Sentry Smart Alerts is too expensive for me

crc2004

crc2004

Pulling my weight
Apr 18, 2016
213
145
I was getting excited about Sentry Smart Alerts and then the sticker shock hit me. Once I saw the price of $49.99 a year I lost interest in even trying the free trial. I'd consider paying $19.99 a year once they work out the bugs but not $49.99.

Anyone else surprised by the $49.99 price tag?
 
crc2004 said:
I was getting excited about Sentry Smart Alerts and then the sticker shock hit me. Once I saw the price of $49.99 a year I lost interest in even trying the free trial. I'd consider paying $19.99 a year once they work out the bugs but not $49.99.

Anyone else surprised by the $49.99 price tag?
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Then don't use it. 50 Dollars a year nothing. Sentry needs work on it's accuracy but the price is low.
 
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It works out to .42 cents per camera per month (for up to 10). This is peanuts.
 
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Indeed, not a lot of subscription services are as cheap as this. As for the accuracy, who knows how many and which frames Blue Iris is actually sending to them for any given motion event. I'd guess some tuning probably needs to be done on both sides.

Doing AI image recognition is not cheap (easily requiring more hardware resources than Blue Iris itself) so they've probably got significant infrastructure to support this.
 
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Honestly, I would have no problem paying $299/yr for 10 cameras or even more if Sentry really dialed in their product which I am sure they are doing right now.

I get a little frustrated when Sentry is not working as expected or flags dogs as humans or fails to miss obvious human movement or flags a shaded tree as a human in the wind but I also try to keep in mind that while it's public, it's brand new and further tweaks are required.

I'm holding hope that their algorithm gets quickly!

In the meantime Im working on the standard included BlueIris trigger settings to help eliminate false positives. I have 16 cameras on a property with 55 palm trees surrounding it and frequent windy days that throw shade around like crazy... plus a big dog that runs like crazy in front of half the cameras.
 
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I think, compared to Sighthound Video as well as other AI solutions, that Sentry is priced very fairly and has already proved more accurate than Sighthound Video for a fraction of the cost. Sighthound costs $250 for a perpetual license and then $50 a year for upgrades and support. Plus Sighthound doesn't natively integrate with BI. I had to write custom scripts and use wget to have Sighthound trigger cameras and events in BI. For Sentry you just tick a checkbox. I agree that Sentry has some bugs to work out, which is to be expected for any newly released software. I'm actually surprised that the prices aren't higher given the infrastructure that they've likely had to procure to support the load of BI users as well as their other non BI users.
 
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pmcross said:
I think, compared to Sighthound Video as well as other AI solutions, that Sentry is priced very fairly and has already proved more accurate than Sighthound Video for a fraction of the cost. Sighthound costs $250 for a perpetual license and then $50 a year for upgrades and support. Plus Sighthound doesn't natively integrate with BI. I had to write custom scripts and use wget to have Sighthound trigger cameras and events in BI. For Sentry you just tick a checkbox. I agree that Sentry has some bugs to work out, which is to be expected for any newly released software. I'm actually surprised that the prices aren't higher given the infrastructure that they've likely had to procure to support the load of BI users as well as their other non BI users.
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To be fair sighthound will be releasing version 6 which promises significant changes in detection, though that will also likely result in some pricing changes as well.
 
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BlueWave said:
Honestly, I would have no problem paying $299/yr for 10 cameras or even more if Sentry really dialed in their product which I am sure they are doing right now.

I get a little frustrated when Sentry is not working as expected or flags dogs as humans or fails to miss obvious human movement or flags a shaded tree as a human in the wind but I also try to keep in mind that while it's public, it's brand new and further tweaks are required.

I'm holding hope that their algorithm gets quickly!

In the meantime Im working on the standard included BlueIris trigger settings to help eliminate false positives. I have 16 cameras on a property with 55 palm trees surrounding it and frequent windy days that throw shade around like crazy... plus a big dog that runs like crazy in front of half the cameras.
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Continuously improving the algorithm. As the AI learns the camera frame, more false alerts associated with trees and bushes should be suppressed.'

-- Sam
 
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pmcross said:
I think, compared to Sighthound Video as well as other AI solutions, that Sentry is priced very fairly and has already proved more accurate than Sighthound Video for a fraction of the cost. Sighthound costs $250 for a perpetual license and then $50 a year for upgrades and support. Plus Sighthound doesn't natively integrate with BI. I had to write custom scripts and use wget to have Sighthound trigger cameras and events in BI. For Sentry you just tick a checkbox. I agree that Sentry has some bugs to work out, which is to be expected for any newly released software. I'm actually surprised that the prices aren't higher given the infrastructure that they've likely had to procure to support the load of BI users as well as their other non BI users.
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I tried Sighthound twice and each time it performed abysmally. Basically it called anything that moved a person. 95% of what it detected as a person was a false positive.
 
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I have built multiple software companies, so I know a thing or two what it costs to get the product out to the market. OP, I want to come to your job and tell you that you are severely overpaid because I lack even the slightest understanding of what your job entails. If you can't afford $50 per year to contribute to the hard-working team to develop a solid product, maybe this video surveillance hobby stuff is not for you.
 
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Isn't this breaking privacy rules? I thought Sentry was analogous to the cloud :confused: and any stored information on the cloud is susceptible (i.e. Ring Cameras and Amazon)
 
So I actually think the pricing here is pretty fair, so long as the accuracy is good. I have not yet tested this myself, as I want alerts for things more than just people.

However, comments that AI image processing is taxing is not true. Consider the camera based system Tesla uses for its self driving. If you consider its object based identification, the speed and framerate at which is does it, and numbers of cameras all from a vehicle based compute system, it is truly astounding.
 
notyetrated said:
However, comments that AI image processing is taxing is not true. Consider the camera based system Tesla uses for its self driving. If you consider its object based identification, the speed and framerate at which is does it, and numbers of cameras all from a vehicle based compute system, it is truly astounding.
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You are misinformed about how AI works in the real world. It is very cpu/gpu intensive. Do you have experience with ANY such system. Take a peek at the system requirements. Do some research on the GPU tesla is using on very low res images.
 
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Pricing is good, I would pay more for faster turnaround times.... I am concerned with them moving to a per camera charge that I may move to a local solution for faster turnaround and lower cost with more hassle. I am willing to replace a few cameras if they would report BOTH vehicle and human.
 
What do people think of Sentry and Sighthound then these days?

Just looked up Sighthound and it seems their price is $120 for up to 6 cameras, or $250 for unlimited
 
Ah, of course. Seen a few threads on that. Just watching a Blue Iris tutorial showing the Sentry integration and found this thread.

Will look more into Deepstack instead!
 
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