Ip camera with best software?

[Chuga]

Hi,

A few weeks ago I started looking into getting a ring doorbell and floodlight camera (neighbor has them). As I started to read on them I thought PoE would work better for me, and I stumbled across rheolink. I kept searching and eventually came across this forum which is a wealth of info. I was educated quickly on the better hardware of Dahua and others.

however my one concern is the software…. systems such as Ring have incredibly easy to use software.

the reviews on Dahua software are not great. if I buy some great Dahua cams and the software is clunky or buggy lets just say rest of the family will complain And I might as well toss them in the trash.
is there anything out there with quality similar to Dahua but software (mobile) targeted towards the masses?

ive done the custom thing too many times here….built unraid servers, HTPCs, etc and get grief on how hard they are to use


thanks for any suggestions!

 

[fenderman]

Hi,

A few weeks ago I started looking into getting a ring doorbell and floodlight camera (neighbor has them). As I started to read on them I thought PoE would work better for me, and I stumbled across rheolink. I kept searching and eventually came across this forum which is a wealth of info. I was educated quickly on the better hardware of Dahua and others.

however my one concern is the software…. systems such as Ring have incredibly easy to use software.

the reviews on Dahua software are not great. if I buy some great Dahua cams and the software is clunky or buggy lets just say rest of the family will complain And I might as well toss them in the trash.
is there anything out there with quality similar to Dahua but software (mobile) targeted towards the masses?

ive done the custom thing too many times here….built unraid servers, HTPCs, etc and get grief on how hard they are to use


thanks for any suggestions!

Buy ring first, then when they complain (and they will) buy something better.
You dont need to use any dahua software with dahua cameras. There are literally over 100 options for video management software..

 

[sebastiantombs]

My suggestion would be to get a camera or two and download the demo version of Blue Iris. Access for "non-tech" types can be the built in web server UI3to allow easy viewing. There are integrations of AI, people cars, animals, and alerts can be filtered using it to make things very "intelligent". All of that happen on the Blue Iris VMS and will be transparent to the non-tech user.

Although your neighbor may have RIng and seems satisfied, I do wonder how helpful the video is at night. Generally, consumer grade cameras slow the shutter down, increase exposure, at night to get a good picture. The problem is a slow shutter results in motion blur which renders the video useless.

 

[wittaj]

You need to keep in mind who the intended audiences are for each camera - consumer or professional.

The consumer grade cameras like Ring, Arlo, Nest, Blink, and realistically Reolinks have favored simplicity over quality and performance. Why is that? Because the unsuspecting naive consumer thinks cameras are cameras. And they have been conditioned to believe it is just an accepted fact that night time quality will be poor.

These companies have invested in making their apps as idiot-proof as possible to keep down the number of phone calls "why can't I see my camera on my app", and yet they still have full call centers just to deal with idiots that cannot simply open the app and scan the QR code.

Their market studies have also shown that the average consumer favors a nice bright image. That nice bright image at nice that gives a great static image comes at the cost of ghosting/blur during motion. All those cameras are good at night for are to tell the police what time something happened, but IDENTIFY is out of the question.

Further these companies do not allow any (or very little) user alteration of parameters like shutter speed and noise reduction - the cameras operate completely on auto settings. And this is why they perform poorly at night.

Further, these companies have created proprietary solutions that keep you within their universe, so you cannot use a Ring on any VMS but Ring.

But with the convenience of slap a camera on the wall and scan a QR code and can see the cameras come at a cost of insecure systems that can be readily hacked.

And there is a big market for that type of consumer.

Then you have the professional grade cameras like Dahua and Hik and a bunch of other more expensive cameras. These cameras cater to those that want performance.

These manufacturers invest in providing quality images and the ability to get great night captures with motion.

These companies also know that their audience is probably not going to use their app and will use one of the 100's of VMS systems out there, so why invest heavily in it.

Further these cameras allow the user to change parameters to optimize it for their location and field of view.

These systems are not plug-n-play. But spending time to dial them in provides the results people want.

As mentioned above, give Blue Iris a try. It has a lot of flexibility and decent interfaces for just the casual family members, albeit will not look as fancy as the Ring, but it performs.

 

[Flintstone61]

Apps for the masses are appealing, but there is a compromise. They try and "lock you in" with only works with " Ring"or "Blink", Or whatever.
I bought the Coscto Nightowl system 3 years ago. What a dissapointing piece of shit that was. They make it look like there is only one camera that is gauranteed to work with your system, Only available at thier website, and only in a 2 pack for $199.00.
Sure it was easy for my Vietnamese fresh off the boat housemates to use the App, but it frequently wouldn't load, and then there was the Security patch issued to supposedly lockup a Security backdoor. ( the patch probably opened another one LOL) I'm not paranoid much. They never updated the app for 18 months after Ios 10 or 11 came out.....
And anyway I wound up here just like you.
Right now I shit canned the Nightowl recorder for an amcrest ( dahua OEM) XVR that plays nice with Blue Iris. Which allowed me to get the Blue Iris APP loaded up on everybodies phone. After looking at Nightowl, and Amcrest View pro and Dahua DMSS, the Blue Iris does things that I consider intuitive. Like loading the most recent motion activity to the top of things to view.
Rather than burying it under layers of bullshit like the rest of the Apps.

