Security Camera.

Dale.

Dale.

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Dale.
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With Christmas around the corner, my mind is turning towards a gift for the wife. We tend to get stuff that is practical (although the saucepans 2 years ago didn't go down well) and stuff that will actually get used.

She has mentioned a security camera, we're in a quiet spot but still nice to have and I thought 'winner, winner, chicken dinner, it will also keep an eye on my workshop. ;)

I'm at a bit of a loss though, first it was going to be a Ring doorbell, but now I'm thinking of this,


https://www.argos.co.uk/product/1247972


anyone any thoughts on these devices please?

ta much.
 
Hi

Not used th blink stuff but have used ring. I have the floodlight at the front and one at the back.

I am happy with them. Not too keen on the door bell as you have to answer them. With the floodlight or spot light cams you can talk to the people if you need to.

Also if you need your clips saved in the cloud you have to pay, so look into this before deciding.

One issue is WiFi signal, you need to make sure you have a good 2g signal and they do not used 5g.

For something cheap if being used indoors worth looking at Neos Smart, cheap and work fine with sd card for recording.

The price of ring goes up unless on off, so if you decide on ring check prices on Amazon, and Costco if you are a member.
 
We have the Blink kit, works really well, have a couple of them wired into USB indoors and two battery powered outdoor ones.


Batteries probably only last about 6 months though, probably because it's cold outdoors here.
 
+1 for Neos smart cam.
 
I have two Yi outdoor cam. £40 odd pounds when on offer. Weatherproof, two way audio, and saves into internal SD card. You get 7 days app based motion alert 6s video for free, no subscription needed.

With hacked firmware (yi-hack-v4), my hidden home server can also save its feed via RTSP and my home automation can do stuff with MQTT on motion detect. I can also get its video feed on to my home automation control screen.



I'd recommend only have cloud-based cameras pointed outdoors. These things (and Internet of Things IoT in general) are not secure and don't receive enough security updates.

As said, you need to consider subscription costs. It's an on-going cost that will be more expensive than the camera after a year or so. Most of the time there are alternatives that doesn't need subscription.
 
Have a look at nest. Top quality. Great app.
I run 3 of them. 2 external 1 internal.
 
Not cheap, but I installed 7 Hikvision IP network cameras, hosted by a free copy of Milestone XProtect Essential+ running on a dedicated Windows server. I am not a fan of cloud based solutions.

As part of my job as network manager at a school where I worked, I managed a CCTV setup using XProtect & 30+ Axis cameras.
 
Just bear in mind what you point it at. I believe if it points directly at the street there's some stupid law covering data protection etc.
Madness I know but there you go.
 
I have a Ring Doorbell 1st version which works well though I think the design is rotten. For example you have to take it off to recharge the battery — I’ve attached a usb cable and drilled through the back and the door frame and plugged it into a battery bank.

One other thing to note is that if there are several missed alerts they play back when you open your iPad with whatever message you have set eg “There is someone at your door”. In a few days my dog learned the announcement meant someone was at the door but of course also reacts to all the phantom catch up ones. It’ll be interesting to see if she works out that it’s my opening the iPad that sets them off.
 
broc said:
Not cheap, but I installed 7 Hikvision IP network cameras, hosted by a free copy of Milestone XProtect Essential+ running on a dedicated Windows server. I am not a fan of cloud based solutions.

As part of my job as network manager at a school where I worked, I managed a CCTV setup using XProtect & 30+ Axis cameras.
Click to expand...

Just out of interest, what have you got against cloud streamed storage?
I went for it because of the intelligent alerts and storage being "off site".
Mine have run flawlessly for 2 years.
The only issue I could envisage is if the broadband is down.
 
Cockney said:
Just out of interest, what have you got against cloud streamed storage?
I went for it because of the intelligent alerts and storage being "off site".
Mine have run flawlessly for 2 years.
The only issue I could envisage is if the broadband is down.
Click to expand...
Security? I bought a cheap cam and found you can’t change the default password and it was recording stuff even without an SD card in, good picture though. I was uneasy because it was obviously all going back to China. I changed to Ring door bell (owned by Amazon) and Neos which is U.K. based and stores the videos on AWS (though I‘m using an SD card not cloud sub).
 
sphexx said:
Security? I bought a cheap cam and found you can’t change the default password and it was recording stuff even without an SD card in, good picture though. I was uneasy because it was obviously all going back to China. I changed to Ring door bell (owned by Amazon) and Neos which is U.K. based and stores the videos on AWS (though I‘m using an SD card not cloud sub).
Click to expand...

If somebody at google (who own nest) wants to spend their time watching my front and rear gardens grow or see my living room whilst I'm in bed, I'm not too bothered.
 
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Cockney said:
If somebody at google (who own nest) wants to spend their time watching my front and rear gardens grow or see my living room whilst I'm in bed, I'm not too bothered.
Click to expand...
I’m not really bothered about that, more that a criminal organisation or ’State actor’ can control numbers of these IOTs and use them for purposes that are not in our national interest, — much as they’ve seized control of the Conservative Party :D:D:D
 
sphexx said:
I’m not really bothered about that, more that a criminal organisation or ’State actor’ can control numbers of these IOTs and use them for purposes that are not in our national interest, — much as they’ve seized control of the Conservative Party :D:D:D
Click to expand...
Well I would be a good testbed for them. Amongst other things they can change the colour/intensity of our garden room lights, disable our burglar alarm and turn our greenhouse light on. They could even make me burn dinner if they mess with my timers on Google home.
 
