Home CCTV systems...

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We've been thinking of getting a few cameras to monitor the front, back and side of the house etc. My sister has a pretty good system that has cameras and a control box but it's pretty old now and all hard wired with a big noisy control box and I wondered what's on the market these days. I wonder if they're wireless and computer based now rather than hard wired with a big noisy control box?

Years ago just browsing in B&Q I spotted a box that contained everything you needed and it seemed to be at a pretty good price too but even that will be out of date these days and I have no idea what's on the market now. I used to be pretty good at fixing and installing stuff but these days I can't be bothered running up and down ladders so if we get something I'll get someone to install it.

Does anyone have one of these systems or know anything about them? Recommendations please... buy from B&Q or just get a professional in etc...

:D
 
I have been looking at something like this for ages, but not being sure how things work, I gave up. I thought it was a simple plug and play affair, but it seems like it is all over wifi / ip now. Plus, a lot of cameras have poor quality, especially at lower light levels.

I did price high end stuff up ages ago, but the cost of the equipment and fitting, came to a few thousand pounds. Just don't have that sort of spare cash... :(
 
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I am also looking for something for my home, at present I am looking at two of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ring-Floodlight-Security-Floodlights-Two-Way/dp/B074G9DPXD

I don't want to get wires run all around the house. A friend has had that done a few months ago and cost nearly £1k with 4 cameras. Picture quality is very good.

Another friend has the two of the ring flood light ones installed and is happy with them, only issue is that you have to pay a monthly sub to record to their cloud.

May just try a Yi Home Camera for now just to get going, place it inside near the front window to see how it goes:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/YI-Wireless-Security-Surveillance-Monitoring/dp/B074389PMT
 
This is something I 'explored' a few years back and IP linked was the "got to" option even then.

In regard to the quality of the camera? The best I identified was the Mobotic but it/they came at a price (outdoor type with good weather proofing & image quality very high during both and night [I think one model had black light IR to improve the night imagery] :( The problem was a one off so I did not progress this any further.

I look forward to seeing any up to date insights.
 
Have an older version of this dvr at work and it does everything well and intuitively. Not used the cameras as it was replacing an older dvr and the old cameras still work.

Wireless vs wired is purely location dependent as you still need a wired power supply to the camera, and if you are putting in holes for that you often may as well investigate pushing a second wire through as well.

Make sure you change any default passwords if you network it up as most of the mobile viewing apps depend on connecting via a central server from the dvr manufacturer...
 
I installed my own system a couple of years ago. I went for a Swann system. Very easy to install if you get the POE version.
Don’t put the control box next to your TV as they will take it. I’ve put mine in a place that won’t be found.
 
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CCTV is no longer that, as they have the potential for being viewed anywhere in the world. I wonder if there is a way, of being truly CCTV? Or maybe only with the old Analogue, cable to camera and monitor system.
 
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Avoid Nest. The app works great and it will highlight changes so you can skip to them. Very easy to view timelines etc. The cameras have good IQ even at night.

The problem is they keep losing the wifi signal when nothing has changed. I could leave the house, nothing disturbed and it will be fine one day. The next day, with nothing changed, it will just lose connectivity. Longest I’ve had is about 6 hours, and then it will spontaneously reconnect and work.

Very frustrating.
 
I just bought cameras (4 total) as I needed them and use software called Blue Iris to monitor them. One thing I've found is that the wifi on cameras can be very flakey and only the closest one is not hard wired now. Distance and walls can make for a poor signal on wifi and if there is an issue you need to correct, it can be a pita having to climb up to wherever you've installed the camera. Hard wired is just a lot more stable and so less hassle.
Low resolution cameras are worse than useless at any kind of distance too so avoid anything less than 720p (go higher res if possible).

I have one internal low res steerable in the shed with the telescopes, one low res but steerable and zoomable on the roof, one high (1080p) res on the driveway and a high res on the back.
 
