CCTV recommendations

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

12 minutes ago, IanK (Bagpuss) said:

Thanks @Man On The Clapham Omnibus I fully understand your reply. I hope you whipped the Engine out of the S2000 whilst it was on your land  They go much better in a Westie!

No I got this one instead! It's a bit of a tight fit though...

[tc3nitro]

1 hour ago, BugMan said:

I thin the Blink cameras are connected to the Amazon Alexa platform and a buddy of mine has them outside his gaff, and it caught a bird dive-bombing somebody, bl**** impressive as it tracked the bird in-flight..

Just be aware most cameras are now using web based storage over a local SD card or disk recorder with a physical hard disk in them, bit like that Ring Doorbell advertised on the telly, so they have a bit of a charge, but the advantage is you can check them on your phone from anywhere.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blink-Home-Security-Detection-Included/dp/B01M675RC9

Obviously you need an Amazon or Amazon Echo type subscription to start with, but have to say the Amazon one looks a lot better than the Google Home one, with lots of support for all sorts of things like my buddies setup reads his calendar and turned the heating on in his remote office at the end of his garden if he's working from home, but then he's TBH a bit of a geek with this stuff, and has spent a massive amount on all the bits in his home.

That's not to say you can't get to a home based recording platform, with stuff like the original one at the beginning of the post.

I'm also thinking about camears linked to my setup at home, but TBH need cash for other things, like upgraditis cures etc. 

@BugMan You don't have to have an echo or anything like that, they just advertise that as been able to use them. Use you mobile to review/view footage.

TBH I have the ring doorbell and it is the best security product I own. heard loads of stories locally of people been alerted during the day of people approaching the front door and been notified by ring. If I only had one security product on my house this would be it. I get about 3 months from a charge and its easily saved me the cost of the unit in time/money going into the city to collect parcels. Oh and has no subscription for it's use.

[Blatman]

Whilst we're looking at options that may or may not fit the budget or expertise of the OP, we have used Milestone NVR's with all kinds of cameras. My reason for pointing this out is that they offer free NVR software for up to 8 cameras. Note that this is software only but keep reading...

https://www.milestonesys.com/solutions/platform/video-management-software/xprotect-essential/

And if you think free is something to be wary of, note that Milestone are owned by Canon, who also own Axis, well known CCTV camera manufacturer...

There is no "factory support" but the documentation is excellent. The list of supported cameras is here:

https://www.milestonesys.com/community/business-partner-tools/supported-devices/xprotect-corporate-and-xprotect-expert/

 

I recently bought a new server for my place and it was remarkably good value. Something like this:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-T5500-WORKSTATION-XEON-E5506-2-13GHz-DDR3-8GB-1TB-SATA-FirePro-V3750/292505826664?hash=item441ab4b568:g:HtwAAOSw0UdXvxLv:rk:8:pf:0

 

I suspect something like this (below) would also work and has 4 HDD bays for storing a LOT of footage and of course you can RAID the HDD's if that was a requirement.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Microserver-Gen-7-N54l-8GB-RAM-RAC-Card-1x-built-in-NIC-6TBs-of-HDDs/163533967104?epid=219661573&hash=item2613624f00:g:OSIAAOSw9YdcXsOR:rk:5:pf:0

 

My point here is I think an almost professional grade system could be built for a LOT less than pro-grade money. Yes it'll likely cost more than a turnkey solution but with a bit of effort I think one of these would handsomely outperform the turnkey options.

 

[Ruttager]

Just to add, and I see others have also mentioned them, I have the Arlo CCTV. Hd recording, wireless and dead easy to setup. Records to the cloud for 7 days or, if you are  tech savvy enough, you can use IFTT or stringify for infinite storage on Google drive. I've had the system since October and it's caught quite a few interesting things from Amazon parcel theft to someone wandering around my garage and even someone just trying to get in the house. 

 

Batteries are still showing 70% though I have it scheduled to turn off for a few minutes when I go to and return from work which may help a bit. 

 

Downsides are that it's triggered by heat and occasionally it delays the recording. Also it records for a set time then it needs triggered again. So if someone is around for a while you get little missed bits. Very rare though. As it works on heat they have to be outside and won't work through windows but you get very few false alarms and you can set the sensitivity.

