Looking for recommendations after being overwhelmed by the options out there...

[Lanhoj]

Hello everyone,

What an absolute treasure trove of information on this forum. I still have a lot of learning and reading to do, but I'm doing my best to get caught up on the reading so I can make an informed decision on what camera(s) to get. Ideally, I'd just be getting one for now, but we'll see where this goes.

Equipment Currently Installed:
- Ring Doorbell Pro and Ring Floodlight
- Synology NAS to be running Blue Iris
- Cameras and other IoT will be setup on a segregated network using Unifi Security Gateway -- still haven't read up on the thoughts behind using a VPN but it seems the gist of it is port forwarding is bad...mmkay?

Goal:
I'd like to be able to have a camera that has a view of our driveway out to our mailbox that is approximately 60 feet away. We've had some mail theft occur over the past year and I'd like to have a camera that would be able to read a licence plate with little ambient light. Based on where I'd hoped to place the camera, I only need a FoV of about 45 degrees.

Budget: <$250

Preferred Options (I think):
- Starlight or similar technology for color nightvision (if this still makes sense considering the importance of clarity).
- POE
- I'd previously thought I'd want a high MP camera to ensure I'd be able to make out faces and license plate numbers that are at a distance greater than 50 feet, but I'm not sure if this would be the same for night shots
- View live feed from phone and be able to access files from my phone.
- We've got an HOA that is a bit of a pain, so I'm not looking for something to act as a deterrent as much as I'd like someting that blends in. But, for the sake of security and quality, I would happily deal with the HOA.
- Observation, Recognition, and Identification are important but I may be asking too much for a single camera that would cover such a large area
- True WDR

Cameras I looked at reviews for and seemed promising:
IPC-HFW4830E-S
HDW5831R-ZE

Working on: Figuring out exactly how I'm going to get all my networking in order. How to use the IPVM calculator properly.

 

[mat200]

Welcome Lanhoj,

"I'd like to be able to have a camera that has a view of our driveway out to our mailbox that is approximately 60 feet away. We've had some mail theft occur over the past year and I'd like to have a camera that would be able to read a licence plate with little ambient light. Based on where I'd hoped to place the camera, I only need a FoV of about 45 degrees."

Reading a license plate in low light conditions can be a challenge, do check out the LPR section and the Dahua OEM starlight cameras.

During day light conditions, the "4K"/8MP cameras you have posted will give you 100 ppf at 50 feet away H FOV of 45 degrees, and thus good for ID purposes out to 50 feet. Using 80 ppf as the standard for reading a plate straight on during the day - you should be good at 1.25x 50. Again this is for a plate straight on during the day.

Thus I would go with a varifocal ( 5xxx series ) camera for what you are attempting to accomplish.

 

[Lanhoj]

Thanks for your suggestion mat200. I don't think I should be researching too much into camera options because suddenly I'm thinking I "need" to up my budget to afford something like the HFW8232E-Z which I think is around $325 mark? It seems to have all the bells and whistles I didn't know I wanted, but spec-wise it doesn't appear to be a fit for what I want to accomplish.

With that being said, is there a camera that would be an improvement over the HDW5831R-ZE that is only a bit higher in price? I guess I'm trying to avoid buyer's remorse...you know...wishing I had spent the extra $50 for something 10x better.

Lastly, the mounts link in the wiki doesn't appear to work. Do these cameras not come with mounts?

Thanks again for your help.

 

[mat200]

Thanks for your suggestion mat200. I don't think I should be researching too much into camera options because suddenly I'm thinking I "need" to up my budget to afford something like the HFW8232E-Z which I think is around $325 mark? It seems to have all the bells and whistles I didn't know I wanted, but spec-wise it doesn't appear to be a fit for what I want to accomplish.

With that being said, is there a camera that would be an improvement over the HDW5831R-ZE that is only a bit higher in price? I guess I'm trying to avoid buyer's remorse...you know...wishing I had spent the extra $50 for something 10x better.

Lastly, the mounts link in the wiki doesn't appear to work. Do these cameras not come with mounts?

Thanks again for your help.

HI Lanhoj,

The HFW8232E-Z is a very nice camera, however many people are probably better served with 2 cameras like the IPC-HDW5231xx or IPC-HFW52xx models.

Most here prefer turrets vs bullets - so the IPC-HDW5231xx models are very popular, however as you want to get good quality images at 60 feet you may need to look at Bullet model with a good zoom.
( IPC-HFW52xx-Zx )

Take some time to compare the 8MP camera captures from the 2MP Dahua OEM starlight camera captures.

Remember also if you want to capture license plates at night you will need to tune the camera for that, and that will make everything else in the image too dark for other uses. Thus why license plate cameras are dedicated to only that purpose.

 

[tangent]

IMHO, just plan on 2-3 cameras. 1 isn't going to cut it.

 

[looney2ns]

Be sure to read the Cliff Notes in the wiki.
BI can't run on a NAS, it can only save to a NAS. It needs a Windows PC to run on....see wiki.
See the product pages on Dahua's International site for available accessories.

 

[Lanhoj]

Be sure to read the Cliff Notes in the wiki.
BI can't run on a NAS, it can only save to a NAS. It needs a Windows PC to run on....see wiki.
See the product pages on Dahua's International site for available accessories.

Thanks for the heads up on this. Looks like Blue Iris will be a no-go for the Synology. Synology does offer a surveillance station software which may be OK for the one camera for now, but after a lot of reading I'd really rather not stress the NAS needlessly.

I have an old spare i7 3820 CPU but no motherboard, heatsink, or RAM for it. Finding a cheap LGA 2011 motherboard is proving to be a challenge since it's so old. I was hoping I could make use of it to save some money rather than buy a NVR or refurbished PC on ebay.

Maybe I should post in the hardware section for advice on suggestions on what my best options are.

ANYway, thanks again for pointing this out.