General Cost of Installtaion?

We are having a second company give us a quote on wiring...he said they install a good amount of IP cam systems. I asked what cameras he installs and he said:

DH Series 4MP Network IP Bullet IR Camera

I have not been able to find out much about these...I did see DH series 4MP on amazon but not 5MP...
 
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Met with the guy today. $800 was the price just to do the drops. Same as the other company. Attic access is very tight and it’s pretty long distance from front to rear of house in a tight space. I asked if I could buy my own cameras and he said of course and that decent IP cams run $130’ish each and a couple hundred for the NVR. Someone had mentioned home alarm which we don’t have but are looking at simpli safe. So back to $1600-$1700 for an IP system and I’m having trouble wanting to spend that much when most of the trouble is car break ins at best. I just don’t know if the cameras will deter the car thieves. If someone comes into the home uninvited there will be big trouble in little China as we are both firearm trained and would not hesitate using hornaday critical defense ammo til the gun goes click (in my best John Turturro voice). See the dude abides for more info on that.

The installer did mention ring spotlight cam which I know could start a barrage of fire aimed my way. I don’t think we are interested in that… Although we do use a Wyze camera to watch our pets when we are out of town as one has health issues. I did read the EFF article on ring and third party trackers but I am surprised so many people use it if it is so bad. I know they have 2FA now also and I’ll sure my iOS apps that are free and in some ways tracking my data, unfortunately.

I still appreciate everyone’s input!!!
 
NOPels said:
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The installer did mention ring spotlight cam which I know could start a barrage of fire aimed my way. I don’t think we are interested in that… Although we do use a Wyze camera to watch our pets when we are out of town as one has health issues. I did read the EFF article on ring and third party trackers but I am surprised so many people use it if it is so bad...
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Many people really do not know nor pay much attention to what is really going on,...

If you're only concerned about the door checkers - just mount a couple of decent Dahua OEM 4MP starlight cameras by the top of your garage door overlooking your driveway.
 
I don't count on cameras being a deterrence. If they happen to deter a BG I look at that as a bonus.
 
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$150 per line is excellent pricing if that also includes labor. Depends on your region. Here in Northern NV, it is similar to what the cost is in Cali though a few dollar cheaper. We get 3rd party folks calling us from Kentucky or Iowa asking if we can drop our labor rate from $95/hour to what they experience locally to them for $45/hour.
for reference, our rule of thumb is $165 per Category 6 cable (labeled, terminated, and tested with a Fluke network certification tester which we can email to the customer/client the PDF results). And we are slammed busy.
You could save tons if you ran the cabling yourself. Although it could be time intensive, especially in a house. If you are skilled with patching drywall holes, you could ease the labor hours even more if you STRATEGICALLY cut out holes for the cable pulling (either for yourself or for vendor work). A little 4"x4" hole here and there makes a big difference in hard ceiling/wall environments.
It's my day job :) I gots nearly 40 Cat6 cables, 20 alarm sensor wires, speaker cables for 7.1 sound, bleh bleh bleh.
And yes... I, as well, started off with just 4 hardwired camera's, thinking that was enough. I'm now at 16 a year later.
I went with Dahua IP starlight cams sold via Andy on here after nearly pulling trigger on Costco cheap NVR system. Why? Andy has the best pricing, lots of support here and youtube for the cameras themselves along with the Blue Iris PC software. Super powerful combination. Admittingly, well over $500. And still climbing.
 
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Just curious here but it sounds like the going rate for just 1 line ran (cat 6) with terminations is roughly $100 to $150 in the US? That includes material? I am trying to figure out the going rate for a install minus the cost of cameras.
 
For comparison, I paid $600 to run 6 lines through my attic last week in a single story in Central FL. It took him almost 5 hours. I supplied my own 23 AWG solid copper Cat6 cable, and I'm doing my own terminations and camera installs.
 
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NOPels said:
I know the bullet cameras are much better.
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I missed this on the first read through. Bullet cameras are not much better and, if anything, much worse in just about every situation. The exception being license plate recognition where a high zoom is required.

Look at a bullet camera. Around the lens is a ring of LEDs that are infrared. We humans don't see them very well when they're lit, but bugs do. They are a magnet for anything that flies and has six or eight legs. They are also a magnet for non-flying eight legged pests that build webs in front of them so they can catch those six and eight legged fliers. On top of that, the location of those LEDs lights up rain, snow (I know you're in FLA so that isn't a problem, but it is illustrative), fog and mist quite brightly which, in turn, tends to blind the camera for a variety of reasons. Turrets, not domes, are far less prone to any of these problems and there are numerous threads her discussing the whole problem of bullets versus turrets.
 
Cable runs seem expensive in the US?

As I said before, I paid a guy £500 ($635) to do 12 runs from my attic down to various points around the house. 3 of these runs were from the attic to my garage, so he had to dig a trench and lay tubing etc.. I supplied only the cable, he supplied all the other stuff, so trunking, plugs etc and tested each cable.

To the OP, go for IP cams and not the old analog stuff, will give you a lot more flexibility in the long term. If budget is a problem then size the NVR for the max plus some spare that might need and get a few cams to start with. I've only installed 6 cams to date, need to get another 2 to complete the install but haven't got round to it.
 
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