Need Reliable Outdoor Cameras, WiFi, Night Vision, Motion Detection, 12V DC Plugin

[garypit]

I am looking for some good, RELIABLE cameras, as follows:

Outdoor (hopefully 2-3 MP)
WiFi (hopefully 802.11b/g/n),
Night Vision & Motion Detection

Monitoring & Playback on PC, with Blue Iris
Power: 12V DC Plugin Transformer (Not PoE)

I now have 5 Zmodo ZP-IBI13-W & ZP-IBH-13W Cameras, of which 3 work. I have found these not to be reliable cameras. The features of the Zmodo Cameras are fine, if only the cameras worked reliably. Setup is a repetitive process, if it works at all. Sometimes IPCSearch works, sometimes it doesn't, even when the camera is plugged directly into the router; sometimes Zviewer works, sometimes it doesn't. Very Common Message: "The device state error, operation failed!", or "The device can not be connected".

I've reached a point from frustration that I am willing to consider any price level to get cameras that just work.

Thanks for assistance.

 

[klasipca]

Re: Need Reliable Outdoor Cameras, WiFi, Night Vision, Motion Detection, 12V DC Plugi

Hikvision makes couple domes with WiFi, I owned both and used WiFi function at short distance. The cams are reliable but ONLY for a small area coverage at night if face identification is required. In other words it will do fine as a porch cam but to cover a driveway you will need a lot of external light

 

[nayr]

Re: Need Reliable Outdoor Cameras, WiFi, Night Vision, Motion Detection, 12V DC Plugi

take that big red reliable text out and forget about it if you insist on using WiFi.. especially with 5 other WiFi cameras lol

Wifi and Reliable are mutually exclusive features, you can have one but not both.. WiFi is for Webcams, Ethernet is for Security Cams..

whats the difference? Well if its recording over the network its a security camera and WiFi barely has the throughput to handle one or two cameras recording at same time tops, and anything can knock those cameras offline at any time and there is nothing you can do about it. If your just connecting to it on occasion and checking out what your dogs/kids are doing, then its a webcam and since its stream is not being broadcast 24/7/365 to a BI server you can actually get fairly decent results out of it.

Not to mention it kills your WiFi for devices that are really portable/wireless, so phones/tablets/laptops will now all burn through battery as quickly as possible trying to run radios at full power so they can compete with your WiFi Jamming IP Cameras.

 

[klasipca]

Re: Need Reliable Outdoor Cameras, WiFi, Night Vision, Motion Detection, 12V DC Plugi

The way I read it he wanted reliable firmware. I have used 5 Hikvision cams on WiFi and they did fine. 3MP, 15 fps 3k bit rate

 

[nayr]

Re: Need Reliable Outdoor Cameras, WiFi, Night Vision, Motion Detection, 12V DC Plugi

I suspect many of his issues originate with the being on Wifi with random messages like "The device can not be connected", while yes Hikvision will have vastly more stable software it wont change the nature of his radio environment.

If he is frustrated at random dropouts and willing to consider any price level to keep his sanity, then he needs to pay someone to pull some damn ethernet cables before anythying else.. those shitty cameras he already has will start performing substantially better then he can upgrade to professional security cameras at his own leisure and life will be good.

But even Hiks wont run great on WiFi if you have BI pulling the stream off them 24/7.... expect anytime someone uses a microwave nearby your cameras will dropout.. because your cooking food at 2.4GHz.

WiFi works well if your recording to local SD storage and the stream only gets broadcasted on occasion when someone is connected to the camera, but its not reliable enough to guarantee that any stream will make it to your wired network continuously.. simply not possible.

 

[klasipca]

Re: Need Reliable Outdoor Cameras, WiFi, Night Vision, Motion Detection, 12V DC Plugi

In general I agree that wifi sucks because you will not be able to stream at highest quality or max fps across multiple cams. I am still using 2 Hikvision wifi cube cams and in couple spots and they've worked fine for over 2 years now, but for anything new I've gone with ethernet and get much better results.

 

[nayr]

Re: Need Reliable Outdoor Cameras, WiFi, Night Vision, Motion Detection, 12V DC Plugi

If you have a really clean 2.4G band your scenario is about the best case, 2 HD cameras running trouble free.. Consider your self lucky.

In an apartment complex/condo/dormitory thats never going to happen, and its ever unlikely the higher the population density around you.. but not always, I grew up on a Farm in KS that had terrible 2.4G band due to the neighboring AirForce base.. before anyone even had WiFi devices I was fighting interference problems.

Even in your environment I would work towards getting those two cameras wired, I bet you get pretty good 2G WiFi speeds.. if you take those cameras off and setup your AP's to use wider channels and get even more throughput, stronger signals and better battery consumption on your devices that really have no option but to be on WiFi.

Considering how most people are paying for ~30-50Mbit internet now days and are running entirely off WiFi so damn crappy they cant get 20Mbit reliably.. its a shame people pay for speeds they can never obtain and then do bad stuff like throw WiFi cameras on the network and knock there network down to 10Mbit or under.. its there own fault the internet is soooo damn slow, yet they can blame the internet provider.

Either way WiFi Links can never be guaranteed, the devices are required by law to accept external interference.. so while Trouble Free might be obtainable, its not still reliable when a malicious actor could easily knock your cameras off the network from a distance.