 

They've done exactly what I wanted from a CCTV system. Alerts to my phone and easy to manage. Good quality video, no messing around. 

[Sparkymart]

I've been following this thread with interest as I'm also looking at installing a CCTV syste due to the number of reports of suspicious goings on in the area. I've had a look at a couple of systems but the one that really stood out to me was a Hikvision IP setup with 4mp  turret cameras. The image quality was excellent and some really useful features on the main box. 

The guy in the wholesalers that was showing me the system did say the problem with CCTV cameras is if a person that's up to no good sees the cameras they will just keep their head down and hood up if they are that determined . So I'm thinking about backing the main camera watching the front door with a ring doorbell for capturing face's

The Hikvision system with 1tb harddrive and 3 cameras was a bit more expensive than some of the others but at £430 I reckon it's worth the extra

Has anyone else had experience living with a Hikvision system?

Cheers

[Blatman]

We compared HikVision and Milestone and Milestone came out on top. 

That's not to say the HikVision is no good. On the contrary we were looking for a system to deploy as our "standard" offering and Milestone it is.

[Jonsey]

have a look at the ring,  doorbell with video easy to install, comes now with security lighting.and alerts to your phone, can speak to callers while on holiday also. 

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

4 hours ago, Jonsey said:

have a look at the ring,  doorbell with video easy to install, comes now with security lighting.and alerts to your phone, can speak to callers while on holiday also. 

There's a long thread on Pistonheads about Ring doorbells and it's not all in praise of them. Certainly worth reading if only for advice on the fragility (apparently) of the WiFi connectivity.

One here  and another here other threads may be available...

[Sparkymart]

9 hours ago, Blatman said:

We compared HikVision and Milestone and Milestone came out on top. 

That's not to say the HikVision is no good. On the contrary we were looking for a system to deploy as our "standard" offering and Milestone it is.

Do milestone do complete systems or is it just the VMS ? I can find plenty of info on x project but nothing on hardware

4 hours ago, Jonsey said:

have a look at the ring,  doorbell with video easy to install, comes now with security lighting.and alerts to your phone, can speak to callers while on holiday also. 

I was looking at a looking ring2 doorbell as I said in last post just to get a image at face level 

[Sparkymart]

3 minutes ago, Man On The Clapham Omnibus said:

There's a long thread on Pistonheads about Ring doorbells and it's not all in praise of them. Certainly worth reading if only for advice on the fragility (apparently) of the WiFi connectivity.

One here  and another here other threads may be available...

Thanks for that I'll have a read now

[tc3nitro]

40 minutes ago, Martin Rice (Sparkymart) - Cornwall AO said:

Do milestone do complete systems or is it just the VMS ? I can find plenty of info on x project but nothing on hardware

I was looking at a looking ring2 doorbell as I said in last post just to get a image at face level 

I have the Ring 2 doorbell and as previously mentioned if I could only have 1 security device this would be it !

Never miss a parcel and it alerts you to any motion within your set area.

[Ian Kinder (Bagpuss) - Joint Peak District AO]

I bought this in the end: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01F4PQQYE/ref=pe_3187911_185740111_TE_item

Testing on my desk. I've quickly set it up and go it working fine within 5 mins! Image quality so far is great! 

Firmware shows a date of 2015! Yet the serial number on the unit has 181012 at the start which I'm reading as a date of manufacture of 12 Oct 2018.

Need to get the ladder out now! I might even open the instructions 

[Blatman]

On 22/02/2019 at 07:38, Martin Rice (Sparkymart) - Cornwall AO said:

Do milestone do complete systems or is it just the VMS ? I can find plenty of info on x project but nothing on hardware

They do hardware NVR's as well.

https://www.milestonesys.com/solutions/hardware-and-add-ons/network-video-recorders/

It was a bit slow to load this morning so give it a moment...

On 22/02/2019 at 07:35, Man On The Clapham Omnibus said:

Certainly worth reading if only for advice on the fragility (apparently) of the WiFi connectivity.

