video surveillance for home please help
- Thread starter Eladin Johans
- Start date
- Nov 25, 2016
- 849
- 2,323
If you have good WiFi, a very cheap solution is the Wyze Cam v3 with a memory card. That will run you about $45 per camera with a 32 GB card. You can run the power cable under a window sill and mount the camera outside.
You're not going to get video quality sufficient to identify who is on your property, but if you buy the Cam Plus service you can at least get warnings if a human figure enters your yard. The memory card will provide about 4 days of continuous-time recording.
Hey! And what about night vision? Can this camera handle this?
I also heard good reviews about surveillance using camera phones, they say it's free and as secure as IP cameras. Could you recommend me any app or its just a waste of time?
The answer: yes
I, myself, do not go down the 'cheap' route. So good luck with whatever results you come up with.
I buy Andy's Dahua IP hardwired cameras which are not $25. I figure, if I relied on 'cheap' cameras, I would get 'cheap' video recording quality that the police would mistake an intruder or perp for Bigfoot or Elvis. To me, the whole point of having a camera system is to facially identify (day or night) the person who is 50' away breaking into your car or 5' away about to bash your front door down. You need video that identifies someone for your own purposes or to give video evidence to the local authorities.
If $$$ is an issue, start with 1 really decent IP camera and a small NVR. Later, can add in more cameras (I started with 4...now I have 20+) and move to a windows PC with Blue Iris.
I, myself, do not go down the 'cheap' route. So good luck with whatever results you come up with.
I buy Andy's Dahua IP hardwired cameras which are not $25. I figure, if I relied on 'cheap' cameras, I would get 'cheap' video recording quality that the police would mistake an intruder or perp for Bigfoot or Elvis. To me, the whole point of having a camera system is to facially identify (day or night) the person who is 50' away breaking into your car or 5' away about to bash your front door down. You need video that identifies someone for your own purposes or to give video evidence to the local authorities.
If $$$ is an issue, start with 1 really decent IP camera and a small NVR. Later, can add in more cameras (I started with 4...now I have 20+) and move to a windows PC with Blue Iris.
So this Andy's Dahua can detect movement and has a night vision? But how much did you pay or them? And the question is how much storage do I need to provive myself with 7 days of recording for example?
By default...and Dahua 5442 varifocal camera would be my default all-arounder camera. Great night vision, 4MP, zoom in/out, and great build quality. You would have to contact @EMPIRETECANDY for pricing info on the camera and related NVR.
7 days for 1 camera? At minimum, I'd start with 2TB hard drive. Gives you flexibility when (not if) you add more cameras down the road.
- Nov 25, 2016
- 849
- 2,323
The Wyze Cam v3 has good night vision, and can provide color images even under pretty dim light. There are lots of reviews with video examples on YouTube.
But there is a limit to what they can do. Many people will tell you that wired PoE cameras are a much better solution, and they are right in terms of video quality, but you have to deal with the additional expense and time of installing them.
You said "extremely cheap", and the Wyze Cam v3, along with the Wyze app on your smartphone, qualifies. If someone comes into your backyard, you will be notified on your phone.
Thanks for the tips. Sounds really expensive for my family ((( Looking for cheaper options ...
I meant apps which allow you to use your old phones like cameras. I watched on YT and saw some good examples like Alfred Camera, Faceter, etc. Is it safe to use them? Can these apps steal my data?
- Nov 25, 2016
- 849
- 2,323
Don't waste your time. You want a camera that is weatherproof and can be mounted outside. The Wyze Cam v3 is about as cheap as you can get and have a working outdoor camera.
Ok, thank you! Really appreciated!
I think I use both ways to compare the qulity of video. I gonna take my old Xiaomi 8 and use some of these modern apps and buy The Wyze Cam v3. I'll do the comparison and leave one device at the end.
I checked this camera and 25$ seems a good price
when you get things up & running.... please, do some testing during the daytime and night time. Show us how the images look and if you are happy with the results. Others folks down the road will surely follow your insights due to being in same situation.
many folks take advice here and run off into the sunset without coming back and sharing their experience and pro's/con's of the products they purchased. It would be nice to have them all come back (well, not all as some were ....ahem...unsavory) and share because there will be other folks who will be in the same boat and need advice from someone who went through it. Now, if you had a tire slasher and wanted a birdhouse camera...I could really help you out
I won't say that CCTV cameras are one of those "you get what you paid for" situations, because there are plenty of crappy expensive CCTV cameras out there. But if you really want to be able to identify people (and to me that definition means providing clear enough footage that the police can make an arrest based on my footage alone), you can't use crappy cameras.
That being said, given that your biggest concern seems to be your neighbors, your footage can be what we call "recognize" quality because you don't need the same level of detail to identify a known person vs a total stranger. You'll still need clear enough footage that it proves it was your neighbor doing something and not just a person that looks similar, but the level of quality doesn't need to be as high for your stated goal of the camera(s).
