I run 8MP hikvision cameras with blueiris on the NVR side. Used to have a Unifi camera but they just always seem behind on specs. No cloud involved though in either case.
I do have concerns around IOT security issues but I have taken captures on the HIkvision’s and they don’t reach out to their cloud unless you configure them to.
My house is a Lorex house, I will not buy anything except Sony, Lorex, and Axis, they seem to be the only ones that will run for years and years without breaking.
These companies make a WIDE range of cameras, from crap to full res thermal fusion.
For Lorex I have LNB4421B x 1 and LNE8950AB x 2
The LNE8950AB is far superior in image quality, but neither will work simultaneously with wide HDR and antiflicker, which leaves Axis for areas where you need real security AND low storage space.
Wide HDR is required for a camera that sees interior and exterior at the same time, as the sun will whiteout the exterior, or blackout the interior. And antiflicker is required for proper motion detection and low bandwidth video, without it the VBR video encoder uses almost double.
My Sony is ancient and “only” 720p res, but it still works and has good night vision without using IR. It is more that 10 years old now.
None of these use an app or anything, they expose a web server for you to configure settings, and have multiple video encoders, so you can have multiple streams at differing resolutions, a high res for live viewing or recording, and a lower for motion/object detection or longer term recording. The Lorex models also work 100% with the HA ONVIF integration, no hacks or quirks required.
Just a quick note, Lorex is Dahua. They’re their US subsidiary. New Lorex cams are rebranded Dahua. Not necessarily a bad thing, Dahua has good hardware for the most part. Just something to keep in mind.
It has been that way for a while, what is interesting is that Dahua and Hikvision have both been placed on a list of “equipment or services that will pose a threat to U.S. national security or the security and safety of Americans”
Just so you know, many current Amcrest cameras are OEM Dahua units with Amcrest branding silkscreened on the hardware and logo’ed on the firmware.
Correct. There is obviously an entire geopolitical dimension behind this, but from a purely technical point of view, you can easily remedy to any real of perceived ‘risk to your safety’ by locking them into a local subnet. Hardware wise, both Hik and Dahua are really good, especially considering their price point (most probably heavily subsidized by the Chinese government). Whether or not the political considerations are a factor in your purchase decision, well, that’s up to you.
If someone was actually concerned about the geopolitical issues and the “ban” of Dahua/Hikvision, is there even a decent alternative given that so many other brands are just re-branded Dahua cameras?
I’m not worried either way, but I am a bit curious. The cameras will end up on an entirely isolated subnet with no access to the internet or the rest of the network.
Technically, the firmware is customized on OEM builds. So maybe there’s one backdoor less in it. Or maybe even one more. Short of doing a full forensic analysis of the FW, there’s no way to know.
There was an interesting discussion on the Wyze forums a couple of years ago, when users wondered about some weird access to Chinese IPs from their WyzeCam 1. A developer from Wyze basically said, they got the Chinese FW with only partial sources they could customize, even though they licensed the platform. There was a binary black box in the FW they had no access to and the FW would not work without it. It seemed that the phoning home came from that black box.
Anecdotal evidence of course. But yeah, isolate on subnet to be on the safe side, regardless of the actual camera brand.
So in summary
The top (3) recommendations are
And regardless of camera, beware the back door, lock down networking and cross fingers you didn’t misconfigure network(continue to check for vulnerabilities here and avoid completely if you are valueable target )
Or Hikvision (Dahua’s competition, they’re pretty much equivalent technically), but spot on otherwise haha.
I mean having them access the internet accidentally isn’t going to lead to you to being compromised the second they access the net. The CCP has other things to do than monitor your backyard or driveway. It’s more a thing for high security or military installations or so. The more realistic threat here is a third party exploiting bugs in the camera FW. But that’s pretty much the same for most IoT devices. Cameras just have this added potential of being a real invasion of privacy if breached.
Race to the bottom indeed. Pretty frustrating.
For an outdoor camera mostly for time-lapse of weather and a view of downtown I went with an Amcrest 4K (8MP) 4mm bullet. It covers some of your requirements:
Even with the 4mm focal length I wasn’t happy with the distortion from the wide angle. A nice trick is to use OpenCV and the checkerboard calibration: OpenCV: Camera calibration With OpenCV. With that, I get a nice distortion free view with only a small loss of FOV and still nice resolution.
