Power demand night IR

[piperpilot12w]

Planning a system with between 8-12 cameras (Dahua 5442 and HP EliteDesk 800 with Blue Iris). I live in Southern California and electricity is expensive. It appears for night conditions that IR uses about double the power. I don't have any external lighting, so I assume that IR is the only way to get quality imaging? I'm not familiar with the various options available. Is it possible to have IR only activate with detected motion to cut down on the power consumption at night?

Any ideas to have a functional system, day or night, that lowers power demand.

 

[Flintstone61]

You're saving a lot by using the EliteDesk 800 for starters. it's a pretty efficient little machine. Not sure if the IR actually doubles the power consumption in all cam models.
Some guys are more on point about the actual numbers.
The IR is not able to be " motion activated" on 5542's. If the IR were off, it would not trigger motion because it sees virtually nothing in a dark setting.
Some people here have installed Auxillary IR lights rather than using the Camera IR. not sure if that would lower your costs enough though.
Were paying $120-$125 /mo. right now for electric. But its 4 people, and she's got night lights plugged into about 10 outlets, with motion activated driveway lights and back yard lights before I even consider my consumption. which is 3 switches( 2 Poe), an NVR, and the Dell Precision 3630 and about 10 cameras and a Verizon 5G home internet router.
But with 3 people sharing the utilities, it's not as big of a hit on my wallet. I won't win any DIY home camera system energy efficiency prizes.

 

[Mike A.]

Double is a reasonable working estimate. Some relatively a little higher or lower. You need the light to be able to detect motion so, no, doesn't work activating the IR on motion and none work that way. Some can light white lights but you probably don't want that.

If you set IR to manual, you can reduce the % to whatever you want. Image quality/performance will be reduced pretty much directly in proportion. Will depend on the scene how much you might be able to do practically. e.g., lots of reflective surfaces, you can get away with less. Just ballpark, you probably can take most cams in an average setting at a typical yard distance down to 75% and still be pretty good. Generally, closer cam views need less, distant views need more.

 

[tigerwillow1]

The power consumption for the cameras jumps around a bit as the camera does various things, but they tend to hover around 4 watts with the IR off and 8-9 watts with the IR at full blast. One power cutting trick is to lower the CPU power consumption in Windows. Maximum Processor State, I believe, defaults to 100%. Details are fading from my memory, but there's some kind of turbo mode that runs when the setting is at 100%. Cutting it even to 99% (I think) gets a significant power reduction. I'm running an Elite Desk 800 with an i7-8700, and the maximum is set to 50%. It's a 17 camera system and I don't see any problems caused by this. Fiddling around, I did run into a bottom where it caused a problem for BI. I don't remember where it was, around 30% maybe. You need to measure the computer's power consumption while changing the setting and find something that works ok. As I remember, the power saving was in the 20 to 30 watt ballpark.

 

[Flintstone61]

FUKMI!! @tigerwillow......all the fans just throttled down......processor state max is 95% and min is 7%, now I gotta see what BI is doing.

All is well.... SO far.....we'll see.
I'm sure as consistently as Murphys law works in my life, I will be westbound on 494 when a car crashes into the house and it doesnt get captured...lol....and it all goes to hell.

 

[Flintstone61]

Imma have to watch my Lectric bill now....the fans (3) are staying at very low speeds. this is a great piece of info @tigerwillow1.

 

[CCTVCam]

Yep I'm going to try that. I think my pc is in normal or performance mode and it consumes around 55-60w in idle with the BI console open despite no graphics card. I think a power profile tinker is in order.

 

[bigredfish]

Um we’re talking about a single 60 watt light bulb difference ? Is this to benefit your pc or to save $ ?

I run an NVR so I guess I don’t deal with it

 

[Underhill]

Um we’re talking about a single 60 watt light bulb difference ? Is this to benefit your pc or to save $ ?

I run an NVR so I guess I don’t deal with it

Was wondering that as well. I’m all for energy conservation but worrying about camera IRs would be #587 on my list of priorities!

Turn your hot water heater down 1%, that’ll save more than your whole cctv system uses

 

[Ssayer]

Hah! Apples to apples here... My son and his wife go on expensive vacations every year, but their house's temperature isn't comfortably regulated (heat and air) and they aren't willing to put out money for a generator while their power goes out pretty often. Other relatives go out to sit down meals in restaurants multiple times weekly but their homes are never comfortable temperature wise. We don't go on vacations and we haven't been to a sit down restaurant one time since before the Covid fiasco. BUT we keep our house as warm or cold as we feel we need. We have all kinds of electricity loving toys and (lust looked) our electric bill averaged around $215 over the past year. They pay for what works best for them and we pay for what works best for us. Shoot, a $125 electric bill and upset about it??? Heh... (as always, YMMV)...

 

[samplenhold]

but they tend to hover around 4 watts with the IR off and 8-9 watts with the IR at full blast.

Some back of the envelope calculations based on:

# cams=10
Wattage increase over daytime= 4 watts
Average # hours per day with IR on: 12
Ave $/KWH in CA per Energysage= 0.32

10 cams * 4 watts * 12 hours = 480 watts per day

480 watts * 365 days/year = 175.2KWH

175.2 KWH / 12 mo/year= 14.6KWH/mo

14.6KWH * $0.32 per KWH= $4.67 per month for the IR.

 

[Flintstone61]

Hah! Apples to apples here... My son and his wife go on expensive vacations every year, but their house's temperature isn't comfortably regulated (heat and air) and they aren't willing to put out money for a generator while their power goes out pretty often. Other relatives go out to sit down meals in restaurants multiple times weekly but their homes are never comfortable temperature wise. We don't go on vacations and we haven't been to a sit down restaurant one time since before the Covid fiasco. BUT we keep our house as warm or cold as we feel we need. We have all kinds of electricity loving toys and (lust looked) our electric bill averaged around $215 over the past year. They pay for what works best for them and we pay for what works best for us. Shoot, a $125 electric bill and upset about it??? Heh... (as always, YMMV)...

Yeah, we keep the house as warm or cool as we like it. I went from an Apartment ($35-40/mo)in 2018 to a house ( $100-$125/mo.) Sticker shock. So I guess i was expecting it double, but it more than doubled. The CPU drop to 95% stopped the fans from over reacting to every browser tab opening, or Program opening. I was like you open Chrome and the PC fans stepped on the gas. now it's less dramatic.

 

[CCTVCam]

Um we’re talking about a single 60 watt light bulb difference ? Is this to benefit your pc or to save $ ?

I run an NVR so I guess I don’t deal with it

Have you seen energy prices in the UK?

Including VAT it's:

Approx $27 a month just to receive energy

$0.71 a KwH for Electricty

$0.34 per Unit for Gas (not the type you put in cars but cook and heat with)

Average wage in the UK is $37,000 although many earn a lot less than that. eg. Penshioners Get just over $14,000

I think the average US wage is much higher & energy rates much lower.