Looking for recommendations for outdoor Security Cameras

Hardware
1

I know this question has been beat to death but I’m looking for some recommendations for outdoor security cameras, I have a few requirements:

Local only (I need to be able to block the camera to the internet and have it working only locally)
POE Capable
Local storage(FTP, SMB for saving videos and pictures)
Outdoor
Nightvision

I’m looking at possibly FOSCAM or Amcrest? I do have a raspberry pi running motioneyeos hooked up to a usb camera at my front door so should I hook the IP cameras up to motioneye? I haven’t gotten Motioneye and Homeassistant to work quite right yet in terms of recording videos and motion detection alerting when away mode is on.

Looking for any feedback!

Thanks,

2

I have 14 Reolink 410/520 cameras and they have been working REALLY well for over a year now. No internet connection needed and each camera has local SD storage and FTP capabilities. Each camera is 5MP and I have them configured to save recordings to my NAS. They are also IP-67 rated.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DFKTKGG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FQ2T89L/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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Hmm that sounds like it hits every check box! How did you setup them up within Home Assistant? just a generic camera?

4

Yup. Plus, I only display the substream (which is set to 640x480) to save on resources.

- platform: ffmpeg
  input: -re !secret front_yard_west_camera
  name: Front Yard West

and in secrets.yaml:

front_yard_west_camera: rtsp://[user]:[password]@[camera_ip]:554/h264Preview_01_sub
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ah ok awesome! thanks! I assume it works well with your home and away automations for motion dection alerts as well correct? I think I’m going to pull the trigger and get the RLC-510A as it’s on sale right now.

6

Ish. I have them setup in Zoneminder for doing motion alerts back to HA. The Zoneminder integration works pretty well, although I’ve found that sometimes I need to restart ZM as it gets muddled randomly and won’t send alerts.

Couple things to note on the 510A/520A. The smart alerts require an Internet connection (from what I have seen on Reddit) and they don’t expose those alerts over the normal ONVIF interface. I’d go with either the 410 or the 520 and then use something like Zoneminder (or Shinobi) with Deepstack AI to do that. MUCH more reliable and no need for an internet connection to the camera.

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oh ok perfect that’s good to know! I’ll need to look into zoneminder as well I haven’t played much with it. Thanks for the help!

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Sorry to bump this, I’m in the same boat, wanting to replace some old cams.

With your Reolink, sounds like you’re saving directly to nas, and you don’t need their nvr? How hard is it to set up this connection?
Esp if you put Reolink on a guest network it won’t be on the same network as the nas?

And what considerations for PoE vs wifi?