Security camera - recommend one please

[AndyPRK]

Can anyone recommend a cheap one please?

Ideal features:

Mains powered (or solar)
Use outdoors
No subscription
Wi-Fi ideally (will consider IP)
Use with an app
Good security standards used.

 

[HERTS P&D]

Ring door bell with extra camera, you have to pay a subscriton but i think it is very good value.

Andy

 

[secureiam]

Ring and good security standards hmmm

You only need a subscription usually to store data on the cloud platform.
Many other options out there.

You need to look at your budget and get the best you can for that budget.

 

[AndyPRK]

Don’t really want a ring

 

[HERTS P&D]

Don’t really want a ring

I wish the ex-wife had said that!

Andy

 

[fourtytwo]

I use Reolink (have 6), depends what you call cheap, generally you get what you pay for!
If you want evidence from a reasonable distance I would not go below 8Mpixels.

 

[AndyPRK]

This one looks interesting. I just want to see. What’s going on really

How would I connect it up? Do I need any other boxes?

Reolink 5MP PoE CCTV Secuirty IP Camera AI Alerts IR Night IP66 Waterproof 520A

 

[fourtytwo]

Well you need something to provide POE (48V) I use a POE Ethernet switch as I have many POE camera's but you can also get single channel injectors but watch the cost, a switch might be cheaper. Other than that you can use either and SD card for storage within the camera or some kind of networked recording device, an FTP server or buy one of there DVR's or there are packages for running on a PC if you want to leave one switched on 24/7. All down to your likely usage and budget.

 

[robinbanks]

it's PoE so you either power off a Poe injector, a PoE compatible switch or an NVR. I would also expect it to have a power jack plug where you can supply eg 12

It'll record upto 4 days on a 256gb memory card or you can fit an NVR (like a set top box/freeview recorder) and power off that/record onto it, then it's down to whatever size drive you can fit in the NVR..

 

[AndyPRK]

I guess all I really want, is to look on my phone and see what’s going on live.
And maybe a movement alert

 

[fourtytwo]

Well then you don't need storage and robin above is right they usually have 12V sockets as well, I had forgotten that.
Beware buying old obsolete stock from bay etc, I didn't know Reolink were still producing 5Mpix cameras

 

[robinbanks]

It'll do those, though you might have to do some jiggling with your home router's firewall if you're away from your wifi for the remote viewing part (I would expect that to be a "connect in" operation) but the alerts should work easily (that's a connect-out operation)

 

[fourtytwo]

It'll do those, though you might have to do some jiggling with your home router's firewall if you're away from your wifi

Ahh that's the beauty of there system, no open ports!! it relies upon a Reolink server (no subscription) so you can leave your firewall untouched! Works with Android and Apple.

I should add I have been having a ding-dong battle with Reolink recently after they released software that had not been tested properly resulting in the alerts system not working (there is work-around) but we seem to have come to an agreement that they will fix it..........
None of these gadgets is ever perfect lols

 

[foxhole]

Tapo camera , lots of options including ai ( can be set to notify only on human triggering), simple app and can ping you on triggering .

 

[robinbanks]

Ahh that's the beauty of there system

Ho hi, my IP cam shipping my house feeds to China "for my convenience" is not a beauty for me!
That's a lot of data for a company to offer to proxy just to make my life easy; something must make such a "too good to be true" deal worth it for them..