I have not used a Wyze camera myself, so I cannot comment on their quality from first hand experience. However your expectations need to be pretty low given this is a $30 camera. The Dahua 5440 series cameras that Hobbs suggested will generally run about $185-$230 depending on the exact model you get. That's a pretty cheap price given the excellent quality and nighttime performance they provide compared to other options.
That being said, given that your biggest concern seems to be your neighbors, your footage can be what we call "recognize" quality because you don't need the same level of detail to identify a known person vs a total stranger. You'll still need clear enough footage that it proves it was your neighbor doing something and not just a person that looks similar, but the level of quality doesn't need to be as high for your stated goal of the camera(s).
I have not used a Wyze camera myself, so I cannot comment on their quality from first hand experience. However your expectations need to be pretty low given this is a $30 camera. The Dahua 5440 series cameras that Hobbs suggested will generally run about $185-$230 depending on the exact model you get. That's a pretty cheap price given the excellent quality and nighttime performance they provide compared to other options.
If you care about night vision there's no way a phone is going to work. You need a camera with IR which I don't believe any phone has.
Sounds legit. Now it's even more exciting for me to do the comparison.
What camera you choose for yourself? $185-$230 a bit expensive for me as I have a big family
That's why I came here to ask to be honest. Cuz these apps says "We have fully working nightvision mode which works fine". So it became hard for me to make a decision as they offer free nighvision camera for like zero dollars. Sounds strange? I agree
Understand you're in an enthusiast forum for cameras. Any place for enthusiasts on the internet is going to skew towards "getting the best" and "everything else is shit" even though plenty of people are happy with the shit.
While I have 5442s, I also have some Blink cameras I got for $13 each on sale. Completely wireless, they only record when they detect motion (and even then the motion detection is somewhat limited to horizontal movement) But still, it was $13 and I can cover all my windows in 5 minutes of work because it doesn't use wires. The quality kinda sucks but it serves as a good enough motion alert.
The deal seems to pop back up every few weeks. Usually limit 3 each time. You also need a blink sync module which I got used off ebay for $20.
Link to previous deal: I would set up a deal alert on slickdeals if you're interested (you'll get a notification next time someone posts about the deal
slickdeals.net
While I have 5442s, I also have some Blink cameras I got for $13 each on sale. Completely wireless, they only record when they detect motion (and even then the motion detection is somewhat limited to horizontal movement) But still, it was $13 and I can cover all my windows in 5 minutes of work because it doesn't use wires. The quality kinda sucks but it serves as a good enough motion alert.
The deal seems to pop back up every few weeks. Usually limit 3 each time. You also need a blink sync module which I got used off ebay for $20.
Link to previous deal: I would set up a deal alert on slickdeals if you're interested (you'll get a notification next time someone posts about the deal
Back Again! Blink XT2 Outdoor/Indoor Security Camera (Used) - $12.99 - Free shipping for Prime members - $12.99
XT2 Cameras do not require a storage plan. 2 camera kits only available in used/acceptable at $39.99 and include sync module gen1. Yes these are used but you'll have a hard time telling. Out of
slickdeals.net
I started out with a couple of "cheaper" cameras - A Reolink 410 (a 4mp camera with a 1/2.7" sensor size) and a SV3C 5MP camera (I think it has a 1/2.8" sensor size). They were both about $60/ea when I purchased them back in Oct 2018. They produce nice bright images at night that look great until there is actual movement. Because those cameras (and many like them) use small sensors and have high resolutions, the settings to get a nice bright image at night require that the shutter speed of the camera be set very low (like 1/30th or worse) and the gain be turned up very high. This means that anything moving in the frame will be blurry (due to the slow shutter speed) and have "ghosting" artifacts (where the object appears to have a trail and/or part of the object disappear completely on some frames) due to the high gain settings.
Then I found this forum and realize that you don't have to settle for this type of nighttime image. You can get cameras with larger sensors and/or lower resolution in order to get much better nighttime performance. Currently I use a mix of the Dahua 5442 series cameras with a few other Dahua cameras as well. Sure they are more expensive, but they provide usable footage of a moving subject at night. My original cameras were cheaper, but the footage they provided at night would have been utterly useless to the police. There is no way they could have identified a suspect from the footage from those cameras at night. For me, having a camera that fails to produce good nighttime footage (when the highest likelihood of an incident occurring) is a waste of money. I'd rather have one good quality camera that provided good footage both day and night than 2-3 cheap cameras that only worked well during the day.
That being said, I still use one of those cheap cameras in my system. However it only provides a high overview of one side of my yard where the camera is mounted too high to really provide "identifiable" footage anyway (another newbie mistake I made originally). I am OK with the footage being crappy in this location and it is not a camera that I need to get good footage from.
Last edited:
