Home Security Camera Questions

[motomat86]

To start, not sure if this is the best place for the thread, so apologies in advance if the mods have to move this.

 

I have been unhappy for a while now regarding my current security camera setup.  To start off I just needed some baby monitoring camera to keep an eye on my kid while she slept and I was outside or in my office, and figured it would be great to have it on my phone, and pc as a live stream.  So I went down the path of an actual "security" camera instead of a true baby monitor.  As she got older, and I had more kids, I expanded that one camera into a total of 8 now.  Each kids room, and the property (to keep an eye on them in the backyard and see if anyone comes down the driveway).   Long story short, the no name off brand amazon cameras i bought (actual branding is v380 cameras) are pretty crap to say the least.  The two-way communications are very subpar, and laggy and the speakers are muffled to the point 90% of the conversation is "huh, say that again".   

 

I want to finally rid myself of this nonsense and get a true home security setup that fits my needs (two way communication, local storage, and live stream capabilities to a computer so I can keep the feed up on my office pc).  That last key is important as a lot of options I've seen (blink for example) do not offer full live stream capabilities.    My office is not on the main floor nor on the 2nd floor, so it is very convenient for me to be working at my desk and just glance up and get a quick view of my kids, the drive way, and backyard.  Pulling out my phone, hitting an app, waiting for it to load up every time I want to know "what was that"  isn't a fun idea for me.   

 

Thank you all for any input or suggestions.   

Some things that may help, I already have Nest Doorbell (hardwire) and a Nest Learning Thermostat, so going full googlified/nest ecosystem isn't something I am against.   For exterior cameras I am ok with hardwired and power through outlets or PoE

 

[Vulture78]

I am not an expert by any means, but I have been using Zoneminder with a mix of 4 cameras for a about a year.  Zoneminder is an opensource system (runs on linux).  It works with a lot of cameras, i just look for cameras that support the ONVIF protocol.

 

I would recommend that you set it up on a standalone system (physical or virtual). Depending on how much motion tracking you do, it can use up a fair bit of processing power.

 

I am not sure if if this is the kind of thing you are looking for, but i find it be a great product. I would recommend you have a look at it.

[Imbadatnames]

I’m using ring atm for a baby monitor and that’s going fairly well. Good 2 way, notifications, live feed etc

[motomat86]

On 11/21/2021 at 5:13 PM, Imbadatnames said:

I’m using ring atm for a baby monitor and that’s going fairly well. Good 2 way, notifications, live feed etc

pretty sure ring cameras dont have 24/7 live view? atleast the doorbell cameras dont.  I switched from Ring to Nest for that reason

 

On 11/21/2021 at 4:40 PM, Vulture78 said:

I am not an expert by any means, but I have been using Zoneminder with a mix of 4 cameras for a about a year.  Zoneminder is an opensource system (runs on linux).  It works with a lot of cameras, i just look for cameras that support the ONVIF protocol.

 

I would recommend that you set it up on a standalone system (physical or virtual). Depending on how much motion tracking you do, it can use up a fair bit of processing power.

 

I am not sure if if this is the kind of thing you are looking for, but i find it be a great product. I would recommend you have a look at it.

hey mate, thanks for the tip.   looks really promising so far, by chance have you had any issues finding/sourcing onvif cameras then?  I am not familiar with all the different protocols for cameras and not sure how popular this platform is.   In laymans terms just asking if these cameras are like toyota camry's, easy to get your hands on

[Vulture78]

A good portion of "IP" cameras are onvif... Some are stated in the product features, some i ended up going on the manufacturers website to verify. I found my cameras by searching for onvif on amazon so it should not difficult.

[GDRRiley]

10 hours ago, motomat86 said:

As she got older, and I had more kids, I expanded that one camera into a total of 8 now.  Each kids room

my feeling is 0 cameras in kids rooms. and I would have 0 faith that anything other than 100% local system isn't streaming it out to the whole internet.

[Imbadatnames]

12 hours ago, motomat86 said:

pretty sure ring cameras dont have 24/7 live view? atleast the doorbell cameras dont.  I switched from Ring to Nest for that reason

I can tune into it whenever I want 

[motomat86]

16 hours ago, Imbadatnames said:

I can tune into it whenever I want 

thats not what a live feed system means though, ring has a 10min timeout where it will kick out the live feed, its not continuous 

 

22 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

my feeling is 0 cameras in kids rooms. and I would have 0 faith that anything other than 100% local system isn't streaming it out to the whole internet.

for sure, and its always on my mind when adding or upgrading any smart device.  once my kids are old enough to get out of bed on their own the plan is to put motion sensors on the door that trigger through IFTTT to ring an alarm or turn on lights or something.   still got some time till that though thankfully hah