Cockney said:
Just out of interest, what have you got against cloud streamed storage?
I went for it because of the intelligent alerts and storage being "off site".
Mine have run flawlessly for 2 years.
The only issue I could envisage is if the broadband is down.
Click to expand...
Security mainly, devices on the cloud and IoT in general have pretty lax security, things like passwords often stored in clear text.

I don't subscribe to social media sites either. I saw how much damage could be done when I worked at the school. People post things & assume that access to their comments will be restricted, unfortunately this is often not the case.
 
broc said:
Security mainly, devices on the cloud and IoT in general have pretty lax security, things like passwords often stored in clear text.

I don't subscribe to social media sites either. I saw how much damage could be done when I worked at the school. People post things & assume that access to their comments will be restricted, unfortunately this is often not the case.
Click to expand...
I feel that many people visualise the screen as something akin to paper — they say ”well it looked genuine” as the reason why they get tricked and so on.
 
FWIW Neos have just reduced their cloud subscription to £2:50 pcm (I think it was £3:50) and say they are looking at better deals next year. Their support is excellent, I’ve asked some questions, got some answers and made some suggestions myself. They are owned by Aviva I think:
https://neos.co.uk/about-us/
They are very active on the iOS App Store reviews. And their stuff is written in English not Engrish . So I‘m hopeful they will torn out OK.
 
broc said:
Security mainly, devices on the cloud and IoT in general have pretty lax security, things like passwords often stored in clear text.

I don't subscribe to social media sites either. I saw how much damage could be done when I worked at the school. People post things & assume that access to their comments will be restricted, unfortunately this is often not the case.
Click to expand...

I understand your concerns but that's not a concern with Google/Nest. I suppose you get what you pay for. Some cloud storage I wouldn't touch with a barge pole.
 
Cockney said:
I understand your concerns but that's not a concern with Google/Nest. I suppose you get what you pay for. Some cloud storage I wouldn't touch with a barge pole.
Click to expand...
Having worked in the IT industry for more than 40 years, including working with clients in banking, insurance, telecomms and other service providers it never ceased to amaze me about how cavalier many of these organisations were about customer data. I prefer to keep my data safe myself.

Reports like these below don't surprise me, with care and diligence they can be avoided but the Cloud will always be vulnerable to hackers:

https://futurism.com/the-byte/eight-ways-hack-nest-camera

https://www.securitysales.com/news/hacker-thermostat-vulgar-music/
 
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broc said:
Having worked in the IT industry for more than 40 years, including working with clients in banking, insurance, telecomms and other service providers it never ceased to amaze me about how cavalier many of these organisations were about customer data. I prefer to keep my data safe myself.

Reports like these below don't surprise me, with care and diligence they can be avoided but the Cloud will always be vulnerable to hackers:

https://futurism.com/the-byte/eight-ways-hack-nest-camera

https://www.securitysales.com/news/hacker-thermostat-vulgar-music/
Click to expand...

I too work in IT and used to work in the big Telcos in including supplying diverse fibre routes to data warehouses. The security in my cloud is sufficient for the information its defending, that's the key. Its certainly more secure than any server/firewall I'm prepared to install in the house.
If you "Appear" on my system to data is off site and accessible by me from anywhere. They just need to pinch your h/d.
But each to their own.
 
broc said:
Having worked in the IT industry for more than 40 years, including working with clients in banking, insurance, telecomms and other service providers it never ceased to amaze me about how cavalier many of these organisations were about customer data. I prefer to keep my data safe myself.

Reports like these below don't surprise me, with care and diligence they can be avoided but the Cloud will always be vulnerable to hackers:

https://futurism.com/the-byte/eight-ways-hack-nest-camera

https://www.securitysales.com/news/hacker-thermostat-vulgar-music/
Click to expand...
I don’t think either Google or Amazon understand security -- by which I mean physical, doors locks, windows etc. My only experience is with the Ring Doorbell #1. It’s attached outside the door with a few screws that are easy to remove because you have to do that to charge the battery. They say if it is stolen they will replace it — only once I believe, but most burglars do repeat visits if they are successful. If I were designing it (I’m not a security person) I would put the gubbins indoors and just have the bell push and tiny camera lens outside, problem solved.
 
Studio488commercial said:
Got to love a forum, the OP is asking about a cheap wifi cam for his misses and its turned into the UN Security Council and issues surrounding data protection :)
Click to expand...
True, true, BUT given the horror stories about IOT devices (children’s watches, car entertainment thingys etc) it’s worth thinking about these things.
 
I use Hikvision at home, four in total. Three are external and one is in the nursery (two way audio etc).

You hear horror stories about the Hikvision ones but I stream all four feeds to a Windows PC running BlueIris and block access to the internet to the actual cameras themselves, only the PC has internet access. Clips are saved to onedrive and overwritten once it fills to 900GB.

Currently uploading 96GB per day to Onedrive based on 4GB per hour of recording, not skipped a beat in 6 months and Sky don't seem to care.
 
Ended up getting the Blink, seems very good so far, apart from next door's cat pinging it at 04-43 this morning. ;):LOL:
 
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