I think this is folks not understanding wifi correctly, but I'll comeback to that.

I too have heard reports about "reliability" although I have not been able to pin anyone down who can give me a good technical explanation.

Now... settle in and we'll get back to wifi...

Most folks looking at wifi look at the signal strength bars on their device. More than a couple of bars and it should work OK, right? Wrong! Wifi is a two-way conversation. Router talks to phone/tablet/doorbell which registers a signal. With wifi THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER is that phone/tablet/doorbell has to talk back to the router. If the return signal isn't measured, how do we know the signal from the phone/tablet/doorbell is even reaching the router? Most phone/tablets have around 50% of the transmit power (yes that's a sweeping statement but I need somewhere to start) of a home wifi router and a bit less than that of a professional grade wifi access point. The Ring doorbell transmit is what? So the phone/tablet/doorbell may well be able to see a wifi signal from the router but so what? It won't be able talk back because whilst the phone/tablet/doorbell is in range of the router, the router isn't in range of the phone/tablet/doorbell. 

So you can stand outside your front door (with it closed of course) and see a wifi signal on yer phone but does the router buried under the stairs or in the rear lounge or behind the telly see the phone talking back? Maybe yes, maybe no. But the SECOND MOST IMPORTANT THING about wifi is that once signal strength starts to drop, we start to see packet loss, that is data that doesn't make it all the way back to the router and this causes the connection to appear slow and in the case of streamed data (usually voice or live video) you will see buffering/jerky playback or simply a frozen image. And yes I do realise that having a wifi router on display is not everyones bag but the minute they are put out of sight the signal coming from them is compromised. 

So how powerful is a home router transmit power? The law has them max out at 100Mw. That's 1/10th of 1 watt and most of them don't transmit at that rate or anything near it. Phones/tablets run at abut half that as mentioned. Some deft Googling will reveal power numbers for most devices listed in dBm. How do I explain that to customers when "the wifi is crap..."? Like this: Imagine the Mw (or simple Watts) signal strength is measuring light bulbs. A 60 watt bulb is pretty bright. How bright is a 0.1 watt bulb? How bright is a 0.050 watt bulb? These are the power levels we are talking about for wifi (that's wifi, NOT 3g/4g which are more powerful and lower frequency so the signal travels further). So we are dealing with very low power. By the way, when asked if wifi can cause medical issues, the answer is no. It's nowhere near powerful enough and even if it was it is non-ionising radiation. Non-ionising means it CANNOT alter human DNA, so it CANNOT cause DNA mutations. It's more dangerous going out in bright sunshine than sitting next to a wifi router.

When looking at signal strength using any of the free wifi testing apps (and currently the one I Iike best is by Ubiquiti, called WifiMan) remember this. dBm is a logarithmic scale. 3dB difference between signal strength is HALF the power. 10dBm (rather satisfyingly) is 10 times (or 1/10th) the power. I try to keep signal strength measured at the phone/tablet to -67dBm or lower. A -50dBm strength is  excellent and anything numerically lower is a proper banging signal. But -67 is very good and should pass any test, even for voice/video streamed traffic.

What perspective am I coming from? I design, configure, deploy, commission and support large wifi and network/internet deployments for a living including CCTV. For anything even remotely security related I insist on wires for EVERYTHING and that includes doorbells. I do appreciate that wireless is very convenient and makes DIY installation of CCTV and the like very easy. But if you want reliability and performance, get as much stuff off the wifi as possible. If I was to fit a Ring (or Nest or any other "security" doorbell/camera/"smart-home device), I'd make the effort and pull some cables or use TP Link (or similar) home plugs to extend WIRED connectivity. Yes they do wireless extenders too but that's a whole other set of things to worry about. Too many wifi points is just as bad as not enough.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Clients and others on site look at me like I’m mad when I bang on about using wired not wireless connections. Good to see a consise description of why it’s important!

And foil backed plasterboard, insulation etc, let alone the metal framing used to support it, can be a real signal killer room to room.

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

That's why I would avoid a wireless alarm system if at all possible. The most reliable part, and the least likely to cause false alarms of any intruder alarm? The wires!