Wireless vs wired is purely location dependent as you still need a wired power supply to the camera, and if you are putting in holes for that you often may as well investigate pushing a second wire through as well.

Well, that seems entirely sensible but something I hadn't thought of.

Thanks everyone.

I'll follow the links when I get time over the next couple of days but I think that if at all possible I'd like to go for a wired system as I don't want the hassle and annoyance of flaky performance. Power and signal cables could be run to the loft easily enough and out to cameras from there so there should be no cable runs on the outside and any control hardware could be located either the spare bedroom or we have a cupboard in one of the main bedrooms that used to house a boiler which became redundant and was removed years ago.

We've been quite lucky as all we've had is some minor theft from outside and some vandalism to one of my cars. My sister lives next door and she has a system which unfortunately seems to have died of old age but it did come to my rescue some time ago when I backed my car out of the drive and then ran back inside as I'd forgotten something and when I came out the drivers door was caved in. CCTV showed the guy opposite back his 4x4 out of the drive and straight into my car before driving away but once faced with the evidence he paid for the repair.

What's prompted the latest interest with CCTV is that last night the security lights came on twice in quick succession and then the car alarm went off and it doesn't have a habit of going off unnecessarily. I went outside to investigate and couldn't find anything but this all upset Mrs WW.
 
if you want a 1 box solution for the price you can't go too far wrong with these

https://www.citysecuritysystems.co..../samsung-cctv-kits-section/samsung-sdh-b73040

i have a similar setup but an older model and it's been very reliable over the time iv'e had it. the day / night quality is pretty good
it's a wired setup rather than wireless but as already mentioned wireless can be pretty unreliable if the placing isn't ideal
it's 1080p and the night vision is surprisingly good

if your going to go the IP camera route there is so much choice i couldn't begin to give advice there's too many to choose from but what i can say is your better off with a NVR to record the footage for ease of use
if you do want to use a pc or laptop to capture and record IP cameras a piece of software that i have found to be very good ( and almost free ) is ContaCam

https://www.contaware.com/

it's a no nonsense piece of software that works with pretty much any IP camera iv'e tried once you know the video / audio stream address
it's a good idea if you have cloud storage to point the cloud storage to the directory where contacam stores the footage files and have it automatically upload the files for safe keeping and viewing from anywhere
there's a bit of setting up to do this but once it's done it works very well
 
I use my Synology NAS for my system as I have the flexibility of choosing specific camera's for my needs and am not vendor-locked, currently using Hikvision PoE camera's and have absolutely no complaints at all
 
It's all new to me and there's a lot to understand and take in.
 
A few things I've picked up over the years:
  • Avoid wireless.
  • POE will be the most convenient to setup but does limit you due to power restrictions if you are going for more powerful cameras or PTZ (although PTZ a waste of money unless it's going to be manned)
  • If cameras do not have auto focus then check out how to manually focus them before buying because some are very fiddly to focus especially the type where the adjuster is loosened to adjust because when tightening it can move it again.
  • Try and get cameras with variable focal lengths, it can life a lot easier especially if you want to be discreet and have limited placement locations.
  • With today's tech, I'd only settle for 1080p min. but just like photography the sensor, specs are important.
  • Try and find video examples of the quality of a system you are interested in.
  • Make sure it's at least 25fps, many reduce to 15fps at full resolution.
  • HD cameras will eat up storage. For example, 23 standard definition cameras need 8TB to store 2 weeks worth at 30fps. Check that the unit has easy access for swapping out hard drives because they are constantly writing.
  • Double check weatherproofing level of cameras


Important to weigh up placement and coverage:
  • Evidence: you want to catch the actual crime and not just someone entering your driveway for example.
  • Discretion: people see cameras and may wonder if there's serious valuables inside. Dome cameras are more discreet and you can get ones which make it difficult to see where they are pointing. IR lights are quite obvious at night. PIR foodlights are better, even better are ones (LED) which are always on at night but at reduced brightness and go brighter upon detection.
  • Access: you want them out of reach of the criminals but you also want to be able to access them to clean the lens cover. It's amazing how a little crap can degrade CCTV image quality.
  • Media: you want to make sure it's a system which allows easy exporting of the footage. Try to avoid formats such as DAV which require extra converting etc.



