I have been looking for some time to buy new cameras and doorbell with camera for my house. Would like to buy from one vendor so I only have one app that I need to look at . I have been looking for one company that can provide outdoor cameras, Flood Camera and Doorbell camera that use SD Storage in case I do not want to use or pay for Cloud storage and POE cameras since I do not like the idea of having to replace batteries.
There is no need to confine yourself to one brand of camera. To record your cameras, you'll find it much easier if you end up with some sort of software solution (
BlueIris is far and away the best choice here) or a hardware NVR setup to connect your cameras to. If you do this, access to your cameras will come from the "recording solution" not the individual cameras. In other words, you'll always access the camera's through a single entry point/software/ web GUI, etc so the fact that you might have different brands of cameras will not make a difference. It is much smarter to select your cameras based on your goals and the performance of each individual camera. If one brand can provide everything that you need, that's great. But if it means that you need to select cameras from different brands to be able to get the best camera for each location/goal/need you have, then absolutely do that. Right now I have 12 cameras - from four different manufacturers - located in two geographic locations about 40 miles apart - and still access them all through a single app/web GUI.
I thought I settled on Armcrest until I found out they are easy to hack into because I what I found on
Are Amcrest Cameras Secure? 5 Important Security Facts and
CVE-2019-3948. Was originally looking at Foscam and found out that ArmCrest is the USA version of Foscam. I also found that Dahua and Hickvision cameras are banned from FCC due to they are built by China and they do not enforce the security that is recommended in USA. I am also looking for a manufacture that I can integrate with Home Assistant if possible. Also trying to stay away from having to use a NVR if possible.
Are there any recommendations of cameras that folks can suggest that I look at that use SD Storage, POE, and are not banned in the USA for Home Use.
There are two things to consider with regard to Chinese cameras. The first is the "hacking" or security risk that these cameras pose. The truth is that you have nothing more or less to fear about using Chinese cameras vs other brands. You are also confused about the "ban" in place. It has nothing to do with home use and only applies to Federal Government installations. Here are my thoughts that I have posted several times (and I'm too lazy to retype it all out - so here is a cut and paste from another thread). It talks about the "ban" as well as other factors.......
Do not let the fact that these cameras are produced in China scare you from using them. There are two levels of "hacking" threats IMHO. The first is to the general population like you and me. We primarily have to be worried about our devices "spying" on us (ie sending information back to unknown servers) and our devices being taken over for "bot armies". Both of these threats are effectively eliminated with a properly secure local network which does not allow these devices access to/from the internet. The second level is stuff that governments and large corporations need to worry about. These are targeted and active attempts to break into networks. These are done on high value targets due to the time and cost, so it's not something the average person has to worry about. Yes the US Gov has barred Chinese cameras from being installed at their facilities and with good reason.
Personally I agree with the Chinese ban for government installations. Large businesses, utility companies and governments need to be worried about much more than the average person. Don't under estimate the level of digital warfare that is being waged today. As an example, take the Iranian uranium centrifuges that were damaged a few years back using a virus even though they were on a "closed network" without internet access. That virus floated harmlessly around the world until it finally found itself on the right network with the right centrifuges installed on it. At that point it was able to damage the equipment in such a small way that it went unnoticed for quite a long time. While that attack had to work it's way onto the centrifuge network by spreading throughout the world first, a camera would be a perfect trojan horse to get nefarious things onto an isolated (ie no WAN connection) network. The Chinese wouldn't have to figure out how to penetrate a secure government facility to upload something nefarious because we would install it ourselves when we installed their camera. Of course that type of attack would be very focused and have a specific target. Unless some sort of equipment on your network was specifically targeted, any virus would just "float around" looking for it's intended target just like the Iranian centrifuge virus did. This type of attack by design is an offensive weapon rather than a "data collector" because without internet there is no way to pass data back. It could be an extremely effective weapon however and it's why the Federal Government has banned or is trying to ban Chinese cameras, network equipment, and even cellular equipment from being installed in their facilities.
That being said, these are issues that the general public doesn't need to worry about. There is nothing on our home networks that the Chinese are going to "target" with that type of sophisticated attack. That's why I am perfectly fine with running Dahua cameras at my house. Of course they are on their own isolated VLAN without internet access to prevent data collection and zombie bot use, but that should be done regardless of the manufacturer or country of manufacturing.
Second, you have to worry about "grey market" cameras and whether a camera you buy is really designed for the US market or if it is really a Chinese version using some hacked firmware with English directions. I would not buy Chinese cameras from just any vendor. I would certainly recommend you use a trusted vendor because there are plenty of people selling Chinese versions of cameras with a hacked "English" firmware on it. That is a receipt for disaster because the camera will likely brick the first time you try to update it.
On this forum, we love EmpireTech Andy. He is Chinese and has legitimate third party selling agreements with Dahua and other manufacturers. He sells his cameras under the Loryta and EmpireTech names, but they are genuine Dahua (or Hikvision, or whatever model you are looking at) models with genuine US Firmware installed on them. These are completely safe to use and update using the public firmware listed on the manufacture's website. That being said, most of us stick with Andy's firmware version because he (and several people on this forum) works closely with the engineers at Dahua and get features put into his firmware that simply aren't available in the manufacture's OEM versions. But you can use either version and even go to OEM and then back to Andy's custom versions or vice verse. Andy sells cameras directly to consumers (you can DM him via the forum), but also has an Amazon store if you want to go that route. That being said, Andy isn't the only legitimate seller of these cameras and you should feel comfortable with whoever you choose.
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