Anyone tested reolink 810A? I want to use the built in artifical intelligence to detect persons and cars, and that will trigger an event to HA and upload video clips to my local nas 
That way I dont have a need for NVR or save all video all day!
How does the motion sensors work for you guys?
You can save money by using frigate + buy coral tpu vs buy ai camera
Frigate by far is best solution for software nvr with ai. I have cam pointed directly at busy highway(1car / 2-4 seconds) and driveway entry and can easily catch only the objects in driveway. Itās reliable enough to replace motion sensor and doorbell.
I use motioneye, zoneminder, Shinobi and blue iris. I t was always too many video/image capture to see important item. I can now sort by person, car, animal and by defined areas within each camera image.
But when AI is built in an the cost is around 100$ for 1 4k camera, I think it would be awesome to skip all the rest and let the camera do work.
But the hook up did a test of 3 systems lately and the reolink missed a couple of detected cars/persons;
The (3) systems in video do Not use AI in camera but Iād need to check to be sure. I would think they record motion events then later nvr goes through video and looks for object. Not sure how close to real time these are but genuinely curious and will check
If you considering those strongly nsuggest look at frigate and $50 4K amcrest camā¦ai cam currently will not match flexibility/capability. You currently use ha so not huge leap to setup. I literally tried everything and this by far best setup Iāve had
Consider your purpose for AI.
In my case it was
-allow quick review of activity on site
-monitor entry and notify waiting visitor or package delivery
No matter the solution I would consider making low res 24/7 recording. Ai will miss some detail but make it easy to find start/stop of action so you can get full story
Latest gen cameras with AI can do that without any issues. I can only speak for Hik, but I suppose Dahua (and OEMs) and Reolink will be comparable. They detect vehicles and humans spot on and thatās what matters to me. Unless you have some other very specific requirements like face detection, motion tracking or automatic LPR, for example, thereās no need to setup yet another device with yet another piece of software that you will have to maintain and that could fail.
Thatās not a good idea. Recording just for the sake of recording isnāt really useful. If something happens, then you will want to see every detail of it. You will want to ID people, see details of their clothing, read license plates. Having a blurry low res pixelated mess wonāt bring you very far here. If you want 24/7 recording, then invest into appropriately sized HDDs. If you go the motion activated approach, have more sensors trigger recording. Have a PIR somewhere that triggers recording early. And most good NVRs have lookback / pre-record buffers that will show you what happens before the event.
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Hear hear, could you send a link to the Hikvision/Dahua cameras that have built in AI? Always good to have some alternatives.
24/7 video could be useful if someone wants to know if anything happened that day that was really caught by your AI, so I can see myself have that going. But as you say, details and high res is important when truly something happens.
Hikvision calls their deep learning series Acusense. Hereās a partial overview. They sell different models in different parts of the world, but the Acusense brand is the same for their AI. I use the DS-2CD2646G1-IZS for my driveway and the DS-2CD2086G2-I for a part of my yard. Iām using the AI events on both. Line crossing for the driveway and field intrusion analysis for the yard cam. The events are available in HA using the hikvision integration. There are plenty of other models too. If you live in a place where thereās always some light at night, their ColorVu models are awesome. But even the more standard IR based models have excellent night vision in complete darkness.
Not sure about Dahua, but theyāre on par with Hik on pretty much everything. They just call their stuff differently.
@dror-israel Iāve purchased the same RLC-510 recently but having some issues with the HA integration. Did you manage to enable person/motion detection and use the respective binary_sensor successfully in HA?
I donāt have it yet
Thanks!
As always; Hikvision have too many cameras.
Iāll do some research and find out what european versions are available in my country.
The best thing is the built in AI and if the HA integration is great too then itās probably a no-brainer (if reolink and price donāt play a role ofc)
Curious to know how many camera using and approximate coverage, general or specific, for those posting recommendations.
I see some, I got $250 cam response and realize those cam sound great but this is not possible for me since I plan using >10/up to 15 cam and $2k-$3k not in the budget for this. I can possibly shrink this to 7 but then some area āidentifyā will not be possible, only ādetectā due to distance from cam.
Just wondering if this is just 4 cam covering 20% property with many blind spot or 7 cam covering 100% with no blind spot. Systems is needs based so both may be affective but knowing this helps know the budget/purpose when choosing. Honestly considering if Iām just being cheap in this area and genuinely curious of others approach to coverage/cost
I think all scenarios can be viable, it comes down to what your expectations are, the kind of place you are covering and the general threat level you expect to face.
We settled on using 5 outdoor cameras for now. We live on a pretty isolated farm with one main house and half a dozen outbuildings, a big courtyard, hangars, stables, etc. There is no way to get 100% coverage with any realistic scenario, nor is it needed. Crime rate is rather low in the area, the main issue is opportunistic theft when people leave doors unlocked or windows open (which is common around here).