Hope this helps a little
 
While our house was being built I managed to persuade the builders to install Cat6 all over the place. I also managed to get 6 x ready made Cat6 cables placed into various areas all leading to a location for cctv head unit and recorder. After lots of trawling around and advise from a couple of lads in the business my attention has been directed to the POE 4K HIKVISION range, only think I dont like is the static IP requirements and a proxy plus the fact the video runs though a 3rd party so in effect they can look in on your feeds whenever they feel like. So I am not 100% still on them but I am lead to beieve that these are one of the most reliable cameras about.
 
I have a couple of Foscam 9828P cameras on the front and back of house, connected to a NAS. Had them a few years, seem pretty reliable albeit not too cheap.
 
I’ve had a self-installed system in place for 3 years now. I’ve used an entirely Hikvision system comprising 5 network external cameras connected to a network video recorder situated in my home office. They are on the wired home network connected using home plug networking. I have had a big problem in the last few weeks with the cameras that appears to be due to passwords and firmware updates, this is a common problem with networked CCTV cameras. I am confident that I can resolve this problem with the help of the people I bought the system from, use-ip ltd. of Dover.
Setting up the home network initially is complex and you do need good support and this company does provide me with this.
My main advice is not to scrimp on camera quality, some of the cheaper off the shelf kits have really miserable image quality which would be useless in identification.
 
I'm still thinking about this but if we get one I'll want something that has decent image quality and is as reliable as possible so I think that'll be a wired system. I have so little free time and so many pressures that I really don't want something that'll cause headaches and need a lot of care and attention.
 
I'm sure that Hikvision which Laurence mentioned above are the biggest in the world. Being Chinese based I believe they opened a new office in London not so long ago probably to provide some reassurance to people in light of all the Chinese hacking scandals going on. There's some issue going on with security because everything gets sent through their Chinese servers which can then be accessed by the Chinese Government (who are a major shareholder). A problem for the Western security services who use Hikvision, but I wouldn't really worry too much about domestic cameras being monitored. Besides, don't plug in a network cable and you are safe, but you won't get remote access.
 
Avoid Nest. The app works great and it will highlight changes so you can skip to them. Very easy to view timelines etc. The cameras have good IQ even at night.

The problem is they keep losing the wifi signal when nothing has changed. I could leave the house, nothing disturbed and it will be fine one day. The next day, with nothing changed, it will just lose connectivity. Longest I’ve had is about 6 hours, and then it will spontaneously reconnect and work.

Very frustrating.

I went Hive on the second house, because I wanted to control the heating but also use the systems for the house security when we weren't there.
This works particularly well in our case, a Hive hub 360 has sound monitoring which alerts, the camera has person detect or motion detect, motion detectors and windows/door detectors all can link together in a integrated system, more than just a camera.
You can also link plugs/lights to turn on lights.
They have an outdoor camera coming in December.

Better than Hive in that you get a days recording for free. On alert, select download and grab the recorded click. If you want longer they'll sell you a plan for 30 days recording. With Next it's pay for any recording, although their heating controller is much more intelligent.
 
I mentioned yesterday I having some problems with the CCTV system. I’m gradually being able to rectify these problems and hope to have everything up and running again you this afternoon. Unfortunately there is no such thing as a maintenance free and trouble free system, they will all have hiccups occasionally, the important thing is to buy from a good dealer who is a registered importer of the equipment who are able to give first rate support.
 