 

[wittaj]

@samplenhold posted a great comparison between a real camera and his neighbors ring cameras.

Hello from NZ

Hi guys, We're in the process of building a new house and have just gone through an electrical walkthrough. A security system was bought up by the electrician and he suggested we go for a wired system — previously I was all about wireless tech — Arlo's, Eufy's etc. but further research in...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Chuga]

Thanks for all of the quick replies. I fully understand the quality of ring type consumer systems does not compare to Dahua and the others recommended here.

I have not come across 100s of apps yet but have seen blueiris and a couple of others mentioned here.


for Blueiris do you have to have a dedicated PC? Or could an iPhone with BI app conneCt to the cameras?

im also just imagining trying to get VPN setup and explained on their phones. ..

thanks again. Great support on this forum

 

[wittaj]

You need a dedicated PC for Blue Iris.

Simple on VPN, you put it on their phone and have it always on.

Or if not always on, it is simply tap OpenVPN then tap Blue Iris. People make it harder than it needs to be LOL.

 

[Flintstone61]

While we don't condone opening ports to use BI App, people do. and do it without the VPN. It's the easy button. But we must tell you that you can unwittingly become involved in Denial Of Service Bot attacks where a motherfucker gets into your system and uses it along with a shitload of other PC or devices to crash a site or whetever. or even perhaps look at your cam images.
I don't know all the techno details of how.....
I begrudgingly bought an Asus router. and quietly without asking for forum help, got it running. and after a couple weeks of looking around the forum and the Google machine and You tube and what not, I dove in, and fucked things up nicely.
Then I slowly researched around some more and got the right settings for the Iphone VPN to work, and i set up Asuscomm.com DDNS on the router ( its there just waiting to be enabled) and so I seem to be able to acess the Cams via Amcrest View Pro and Blue Iris, Apps, with and without going thru the VPN.
I'm definitely not well versed in this. But I have people looking at 2 Apps, they can choose which one they want to view.

 

[Flintstone61]

wittaj is lying. It is harder than it needs to be

 

[samplenhold]

I dove in, and fucked things up nicely.

LOL! You are so funny! But seriously, you have helped lots of people here.

 

[Flintstone61]

You can also get a Dahua or Amcrest NVR and buy the Empiretech or Loryta Cameras on amazon, and have an easier time getting started.
I bought an Amcrest 4108 NVR and was using it to record in a remote garage. but I switched over to a simple switch to manage those cams.
It has Amcrest DDNS and P2P and scanable QR codes for the easy button. and while the family is happily puttering along, you can be building a BI Machine in your Frankenstein workshop, and stream the Nvr channels to BI and play around with it. Then when you get comfortable, you can unleash that mutha on the world.

 

[Flintstone61]

Pain will bring you back, and then we will offer you the Blue Pill or the Red pill.

 

[samplenhold]

@samplenhold posted a great comparison between a real camera and his neighbors ring cameras.

That is a good example of the difference between consumer grade and prosumer grade.

Realize that for the police to be able to use your video/stills, there are a couple of things they need. On is good time stamping on the video. Some consumer grade cams don't even have a time stamp on the video. If you have multiple cams, they need to be in sync. Cams are notorious for getting out of sync. Most people here have a time sync app running to sync up every cam. Another thing the police need is shots of faces and clothing/vehicle descriptions. To get that you need to have the proper FOV and exposure. Which means planning and testing cam placement PRIOR to installing.

If you decide on BlueIris, then it is recommended to use a dedicated PC for it. Some folks that have a NAS use the cam software on their NAS, like Surveillance Station. I had started using that but changed to BI.

Here is another post that shows an incident that I gave video/stills to the police.

Use of Overview and LPR Cams to Document Midnight Vehicle Distributing Offensive Flyers on Lawns

We were out of town and I was checking my cams remotely one morning and noticed one of the Deputies that regularly patrol my subdivision had been at my front door. She has come to me a few times requesting video as she knows I have fairly good coverage of the streets at my corner. I noticed that...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Chuga]

Why would adding a NVR make it easier to access the cameras ? Either way would you not need something like BI on the iPhone?

 

[Flintstone61]

Because they have a companion App. for a smart phone.

 

[Chuga]

Because they have a companion App. for a smart phone.

So the NVR itself has an iPhone app?

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

So the NVR itself has an iPhone app?

YES!

 

[IReallyLikePizza2]

I'd get a Ring doorbell and then different cameras

IMO the two way talk of a Ring is hard to beat