Hey all, I stumbled across this forum while trying to research the Lorex 8 camera nvr system I saw at Costco and quickly learned they are not known to be good. My wife and I are moving into our first house next week and I want to be able to monitor the house as I travel most weeks for work. From reading a ton of different threads here I tentatively decided to slowly piece together an nvr system with Empire tech cameras and nvr box. The first thing I'm buying will be a doorbell camera though. This is where I'm torn and could use a couple pointers from anyone who has experience with them. I am mostly torn between the Lorex 2K wired and the Eufy Dualcam wired. I like the Lorex because it will still utilize the original doorbell and it looks great, but i also like the Eufy because it has a camera that also looks down for packages. We will eventually be adding a few wifi cameras for inside as well and will be keeping all of these the same brand as the doorbell. I have been trying to learn everything I can on youtube and reading reviews online for the last few weeks but I would love to hear any opinions you guys would be willing to share wit me about them! Also if anyone has any better recommendations for an nvr setup that would be welcomed as well. Thanks!
Hello from Wisconsin!
- Thread starter juce1991
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- empiretech eufy lorex
Flintstone61
Known around here
Hi. Welcome, I started out about 3 years ago here. Costco was displaying Lorex and Nightowl. My Gf's sister who owns the house we live at, wanted a cam system,,,,,and knowing very little, and not wanting to spent top dollar of someones elses money, i told her to try the Nightowl 8 Ch Dvr with 5 Megapixel cameras.
Today that DVR and 6 of those cams are in a box in the garage.
After school of Hard-knocks Engineering,,,,I ended up with a mix of andy's Dahua OEM's and some Amcrest ( also Dahua OEM's)
I'm running both BI and the NVR. And i get to learn a lot that way.
Today that DVR and 6 of those cams are in a box in the garage.
After school of Hard-knocks Engineering,,,,I ended up with a mix of andy's Dahua OEM's and some Amcrest ( also Dahua OEM's)
I'm running both BI and the NVR. And i get to learn a lot that way.
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Flintstone61
Known around here
Flintstone61
Known around here
Which system do you like better, the BI or the nvr? I haven't fully decided which I'm going to go with yet. I'd need to get another cheap pc if I went the BI route.
Flintstone61
Known around here
So last night as I was leaving for Wisconsin, i noticed a guy driving backwards down the sidestreet and stopping by my boats. Then another guy got out of another car and jumped in the backwards car.
as long as they had not moved onto my property I thought, I’ll check the video tomorrow.
When I sit down at my BI computer( also my home PC), i can click on the sidestreet cams and see the events I’m looking for and get actionable intelligence- License plate- in 15-20 seconds.
When I sit down at my NVR to try and do the same thing, the time factor quadruples. the hassle factor sky rockets. and there is a collective groan, from all 5 of my personalities( he’s exaggerating)
the NVR interface requires me to scrub across a 24 hour time frame and look at Tic marks thought to be motion. no clue or preview like BI. i cantfuckingstandit!
as long as they had not moved onto my property I thought, I’ll check the video tomorrow.
When I sit down at my BI computer( also my home PC), i can click on the sidestreet cams and see the events I’m looking for and get actionable intelligence- License plate- in 15-20 seconds.
When I sit down at my NVR to try and do the same thing, the time factor quadruples. the hassle factor sky rockets. and there is a collective groan, from all 5 of my personalities( he’s exaggerating)
the NVR interface requires me to scrub across a 24 hour time frame and look at Tic marks thought to be motion. no clue or preview like BI. i cantfuckingstandit!
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I had NVRs for many years. It was a frustrating experience.
There is a big debate here on which is better. Personally I found the NVRs to be too clunky and not very user friendly and got to the point that I was reactive instead of proactive. I literally tested BI and knew within a few minutes it was better than any NVR I ever had.
Like literally I would go months on end not even looking at the NVR videos because the interface was too clunky and would take forever to pull up any motion from the night before. And ended up turning off the alerts because there were so many false triggers. I would only look at it if I could tell someone messed with something on my property or a neighbor asked me if my cameras caught anything.
With BI, in addition to being able to configure it such that I get notifications whenever someone gets too close to my house, I can literally in less than 30 seconds every morning do a quick review to see if there was any suspicious activity or people walking down the sidewalk at 2am. I could never do it that fast with an NVR.
Here is the search tool of all the NVR versus BI comparisons:
blue iris vs nvr ip cam site:ipcamtalk.com - Google Search
I have had whatever the NVR operating system is running on go out. TWICE. Got to buy a whole new NVR - TWICE
I have had the ethernet port go out on an NVR. Got to buy a whole new NVR.
i had the HDMI port go out on an NVR. Got to buy a whole new NVR.
Most I ever got was 2.5 years. The only working part was the HDD that I simply moved from the old NVR to the new one. I got to the point of realizing that an NVR is simply a stripped down computer, so I went to BI and never looked back. I got tired of buying a whole new unit.
