Review-Dahua IPC-HFW1831C-PIR 4k Mini Bullet

sdl0311 said:
You should have received a small software cd that came with the box and instructions. Mine was also already initialized too, but if you insert the cd, you can change the password in there (I believe). If you need assistance with the cd, I can take a pic of the instructions if you don't have them already.
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@looney2ns

that worked, thank you!
 
aristobrat said:
I guess I'm the odd one here, but I have my Blue Iris set to only record when this camera's PIR Alarm trips. I've got motion detection disabled on the camera, and never setup (for this camera) within Blue Iris.

This camera covers my porch. With other camera, I've gotten Blue Iris motion detection tuned to where I only got a few false (or missed) alerts a week, but since switching to PIR on this camera, it's been perfect. Curious to see how well PIR does detecting people during the hot summer here, though.
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So after a few days of testing and getting assistance from @aristobrat, I've been able to reduce false alarms by about 90%. I originally had 3 cross zones in BI set up that helped reduce some of my false alerts, but the shade from my truck and house (during the day) and the headlights of veh's (during night) were still triggering a few false alerts. What I ended up doing is similar to aristobrat, which was to disable all motion detection in BI and dahua settings. He then walked me through with setting up a curl script in alerts to keep the dahua camera motion detection settings from turning on each time a change was made. Now I use strictly the camera's PIR settings to trigger my alerts. I created two regions because my american flag kept triggering the one region. So now I have one region that is very sensitive which is where I get most foot traffic, and the other region is covering the flag. I'm still playing with the sensitivity and threshold settings, but so far, I have not missed an important trigger (ie, someone walking to or from my house), and have reduced false alerts significantly. In case anyone else has this camera, I recommend giving it a try if you are getting a lot of false alerts. I also can't wait to see how well Sentry Smart Alert works once it gets incorporated with Blue Iris. Thanks again to all those that provide their time and knowledge to this forum. It is much appreciated whether you know it or not. :)
Annotation 2019-03-06 143119.jpg Annotation 2019-03-06 143154.jpg
 
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@sdl0311, looks like a potted plant tipped over today and set of the PIR on my 1831. The plant was about 40ft from the camera, so finding it hard to believe. The cardboard boxes on the porch were also flapping a bit, but they were doing that all day with no alerts. In this alert, the boxes were flapping and the plant way back there tipped over. Weird.

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aristobrat said:
@sdl0311, looks like a potted plant tipped over today and set of the PIR on my 1831. The plant was about 40ft from the camera, so finding it hard to believe. The cardboard boxes on the porch were also flapping a bit, but they were doing that all day with no alerts. In this alert, the boxes were flapping and the plant way back there tipped over. Weird.

View attachment 40111
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While I dont think the PIR sensor has that kind of range, it is interesting to note that plants emit more IR than cardboard and can cause false alerts.
 
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I just got one of these cameras from Andy. Ordered it on Sunday night and it arrived yesterday (Wednesday). Decided to test it out so I plugged it in and pointed it at a TV which was turned on. Before I even logged in the first time the alarm went off from the PIR sensor seeing the TV. I was surprised by the light and alarm. :)
 
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It's a real pity and a puzzle to me as to why they haven't put this sensor into all their other 4K cameras. The performance looks sublime especially at night time colour and especially given the price. You pay much more for for a 4831 or 5831 model but get a poorer performing sensor. Confused. :confused::smash:

Other than the mini bullet format and a slightly cheap looking SD slot / SD eject mechanism, this looks a great camera for a great price.
 
CCTVCam said:
It's a real pity and a puzzle to me as to why they haven't put this sensor into all their other 4K cameras. The performance looks sublime especially at night time colour and especially given the price. You pay much more for for a 4831 or 5831 model but get a poorer performing sensor. Confused. :confused::smash:

Other than the mini bullet format and a slightly cheap looking SD slot / SD eject mechanism, this looks a great camera for a great price.
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Its actually an average sensor and not great in low light/night and likely the same as in those two cams. Dahua has much better 1/1.8 sensors in the 1831/2831 full size bullets
 
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I wouldn't have described it as average. From memory, the 4831 and 5831 use a 1/2.5" sensor which is significantly less sensitive in low light - around 0.05 lux, so around 20x worse low light performance.

I noticed the 1831E 1.18" full sized version had slightly better low light performance than the C, but only slightly 0.003 vs 0.002 lux.
 
CCTVCam said:
I wouldn't have described it as average. From memory, the 4831 and 5831 use a 1/2.5" sensor which is significantly less sensitive in low light - around 0.05 lux, so around 20x worse low light performance.

I noticed the 1831E 1.18" full sized version had slightly better low light performance than the C, but only slightly 0.003 vs 0.002 lux.
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Dahua's lux ratings are misleading and false. This camera performs worse than the 5831 low light and has inferior fstop numbers. The 1831/2831 with the 1/1.8 sensor is orders of magnitude better.
 
Quindor said:
I bought both the 1831 and 2381 for testing and will be doing a direct comparisons between those and the 5831's I have. I know another member did this also, but more footage is always good I think. Up until now it hasn't been a world of difference between those but I still need to do more tests. :)

Weird that the cam from this topic would show much worse results then. May be the lens and not so much the sensor, I saw the same big difference in sharpness between the varifocal and fixed 8MP cameras of their 8MP 5 series cameras.
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You are not doing proper testing of you dont see a difference. This camera has inferior fstop numbers and that explains the difference.
 
