Hi Everyone. Please suggest cameras to put on the window.

[Navirose]

Hi everyone. Not sure if this is the best place to ask for help since it's technically an intro section (do let me know if it's more appropriate to ask somewhere else).

I live in a two-story house and I'm looking for some PoE cameras to put on the window ledge (one or two on the first floor and one or two on the second floor). I'll be mainly watching the front and back perimeter of the house for activity (passerbys) and if there's anyone coming. My house is near a dead end so I'll really just need to watch the front and left side (direction cars come in). Ideally I'm hoping the camera closest to the door will be able to see faces as anyone walks up to the house. I'd prefer not to have cameras outside since I'm not familiar with wiring outside at all.
Camera quality preference ideally 4K.
Price maybe $200 max per camera but do give me some budget options
I have a gaming computer that is always on so I'd like to ideally use that for recording vs using a second always-on dedicated system.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions on camera(s) and setup, or if you can point me at some threads that you feel are relevant.

Thank you!

 

[SouthernYankee]

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By window cameras, do you mean inside the window. If inside then the cameras may not work well at night, do to the reflections, and the IR night lights will need to be turned off.

If you are not interested in night coverage then the 4K cameras are ok. If you want quality night coverage then a starlight or darkfighter 2MP or 4MP cameras are the way to go.

If using Blue Iris to record on a PC, it is strongly recommend to use a standalone dedicated PC system. Using a gaming computer, it will crash or reboot at the most inopportune / critical time.

Read,study,plan before spending money ..... plan plan plan
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My standard welcome to the forum message.

Please read the cliff notes and other items in the wiki. The wiki is in the blue bar at the top of the page.

Read How to Secure Your Network (Don't Get Hacked!) | IP Cam Talk in the wiki also.

Quick start
1) Use Dahua starlight cameras or Hikvision darkfighter cameras or ICPT Night eye cameras (https://store.ipcamtalk.com/) if you need good low light cameras.
2) use a VPN to access home network (openVPN)
3) Do not use wifi cameras.
4) Do not use cloud storage
5) Do Not use uPNP, P2P, QR, do not open ports,
6) More megapixel is not necessarily better.
7) Avoid chinese hacked cameras (most ebay, amazon, aliexpress cameras(not all, but most))
8) Do not use reolink, ring, nest cameras (they are junk)
9) If possible use a turret camera , bullet collect spiders, dome collect dirt and reflect light (IR)
10) Use only solid copper, AWG 23 or 24 ethernet wire. , no CCA (Copper Clad Aluminum)
11) use a test mount to verify the camera mount location. My test rig: rev.2
12) (Looney2ns)If you want to be able to ID faces, don't mount cams higher than 8ft. You want to know who did it, not just what happened.
13) Use a router that has openVPN built in (Most ASUS, Some NetGear....)
14) camera placement use the calculator... IPVM Camera Calculator V3

Cameras to look at
IPC-HDW2231R-ZS Review-Dahua IPC-HDW2231RP-ZS Starlight Camera-Varifocal
IPC-HDW5231-ZE Review-Dahua Starlight IPC-HDW5231R-ZE 800 meter capable ePOE
IPC-HFW4239T-ASE IPC-HFW4239T-ASE
IPC-T5442TM-AS Review IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED (Full Color, Starlight+)
IPCT-HDW5431RE-I Review - IP Cam Talk 4 MP IR Fixed Turret Network Camera
DS-2CD2325FWD-I
IPC-T5442TM-AS https://ipcamtalk.com/threads/review-oem-4mp-ai-cam-ipc-t5442tm-as-starlight.39203/ - 4MP starlight+

My preferred indoor cameras
DS-2CD2442FWD-IW
IPC-K35A https://ipcamtalk.com/threads/review-dahua-ipc-k35a-3mp-cube-camera.37581/#post-373517

Read,study,plan before spending money ..... plan plan plan
Test do not guess

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