We have
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Drive way, varifocal bullet overhead cam, 4MP. This is more for convenience than for security, so we see who comes up the driveway before he gets to the house. Varifocal optics and resolution is good to get IDāable face shots and license plates, even at night. This is also the only camera visible from public land, so it (hopefully) serves a deterrent.
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One overview camera for a part of the main yard, 2.8mm wide angle fixed optic, 8MP. Just to see what happens from a quick view, see if UPS/DHL is around and if they dropped a package under the rain again, etc. Good enough to read license plates when zoomed in, but not enough for face ID.
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Two 8MP cams with 4mm and 6mm optics respectively, to cover some important parts of the yard / front and side of the main house in more detail. Especially the 6mm optics give perfect face shots.
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One (well hidden) 4MP turret PTZ. This one will automatically turn towards areas of interest. Like if a window sensor tripped the alarm, the cam will lock and zoom onto the window. Also works for perimeter zones outside. We can also remotely control it to check out things when needed. When nothing happens, this one doubles as a weather cam, overlooking the pastures behind the house and giving nice shots of incoming storm clouds
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Also a couple of indoor cameras in a hangar we keep farming equipment in (people like to steal that it seems) and one in the stables with the horses. That one is more for keeping an eye on them rather than on any security relevant stuff.
There are tons of blind spots. But you canāt have everything. The parts covered are high resolution enough to allow ID. I bought the things progressively so I donāt really know the total amount I spent on it. Including the NVR, itās probably around 3k. Not cheap, but itās also professional and reliable PoE equipment that will hopefully last a long time.
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It was actually nice to read about your setup, and the effort you have done to keep cameras out of sight. Also the fact that a house with 4 corners only need 4 cameras to cover everything is kind of not true because of obstacles and stuff. Having a few blindspots doesnāt mean burglars will use them. In my country itās not legal to film anything public (only your property) if you donāt warn the governement first and put up cctv signs on your house/garage wall to inform.
Would you go on and donāt buy a NVR if you were to setup this now? Iāve not considered buying one because Reolink AI with SD-cards would be great together with HA (I suppose), but having 24/7 video is always nice.
I will have to be creative to hide my cameras, as the house is on a hill and the front is really visible from the private road. But maybe I should use cameras a way to warn people
Can sd card user chime in?
What is life expectancy of card?
Usually many read/write wears out card so Iād expect these to need replacement at some point. Not totally a big deal but good to know for maintenance planning
I would absolutely buy one again. I bought the NVR after I initially tried using the HA camera stream component to manage the streams and the recording. It didnāt work well at all. The NVR manages all that on its own on multiple 4k streams and it can be remote controlled by HA over its REST API. Itās super convenient to quickly check recorded streams on the timeline. You could of course build your own with Blue Iris and a NUC / old PC, but I just wanted something ready to plug in, rackable and mostly maintenance free.
I also like the fact that the camera system is an isolated subsystem. It can be accessed and controlled by HA, but itās entirely functional without it. So if HA goes down for some reason, the camera system will continue to function normally.
I personally would not consider SD cards to be usable in this context. Theyāre OK for things like your nanny cam, but entirely inappropriate for anything resembling a serious surveillance system.
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I agree, however I donāt like having an extra hardware appliance for every part of my āsmartā home, I acctually like keeping them together and handle the power losses or what it should be for that device. So not sure if I completely buy the NVR need. Another thing is that I would have to place that in my attic which is 30+ degree C in the summer and -10 degree C in winter, not sure the nvr would love that
From what Iāve read about RPI and SDcard failures is that larger capacity sd cards tend to live much longer than smaller. But if someone steals a camera and run away with it they have your recordings, if not push to a database with ftp or somethingā¦ which Iām hoping to do. I just need a solution that works first, I donāt have time to set that up in HA my self.
I have 8 bay server for all services but always think it is horrible place to keep security footage since itās easily accessible and a thing Iād destroy or take
Iāve considered getting NVR and sticking it in secure location not easily accessed for secondary 24/7 recording
@crazybutlazy, well I can only relate my own experience here, itās up to you to decide whatās best for your setup. Just keep in mind that SD cards are pretty much the least reliable option you have. Not being able to ID a burglar because of an SD card failure would beā¦ not so thrilling. Iād even rather go with one of these consumer cloud based cams like Ring or Arlo over an SD card based setup.
Mine is in a small 19 inch rack in the attic. If an intrusion in the house is detected, all cams go on continuous recording and the data is streamed onto an offsite server over a 4G connection. I really donāt expect the type of burglars we get here to even know what an NVR is or what it looks like, but it gives me some additional peace of mind I guess.
Can get hot in the summer. But the rack has some powerful fans if needed.
I concur, I have used Foscam and Amcrest and have fully transitioned all to Amcrest. Better product in my opinion.
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I also need a recommendation for a 16 port 1 gb poe network switch, good and affordable.
I came across this two:
https://www.tp-link.com/us/business-networking/easy-smart-switch/tl-sg1016pe/