CCTVCam said:
I wouldn't have described it as average. From memory, the 4831 and 5831 use a 1/2.5" sensor which is significantly less sensitive in low light - around 0.05 lux, so around 20x worse low light performance.
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FWIW, these are from Dahua's spec sheets and generally haven't been contested. I'd bet that most folks here would rate these camera's low-light abilities in this order:

Code: 
 5231: 2MP 1/2.8" - 0.05Lux/F1.4 (Color,1/30s,30IRE)
1831E:  4K 1/1.8" - 0.08Lux/F1.6 (Color,1/30s,30IRE)
 5831:  4K 1/2.5" - 0.20Lux/F1.8 (Color,1/30s,30IRE)

On the other hand, here's Dahua's spec for the 1831C-PIR. IMO, no way this camera rates "right behind" the newer 1/1.8" sensors for low-light performance. Not even close, ... at least not mine.

Code: 
1831C:  4K 1/2.5" - 0.09Lux/F2.0 (Color,1/30s,30IRE)

IMO, the fact that Lorex is selling these cameras is a good sign that there's nothing special about this sensor. I'd bet that Dahua is keeping the newer 4K 1/1.8" sensor to itself (like it's done with the 2MP 1/2.8" 'Starlight' sensor so far) and has let the consumer companies run with the smaller 4K 1/2.5" sensor.
 
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aristobrat said:
FWIW, these are from Dahua's spec sheets and generally haven't been contested. I'd bet that most folks here would rate these camera's low-light abilities in this order:

Code: 
 5231: 2MP 1/2.8" - 0.05Lux/F1.4 (Color,1/30s,30IRE)
1831E:  4K 1/1.8" - 0.08Lux/F1.6 (Color,1/30s,30IRE)
 5831:  4K 1/2.5" - 0.20Lux/F1.8 (Color,1/30s,30IRE)
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I compared them at 1/3s, hence the differences being closer in your table.

aristobrat said:
On the other hand, here's Dahua's spec for the 1831C-PIR. IMO, no way this camera rates "right behind" the newer 1/1.8" sensors for low-light performance. Not even close, ... at least not mine.

Code: 
1831C:  4K 1/2.5" - 0.09Lux/F2.0 (Color,1/30s,30IRE)

IMO, the fact that Lorex is selling these cameras is a good sign that there's nothing special about this sensor. I'd bet that Dahua is keeping the newer 4K 1/1.8" sensor to itself (like it's done with the 2MP 1/2.8" 'Starlight' sensor so far) and has let the consumer companies run with the smaller 4K 1/2.5" sensor.
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That's fair enough, Fenderman said the specs are inaccurate.

What do you reckon is the best 4K performer then, the 1831E?
 
CCTVCam said:
I compared them at 1/3s, hence the differences being closer in your table.



That's fair enough, Fenderman said the specs are inaccurate.

What do you reckon is the best 4K performer then, the 1831E?
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I would believe the 1831e is for the same price point if you dont need sound or varifocal. I'm crossing my fingers for a 4k 1/8 turrent to come out this year.
 
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This camera looks a lot like the 2MP wifi version from Lorex LNW16XF (with local storage only and no POE) with the identical case and active deterrent features.
I have been playing around with this camera for some time and will post some day/night pictures and video for reference. I am actually quite impressed with 2MP version so far, but have nothing to compare it to. The mobile app and push notification for motion detection also seem to work quite well on this particular unit.
 
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looney2ns said:
With the exception of Audio noise reduction turned off, time set, and channel name entered,
All settings at default.
Camera video recorded and exported from Blue Iris.

Be sure to choose 4k for play back of the last two videos.
Me walking up to camera activating PIR and siren.


In this video, when you hear the hissing noise, that is when the alarm is sounding.


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ScooterGeo said:
This camera looks a lot like the 2MP wifi version from Lorex LNW16XF (with local storage only and no POE) with the identical case and active deterrent features.
I have been playing around with this camera for some time and will post some day/night pictures and video for reference. I am actually quite impressed with 2MP version so far, but have nothing to compare it to. The mobile app and push notification for motion detection also seem to work quite well on this particular unit.
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its is not the same camera, the led on the cheap one is limited in length before it turns off to cool down. also wifi is crap.
 
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D4FB0B35-4A1A-4F6A-AAED-4177CE340F3D.jpeg AAB12699-2B22-469F-86C0-F23857716109.jpeg
fenderman said:
its is not the same camera, the led on the cheap one is limited in length before it turns off to cool down. also wifi is crap.
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Agreed absolutely, it isn’t the same camera. It is annoying that the light doesn’t stay on for more than 10 s.
I emailed Lorex as to why there isn’t any user adjustment on this.
I wouldn’t say the camera is crap as it actually has decent night and day image quality for what it is.
For some simple situations wifi is all a person needs, ie watch the baby or dog or basic front door monitoring. Not everyone wants to run ethernet and/or run aN NVR or BI.
It’s a convenient little camera with local storage and no forced cloud/3rd party subscription.

Also included a couple of pictures:
My garage with zero ambient lighting.
My backyard.
 
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