EDIT: details on how to remove barrel distortion from these IP cameras:
OpenCV camera image calibration to remove barrel distortion - Share your Projects! - Home Assistant Community (home-assistant.io)
So, my use case is a little weird. I need three cameras for my 25’ Airstream trailer, two in the front upper corners looking backwards and one in the middle in the rear looking down, in order to be able to park this damn thing with one side six inches from a tree. So I have to be able to stream video from these with no cloud service, for starters, and powering them with batteries is another huge need as I can’t get power out there. (There is an off chance I could tap 12V off the running lights in those spots, but I really REALLY don’t want to screw those up.) On the positive side, I don’t even want to leave them outside beyond when I’m parking because I don’t want them to get screwed up in the meantime. So, my requirements are
TIA for any thoughts.
Ever heard of the Cab Cam ?
You do need power, but the cameras are outdoor rated at ip69k, which means they withstand thunderstorms and can be sprayed down for cleaning, and are also rated for both hot and below freezing weather.
These are NOT wifi/RTSP devices, the wireless models do run on 2.4GHz but it is not an open standard to the display.
Typically used on tractors, trailers, and mobile homes, you can jack into the trailer hitch wiring usually to get power, the display has a 12V lighter jack. The make external rechargeable batteries if there is no power available.
They also make quick attach magnetic mounts, but I am guessing the bodywork is all aluminum or stainless steel and that wont work.
They may be way overboard for your use case, but they are literally designed for it, and can be permanently mounted without fear of environmental damage.
You can use Reolink cloud for remote viewing if wanted.
But can just use them locally via their IP address.
I use mine with a Synology NAS for storage long term.
Just a quick reminder, Reolink is actually Shenzhen Baichuan Digital. It’s not entirely clear if they manufacture the hardware themselves of if they are Dahua or Hik clones. They are very opaque about it, sources claim one way or the other.
But just in case you want to use their cloud offer, keep in mind that they’re pretty much in the same boat as Dahua and Hik, your stream will go to China. I would also keep them isolated on your local LAN.
I’ve been using Foscam cameras even before I started using HA. I bought my first one over 4 years ago and it still works fine.
I have a total of six of different models that I’ve bought over the years. They have good images (especially the newer ones) and are a decent price.
Same, I have a load of Foscam cameras running under SecuritySpy because they are cheap and they work great. I also have some $1,000+ cameras for my critical areas, but most of my house is Foscam.
The setup is at least half the battle. I’ve been burnt hard by cameras refusing to do anything with an app of some sort. My dad got a new Amcrest wifi camera and it was a massive pain to talk him through (it didn’t just grab dhcp and show an admin page on wired, and didn’t offer a hotspot for wifi setup). Then he went and got this bird watcher wifi camera that was insane – massively outdated, and poorly translated manuals that required ancient shitty software to configure.
While I’m not opposed to Foscam per-se, I am apprehensive about some of the newer cameras requiring anything beyond a web-browser for setup.
I would disagree with this as someone who has worked for companies that do hardware rebadging. Usually to bring the price down the rebranded camera Will be older hardware and an agreement that features may be removed to keep the price lower. Because of this the firmware updates become harder as the latest code won’t run on the older cpu range and the agreement that the camera has x features removed means the firmware is needed to be adjusted before it is released. Sometimes an extra fee is charged to make that firmware and a company may not want to spend the money.
If it is the case that it only costs an extra $40 for a non rebranded unit I highly recommend it as money well spent for future firmware support. If you want a lower price only you can weigh the downside and put a price on it.
You not only have to worry about cameras contacting clouds but Dahua got caught with a very serious flaw a few years ago that meant your password could be retrieved by anyone in plain text if they knew a URL the camera was serving. A simple web search will turn up info on this.
While I can’t speak to any of the very newest Foscam cameras all of my others were setup easily with a local web interface.
But some of the older models I have need a plugin to work that is no longer supported by newer browsers so I had to download a “legacy” browser (Palemoon) that still supported the plugin.
The only other thing I do is block those cameras from web access in my router so there is no potential “funny business” going on.
Other than that those cameras work great.