Which Security Cameras? | Hacker News Reader

Which Security Cameras?

7 pointsmonkburger12 comments

Trying to get away from the Google Nest IQ camera and find something similar in features (eg: People talking, dog barking detection, etc). The video quality of the IQ is poor during night mode.

I'm dropping it because of the cloud-only option, the subscription service, poor quality, etc.

I've been looking around and can't seem to find something similar in features.

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I use Annke (rebranded HikVision, and firewalled off from the Internet) and Eufy cameras in non-cloud (RTSP) mode. I use Blue Iris[1] as an NVR. Blue Iris has a cent mobile app.

I also run Skrypted[2] container on my Synology that concurrently makes me able to use HomeKit Secure Video.

I've been using this setup for years. I kinda miss the ease of the cloud, but love the configurability and modularity. What you save in leaving the cloud you will spend in personal time maintaining your setup.

1. https://blueirissoftware.com/ . Blue Iris has a huge learning curve, but the following video will fast track you into a viable setup without that curve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqc1ukrkMmI

2. https://www.scrypted.app/

I had to get a new setup spun up very quickly, didn't know what to get, so I went out and got a bunch of cameras ranging from $49 to $500 from MicroCenter. For my requirements the cheapest cameras ended up serving my needs the best.

I ended up returning all of the expensive stuff and only keeping a bunch of really cheap Amcrest PoE cameras.

Here is one such example: https://www.microcenter.com/product/634071/amcrest-5mp-ultra...

I've been very impressed with Amcrest cameras.

They support being configured without an outside internet connection.

They support dual streams.

They have all kinds of tuning settings, and come with sane defaults.

They support H.265 encoding, so you get good quality at small file (and bandwidth) sizes.

They also have MicroSD slots, and some cloud stuff that I don't use.

They work great with Fridate and Google Coral with is what I use them with.

Highly, highly satisfied and recommend.

I really like my Wyze cameras, especially their night sensors and SD card support. They are cheap, the optional cloud sub is cheap, their nighttime/low-light imagery is really good (both in color, with their special sensor, and in black/white with built-in infrared lighting).

Each camera is only $26 and works great. In fact I prefer their ecosystem to the super-bloated Ring and Nest ones that I used to have.

They have sound-activated recording and some basic AI features (package dropped off, I see a pet, your wife is home, etc.) but not specific sound detection.

Big fan of wz_mini_hacks[0] for folks that want to use them without the the Wyze cloud

[0] https://github.com/gtxaspec/wz_mini_hacks

Ubiquiti G3 Instant and G4 Instant to a local Ubiquiti UDM Pro SE with an 8TB spinning rust drive. The G4 Instant claims the following: "Smart Detections: Includes person, vehicle, and motion detection, as well as smoke/CO alarm detection on cameras with a microphone."

Reolink cameras and a ZoneMinder server seem to be a popular low cost option.

Do you need the NVR in this setup? Any reference links?

The NVR would be the zoneminder box. I don't have any specific links, but I believe zoneminder has a wiki/community page somewhere. Googling exactly what you want to do will give you tons of good guides specific to your use case.

Here [1] is a video walk-through of setting up ZoneMinder.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us20t1gQPOE

Thank you!

I personally use Amcrest, with the home router blocking internet access, and AI done via Frigate and a Google Coral chip.

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