Is there any harm in buying cheap cameras on Alibaba or Aliexpress?

tigerwillow1 said:
I really appreciate all of the info from this thread. I'm a long time dahua NVR user and am trying out BI in parallel. I tried triggering BI with IVS from 2 different camera models, including a lot of experimenting with settings, with no luck. With my expectation for BI having been set so high I have to say I'm so far disappointed. Despite all of its bugs and lousy documentation, there are a few things the NVR does that BI doesn't, that I really don't want to give up. I can see how the BI motion detection zones could be set up to work really well, but it's so much easier with IVS to just draw a line and you're done. I have no doubt that some of my disappointment with BI is just new user ignorance, but I'm finding its learning curve to be a lot steeper than with the NVR. I'll continue to test and tinker with the 12 days left on my trial period.
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I actually started out with BI about 6 years ago. I tried some NVR's in between, but I just like the layout and functionality of BI so much better, and the remote viewing capabilities of BI are a lot more robust. Of course, everyone has a preference, and mine just happens to be BI over a typical NVR or DVR system.
 
There is no harm buying cheap cameras from Aliexpress, provided you buy them from Andy Empire Technology Co., Ltd - Amazing prodcuts with exclusive discounts on AliExpress
He sells all types of cameras from entry level (<$80) to professional level cameras. He has Dahua cameras available for those on a conservative / economical budget, This is not a paid advertisement ;)
It might be better to request for a PayPal invoice from his as it may lower the cost for both you and him.
 
Arjun said:
There is no harm buying cheap cameras from Aliexpress, provided you buy them from Andy Empire Technology Co., Ltd - Amazing prodcuts with exclusive discounts on AliExpress
He sells all types of cameras from entry level (<$80) to professional level cameras. He has Dahua cameras available for those on a conservative / economical budget, This is not a paid advertisement ;)
It might be better to request for a PayPal invoice from his as it may lower the cost for both you and him.
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I know, I've purchased from him before. But this is a huge project and buying like this would drastically reduce our cost (with the caveat that there maybe some bumps ahead for buying this stuff). I was just trying to figure out if anyone has purchased the cameras listed in the OP. To me, it looks like a slightly different model number for cheaper markets.
 
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I'm sure Andy can help you with a bigger discount since you are purchasing essentially in bulk :D
Don't hesitate to directly message him @EMPIRETECANDY

hafizijaz said:
I know, I've purchased from him before. But this is a huge project and buying like this would drastically reduce our cost (with the caveat that there maybe some bumps ahead for buying this stuff). I was just trying to figure out if anyone has purchased the cameras listed in the OP. To me, it looks like a slightly different model number for cheaper markets.
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hafizijaz said:
If the money savings is worthwhile, I can deal with occasional hiccups.
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HIccup, yes. I was referring to how it won't even hook up or half the features won't work. Maybe I'm just not trusting. I don't like the idea of sending hundreds of dollars to someone when there's no chance of getting it back if they don't work as promised (if at all).

Still, Good luck though. Seriously
 
area651 said:
HIccup, yes. I was referring to how it won't even hook up or half the features won't work. Maybe I'm just not trusting. I don't like the idea of sending hundreds of dollars to someone when there's no chance of getting it back if they don't work as promised (if at all).

Still, Good luck though. Seriously
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I've ordered a few samples to check anyway.
 
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Andy is celebrating Chinese New Year so there may be a delay until after February 2.
 
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Following up on trying to have my Dahua cameras trigger BI with IVS events. I've got 5 or 6 different Dahua camera models. I did some debugging with Onvif Device Manager and found that some of the cameras send motion event messages over onvif, and some don't. The ones that send the messages cause BI triggers. In the end I confirmed what others told me that some cameras send IVS events to BI, and others don't. I'm glad I could isolate the problem to the camera instead of not knowing if it was with was the camera or the BI configuration. It was just bad luck that the 2 cameras I picked to test with initially were ones that don't send the messages.
 
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After a few more hours of testing I can refine what I found for Dahua camera compatibility with BI, and actually think I have a final answer for my cameras that don't play well. For the older cameras:

1) When BI queries their capabilities, pullpoint is not on the list. Pullpoint, however, does work.
2) With onvif device manager, no events are seen if "use pullpoint if available" is selected. However, the events are seen if "use pullpoint only" is selected.
3) The cameras send event messages for motion detection, and BI picks them up correctly.
4) The cameras don't send messages for IVS events. The answer is that simple!

The newer cameras report pullpoint as a supported feature, work ok with "use pullpoint if available" in odm, and send messages for IVS events.

I also ran into the what I assume is a bug in BI that it keeps turning on motion detection in the cameras. There's an easy workaround for this, by just totally turning off the detection area in the camera. Doesn't matter then if motion detection is enabled or not.
 
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tigerwillow1 said:
After a few more hours of testing I can refine what I found for Dahua camera compatibility with BI, and actually think I have a final answer for my cameras that don't play well. For the older cameras:

1) When BI queries their capabilities, pullpoint is not on the list. Pullpoint, however, does work.
2) With onvif device manager, no events are seen if "use pullpoint if available" is selected. However, the events are seen if "use pullpoint only" is selected.
3) The cameras send event messages for motion detection, and BI picks them up correctly.
4) The cameras don't send messages for IVS events. The answer is that simple!

The newer cameras report pullpoint as a supported feature, work ok with "use pullpoint if available" in odm, and send messages for IVS events.

I also ran into the what I assume is a bug in BI that it keeps turning on motion detection in the cameras. There's an easy workaround for this, by just totally turning off the detection area in the camera. Doesn't matter then if motion detection is enabled or not.
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Wow. Good to know. Thanks for the info. I'll look for that in the cameras that don't work.
 
It would be unusual for BI to do any changes in the camera. I have never seen BI make any changes in the camera other than collect data.
 
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More info about BI turning the camera motion detection on. When I start BI, if a camera is enabled in BI, the on-camera motion detection gets enabled. If a camera is disabled in BI, its on-camera motion detection does not get turned on. When I enable the camera in BI, its on-camera motion detection gets turned on.

But possibly more important info, onvif device manager does the same thing. As soon as I select a camera with ODM, it's its motion detection gets enabled. This begs the question if it's really a bug in the Dahua cameras. Something like establishing an onvif connection also turns on motion detection? I have all Dahua cameras, so further investigation would need to be done by somebody with multiple brands.
 
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tigerwillow1 said:
More info about BI turning the camera motion detection on. When I start BI, if a camera is enabled in BI, the on-camera motion detection gets enabled. If a camera is disabled in BI, its on-camera motion detection does not get turned on. When I enable the camera in BI, its on-camera motion detection gets turned on.

But possibly more important info, onvif device manager does the same thing. As soon as I select a camera with ODM, it's its motion detection gets enabled. This begs the question if it's really a bug in the Dahua cameras. Something like establishing an onvif connection also turns on motion detection? I have all Dahua cameras, so further investigation would need to be done by somebody with multiple brands.
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Yes, this has been mentioned previously. The work around is to clean out all motion zone settings in the camera.
 
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