So in my BI Computer, at least if the SSD goes out, I can just replace it. If the ethernet card goes out, I can just replace it. If the HDMI port goes out, I can just replace it. etc.
Personally I gave up on NVRs because I have found them to be clunky and a struggle to review clips and if a component goes out like the internet port, then you are stuck buying a new NVR whereas a computer part goes out and you replace just that component. I went to BI on a dedicated machine and haven't looked back.
Keep in mind an NVR is simply a watered down computer....
You can use the camera AI to trigger events in BI.
An NVR is way less secure on the internet than a BI computer. NVRs are rarely provided with updates to fix vulnerabilities. Your BI computer can get constant antivirus updates or Windows updates if you want to (though most of us disable them and it is still more secure than an NVR).
One of many areas where I think BI does a better job is how it displays the alerts/timeline, and I believe it is still the same as when I last ran SmartPSS and DMSS.
As we can see from this screenshot (and as @Flintstone61 points out above), it gives a green timeline with tic lines at various times to show when it triggered. Over to the right is a graphic/text representation of each trigger, but no image of the trigger.
So when I wanted to find or look at something, I needed to click each one until I found what I was looking for.
Wanna know when UPS came by in an NVR....well just start clicking on the timeline triggers till you see the UPS truck. May take awhile depending on the amount of traffic that goes by.
With BI, it gives alert thumbnails, so I can quickly scroll and find UPS way quicker than I ever could with an NVR playback timeline.
Or if you want to be notified when UPS, or FEDEX, or USPS comes by, with BI AI, you can set up an alert just for those vehicles. Good luck doing that with an NVR.
But to me, the thumbnails are invaluable. I can quickly scroll it at night and look for any activity instead of having to click each one and be like "oh that is John coming home" If I recognize the vehicle or person in the image, no need to investigate further.
There is a big debate here on which is better. Personally I found the NVRs to be too clunky and not very user friendly and got to the point that I was reactive instead of proactive. I literally tested BI and knew within a few minutes it was better than any NVR I ever had.
Like literally I would go months on end not even looking at the NVR videos because the interface was too clunky and would take forever to pull up any motion from the night before. And ended up turning off the alerts because there were so many false triggers. I would only look at it if I could tell someone messed with something on my property or a neighbor asked me if my cameras caught anything.
With BI, in addition to being able to configure it such that I get notifications whenever someone gets too close to my house, I can literally in less than 30 seconds every morning do a quick review to see if there was any suspicious activity or people walking down the sidewalk at 2am. I could never do it that fast with an NVR.
Here is the search tool of all the NVR versus BI comparisons:
blue iris vs nvr ip cam site:ipcamtalk.com - Google Search
I have had whatever the NVR operating system is running on go out. TWICE. Got to buy a whole new NVR - TWICE
I have had the ethernet port go out on an NVR. Got to buy a whole new NVR.
i had the HDMI port go out on an NVR. Got to buy a whole new NVR.
Most I ever got was 2.5 years. The only working part was the HDD that I simply moved from the old NVR to the new one. I got to the point of realizing that an NVR is simply a stripped down computer, so I went to BI and never looked back. I got tired of buying a whole new unit.
So in my BI Computer, at least if the SSD goes out, I can just replace it. If the ethernet card goes out, I can just replace it. If the HDMI port goes out, I can just replace it. etc.
Personally I gave up on NVRs because I have found them to be clunky and a struggle to review clips and if a component goes out like the internet port, then you are stuck buying a new NVR whereas a computer part goes out and you replace just that component. I went to BI on a dedicated machine and haven't looked back.
Keep in mind an NVR is simply a watered down computer....
You can use the camera AI to trigger events in BI.
An NVR is way less secure on the internet than a BI computer. NVRs are rarely provided with updates to fix vulnerabilities. Your BI computer can get constant antivirus updates or Windows updates if you want to (though most of us disable them and it is still more secure than an NVR).
One of many areas where I think BI does a better job is how it displays the alerts/timeline, and I believe it is still the same as when I last ran SmartPSS and DMSS.
As we can see from this screenshot (and as @Flintstone61 points out above), it gives a green timeline with tic lines at various times to show when it triggered. Over to the right is a graphic/text representation of each trigger, but no image of the trigger.
So when I wanted to find or look at something, I needed to click each one until I found what I was looking for.
Wanna know when UPS came by in an NVR....well just start clicking on the timeline triggers till you see the UPS truck. May take awhile depending on the amount of traffic that goes by.
With BI, it gives alert thumbnails, so I can quickly scroll and find UPS way quicker than I ever could with an NVR playback timeline.
Or if you want to be notified when UPS, or FEDEX, or USPS comes by, with BI AI, you can set up an alert just for those vehicles. Good luck doing that with an NVR.
But to me, the thumbnails are invaluable. I can quickly scroll it at night and look for any activity instead of having to click each one and be like "oh that is John coming home" If I recognize the vehicle or person in the image, no need to investigate further.