• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

CCTV?

AJB Temple

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Anyone installed a CCTV system (external mainly) recently? If so, any recommendations?

We've use Arlo for 9 years but the system, though it still works, is ageing and I dislike the premium app that they enforce now. Hence will replace this summer. Need at least six, preferably 8 external cameras. Wi-fi is pretty hopeless where we live. Power supplies already in place (though Arlo has batteries that can be charged via small solar). Needs to be AI to exclude animal false alarms and be able to identify people and number plates day and night. Would like local hard drive + cloud ideally. Don't want to spend a lot!
 
I am looking forward to installing Ubiquiti cameras:

Unifi Protect is built into the Gateway/network controller I have (a Unifi Cloud Gateway Fiber), It's included with Unifi, so cameras and cabling are the only additional cost. All of Ubiquiti's cameras use standard Power-over-Ethernet (PoE), so don't need local power supplies, unless connecting wirelessly. Small numbers can be powered directly from the gateway, but I have a level 3 network switch which will do mine in due course. They have a good range of cameras from 'domestic' through to 'broadcast'. Most are 4k capable. I have 2TB of solid-state storage in the network controller, which they can record to, and Unifi Protect has all the usual facilities such as zones in the picture that can trigger alerts, face detection (with PTZ cameras), etc.

Down at my wife's church, I installed a UDMpro Gateway last year, with a big network switch and some new wireless access points. That can also do security cameras (and door access) as a free add-on. The UDMpro can accept fibre straight in, although their internet contract means the fibre goes int an Openreach box before they connect over cat5. To record cameras, you just add a hard disk (there's a built-in bay for this). It could do eight cameras straight in, but it's configured with a 24-port switch, and the gateway connections are used for streaming applications etc.

Both the above are network controllers, that primarily do general internet access and network management, but the security feature means only one lot of cabling and one system to look after, and some flexibility. The same cameras will do RTSP so they can be used for video feeds for the church's services too (there are quite a few elderly and housebound members, who join the services over Zoom.

The above may be a more comprehensive solution than you're looking for, but I've been using Ubiquiti kit for about 12 years or so after a recommendation from colleagues at the IT company I was then working for. I really like it, and they (Ubiquiti) still properly support the kit I originally bought, with security updates, and (last year) a major rewrite of the gateway's software. This is quite unusual.

One of the things I particularly like is that Ubiquiti don't want my data - if/when I do set up cameras, all the video data stays local, nothing passes through their servers, If I want to view footage remotely, it comes from my network straight to the viewing device, using strong encryption, but it doesn't pass through Ubiquiti.

Just a word of caution: don't buy through a well known jungle: Ubiquiti kit is very expensive there and there's a limited range. I use BroadbandBuyer (BBB), have done for years. They're not always the cheapest, but they usually are, and they carry a lot of stock. And no, nobody is either sponsoring nor giving me a kickback - as a network amateur these days, I just like the kit.


PS: This is their camera range: https://uk.store.ui.com/uk/en/search?search=cameras . That said you'd probably get better pricing from BBB.
 
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Anyone installed a CCTV system (external mainly) recently? If so, any recommendations?

We've use Arlo for 9 years but the system, though it still works, is ageing and I dislike the premium app that they enforce now. Hence will replace this summer. Need at least six, preferably 8 external cameras. Wi-fi is pretty hopeless where we live. Power supplies already in place (though Arlo has batteries that can be charged via small solar). Needs to be AI to exclude animal false alarms and be able to identify people and number plates day and night. Would like local hard drive + cloud ideally. Don't want to spend a lot!
So if WiFi is hopeless, then how are your current cameras working? I think you need to be more accurate in what the existing cabling etc is before anyone can give you accurate advice.

Pretty basic, TBH….power isn’t the only factor
 
Thanks Eric. Very helpful. And Roger

We do not yet have fibre optic, despite continual promises and being practically in sight of London. The arlo cameras close to the router plug in work fine. At one point we had a business leased direct fibre line and they ran off that perfectly, but we no longer have the (very expensive) leased line.

The main issue is the camera that overlooks the inner gates and delivery boxes in the drive. This is maybe 35 yards from the high level base unit mounted in the roof void as that is where the first BT point is, and the signal is invariably weak and fluctuates badly in wind and poor weather. The camera is mounted quite high up on a telegraph pole and the battery is boosted by a solar panel. I do have the inner security gates power supply quite nearby, but it is very difficult to run a cable from the house unless I can hang it off the telephone cable, which I think Open Reach might frown about. I cannot get a camera to work at all in the garage / delivery area, which is about 60 or 70 yards away and a really big deal for me to cable neatly to there as it involves three lofts and a section of flat roof plus a small vaulted ceiling. Hence I would prefer cameras that can communicate reliably with the base unit wirelessly. This may be a pipe dream.