Update (if anyone's interested:D)
All my cameras are now functioning as normal and recording, I certainly recommend Hikvision even though the camera access seems arcane at times. The image quality is superb. The only fly in the ointment is it's currently not possible to access the cameras via a web browser on a Mac, there are other ways of doing it though.
 
I tried a couple of Sv3c wireless cameras from Amazon and had problems with flaky wifi connections and also failing infra red so the night vision was completely useless. Sv3c were helpful in trying to resolve issues, and did send out a replacement camera, but that failed too so I returned them to Amazon. They were wifi cameras, but it was still necessary to run power cables to them, so not much more difficult than running the combined power/network cables for a wired system.

I then purchased a Yale wired 4 camera system, the difference was amazing, better picture, better night vision, no dropouts or failure to connect, and all recorded on a DVR with a hdmi connection for a screen, simple rewinding to view incidents, viewable on my phone,
 
I tried a couple of Sv3c wireless cameras from Amazon and had problems with flaky wifi connections and also failing infra red so the night vision was completely useless. Sv3c were helpful in trying to resolve issues, and did send out a replacement camera, but that failed too so I returned them to Amazon. They were wifi cameras, but it was still necessary to run power cables to them, so not much more difficult than running the combined power/network cables for a wired system.

I then purchased a Yale wired 4 camera system, the difference was amazing, better picture, better night vision, no dropouts or failure to connect, and all recorded on a DVR with a hdmi connection for a screen, simple rewinding to view incidents, viewable on my phone,
Sounds like a good system. I'm going to abandon Hikvision software and build a Windows PC to use Blue Iris.
 
I am now waiting for Yale to advise whether I can view the cameras on my pc, on the same networh - there must be a way other than the phone app or monitor plugged in to dvr?
 
Yale tell me it isn’t possible, there is probably someone out there who knows better!
 
I've had a few cheap systems and they were not very good at all, the camera resolution was always poor and the recorder software was terrible. Last year I changed all my home networking for Ubiquiti Unifi hardware and upgraded to their camera system at the same time and have never regretted it. The image quality is great even at night and the cameras are PoE so there is only one cable to run for each, the recorder software is free to download and has been flawless running on a 1st gen Intel NUC. That said I have just ordered one of the new Ubiquiti cloud keys ( network controller ) that also acts as a recorder for the camera system, it's supposed to run 20 cameras but I don't have that many.

The Ubiquiti Unifi software interfaces are very slick ( they are constantly improving the system with updates you can automate ), easy to use and accessible from most platforms, Windows/Mac/iOS/Android etc. I have G3 (approx. £130 each ) cameras outside and Flex (approx. £85 each ) inside, both 1080p.

Not the cheapest solution but it's worth it to me, do remember that you don't have to start with a full blown system. Start with a couple of cameras and expand as you see fit.

my 2p worth :)
 
The best bang for buck system is Dahua 8 cams and an NVR for about 800 squid, you will have to open a port on your router to view them outside your wifi.
We fitted loads of these in both domestic and small commercial systems.
 
Ubiquiti Unifi is good stuff, especially if you want to add switches, wifi Access Points, Cameras....
Good for sites...
 
There are vids on youtube on how to view my dvr on the pc via network, as opposed to hdmi cable to monitor at the dvr location.
Should this work for me even though Yale say their system is not viewable via the network ( is it just too complicated with port forwarding, etc, for average Joe, so they don’t bother?)
Thanks.
 
There are vids on youtube on how to view my dvr on the pc via network, as opposed to hdmi cable to monitor at the dvr location.
Should this work for me even though Yale say their system is not viewable via the network ( is it just too complicated with port forwarding, etc, for average Joe, so they don’t bother?)
Thanks.

if your yale DVR has an ethernet port you should be able to view the built in web interface through a browser by typing in the ip address once youve connected it to you router
 
Gosh did I ask this over a year ago?

Thanks all for contributing.

I haven't been able to do this for various reasons but it's on the list of things to do.
 
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