
as for finding cable. I am a cable installer. In my shop, we have boxes and boxes of 100' or 150' junk boxes due to be tossed out. Anyone looking for a bargain should contact their local low voltage computer/phone cabling folks and ask to buy some/all of those junk boxes for pennies.
as for finding cable. I am a cable installer. In my shop, we have boxes and boxes of 100' or 150' junk boxes due to be tossed out. Anyone looking for a bargain should contact their local low voltage computer/phone cabling folks and ask to buy some/all of those junk boxes for pennies.
Dude---- don't let that return period lapse! LOL. This forum has experts on every aspect of camera systems-- you're in the right place. Be sure you check out the Wiki...