The main difficulty with the house is that it was a tithe barn, and by its nature with the restaurant add on etc (another barn), it is rather long. Mark has offered to advise on a mesh system (thanks Mark) but I think until we get either fibre (Vodafone say November) or Starlink (last resort) it will never work reliably whatever we do. Vodafone have just last weekend replaced the router, and it is a bit worse than the old one. Drops out quite a lot and weak wi fi. Open Reach visited last weekend too and fiddled for a while. I was not there so not sure what they did.

I could consider running a high level cable and signal ring right around the exterior of the building, with a branch off to cover the restaurant. Or, it has just occurred to me, maybe get another line and see if BT will run a cable to the other end of the building so that POS etc will work better.
 
Unable to offer help with your problems Adrian but, re the drop outs of the NEW router from Vodafone possibly...? Possibly this hot weather we've been getting is having an affect on the signal? You may have considered it and it may not be part of the issue! Only offering as a possible additional cause not helping your situation.

NB: I don't have Vodafone but have VM instead. Their router, well the TV boxes, keep loosing connections and I'm having to reconnect via the router to their services. PITR... The boxes are connected via WiFi and not cable because of where the router is and the TV boxes positions don't allow for cables running around.
 
Adrian, I must be missing something here as my cameras are not reliant on any fibre communications but are purely wi-fi. Do you need the fibre so you can monitor the cameras when you're not at the Barn. Well..if you don't want to then could you not improve your wi-fi with better kit such as Ubiquiti.

We use Eufy cameras - four of them - very intelligent - built-in AI to differentiate between vehicles, people, pets which then allows you to decide which should send your phone a message.
 
Anyone installed a CCTV system (external mainly) recently? If so, any recommendations?

We've use Arlo for 9 years but the system, though it still works, is ageing and I dislike the premium app that they enforce now. Hence will replace this summer. Need at least six, preferably 8 external cameras. Wi-fi is pretty hopeless where we live. Power supplies already in place (though Arlo has batteries that can be charged via small solar). Needs to be AI to exclude animal false alarms and be able to identify people and number plates day and night. Would like local hard drive + cloud ideally. Don't want to spend a lot!
Hi Adrian.
I'm afraid I have no useful info for you but hope you might have some for me! I also have an older Arlo system from about 8 years ago. What is it about the app you dislike? I'm still running on what I believe is the original (no fees) and was thinking of getting a couple more cameras.
From your comments it sounds like new systems can distinguish what they're looking at (sounds great) and maybe thats your main driver? Curious before I spend any more money.

Regards
Mark
 
The cable is relevant because we have copper from the underground connection box down the lane, to the house. It is slow both up and down and bandwidth is limited. It is enough to run netflix and you tube usually, and wi-fi for computers (but not heavy load jobs), but it seems to struggle with half a dozen cameras recording to cloud. Frequent blackouts, jagged recording, and has become laggy. All of the cameras are in rubber protection suits. I suspect up down internet speeds are a factor here. I need remote monitoring as that is the way we let people in and out of the security gates.

Mark - when I originally got Arlo we bought multiple cameras. Due to property layout we needed at least 8 cameras then. That was fine then Arlo decided to limit the number of cameras on the free plan so we were trapped. Our cameras have the cube battery and a double head charger. Some are powered by the adaptors, which we have found to be vulnerable to weather, and the batteries are now degraded. Camera tech has moved on so I have decided to use the Arlo for workshop area only, and get something else for the entrance and house.

I also find that when accessing the cloud recordings, quite often now a fully charged camera does not deliver a recording. I find the app (on recent iPhone) unreliable now. I would also like to improve night recording quality.

The internet marketing for various makes is usually glowing, but does not necessarily reflect real life experience.
 
Ah, understand. Didn't realise you were recording to the cloud.

OK...take a good look at the Eufy range. I use four cameras and the Homebase 3 which records locally the video...no cloud needed. But you can get the images over the internet if you're away.


Small solar panel provided with each camera. Never ran out of power

You'll need to sort out your wi-fi but then you already knew that.

Which Best Buy
 
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