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Consumer outdoor security cameras?

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Julian
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Consumer outdoor security cameras?

#399603

Postby Julian » March 27th, 2021, 6:45 pm

The management board of my block of flats (jointly owned freehold) is looking at installing, at the residents' collective cost, a pair of CCTV cameras to monitor the security gates into the communal garden. They have a quote for just over £3,100 (inc VAT and installation) for 2 commercial grade cameras plus hard drive recorder. I'm wondering whether a lot of money could be saved by installing an outdoor-rated (IP65 or above) consumer setup such as something from Wyze, Eufy, Blink(Amazon), Arlo or Nest(Google). All of those have benefits and are way cheaper than the commercial system but none ticks all the boxes as in ...

1 - Either wired (to power) camera so it can record 24/7 without killing the batteries or be confident that it will have low latency when it triggers on motion.

2 - Ideally recordings saved locally to a base station that can be located inside our block. Second best is something like Wyze Cam v3 that can save to an SD card in the camera but if the camera is stolen then so is the footage hence the preference for a base station.

3 - Ideally no internet connection required both because it avoids an ongoing monthly cost and also because we don't even have FTTC fibre in our area yet and we only get about 1Mbps upload speeds. It wouldn't be too much of a problem if an internet connection is required for setup but ideally not for ongoing use. It also wouldn't be too much of a problem if an ongoing connection with sufficient upload speed cost less than maybe £20 a month but I'm not seeing anything except a Plusnet ADSL service in that price range and that is quoting 1Mbps upload speed.

I'm thinking that a Wyze Cam v3 might be the closest. It is, relatively speaking, insanely cheap, quite well reviewed, meets (1) above, fails (2) and I'm currently unsure on (3) although if it can save to an SD card then presumably it's not trying to upload a 24/7 video stream to the cloud so any internet connection it might require could be a slow and cheap Plusnet connection.

Does anyone have any experience with any of these systems or can anyone point me towards any other contenders that I might have missed?

- Julian

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Re: Consumer outdoor security cameras?

#399609

Postby supremetwo » March 27th, 2021, 7:12 pm

The problem with cheapo IR cameras lies in their sensitivity settings, which cause false alarms.

Commercial ones are likely to have monitoring that will degrade a false alarm via an artificial intelligence-based system.

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Re: Consumer outdoor security cameras?

#399674

Postby Sobraon » March 27th, 2021, 11:51 pm

SWMBO gave me three Blink outdoor cameras + a sync module for Christmas 2019. I was a little cynical and thought they would produce a poor picture with lots of false triggering and they would ‘eat’ batteries so I didn’t fit them until August 2020.

After fitting I was immediately impressed by the day time resolution and the two-way audio. I have set them to be armed from 9pm to 7am and after a little adjustment I am pleased with the effectively zero false triggering. I am very pleased with the night time resolution and the battery usage. Note because of my date of purchase I don’t have to pay the monthly cloud storage fee.

I purchased a further Blink camera today to cover an area of the property that was previously uncovered. Mine are all easily accessible with a short ladder but if I had to mount higher up I would use a Blink camera solar panel charger (see Amazon). My Sync module stores to the cloud but I understand the Blink Add-On Sync Module 2 (local SD storage + cloud) will give fee free local storage.

Downsides? The Blink app runs under Android or Apple, for my PC I run the App using the Android emulator BlueStacks. I have not tried to integrate with Alexa (I don’t use this). Also given the UK weather I purchased some silicone rubber covers to give the cameras more protection.

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Re: Consumer outdoor security cameras?

#399726

Postby AF62 » March 28th, 2021, 11:40 am

It seems you want a camera to record and watch after the event and not to be able to see 'live' what is going on, presumably to hand to the police if something happens.

Seems an awful lot of money being gambled that the police don't go - "thanks, but not a lot we can do with that / not clear enough / don't have the time or resources / not evidential / etc.".

I could see the point if it was a live streaming system which alerted the residents to something going on that shouldn't be, but 'dead' recordings?

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Re: Consumer outdoor security cameras?

#399733

Postby richfool » March 28th, 2021, 12:02 pm

As someone who also lives in a block of flats, where we have an open entrance to communal car ports, and where we sometimes have people come into that area at night (and who have on occasions been caught charging their mobile phones through our car port electric sockets), it would seem entirely logical to me to be able to check video or CCTV footage the next day to see what if anything occurred. Most people here would not be wanting to watch a live feed through the night.

We too have been thinking of having a system of some sort of video monitoring system installed, but don't know what system, or how or where to monitor it.

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Re: Consumer outdoor security cameras?

#399756

Postby AF62 » March 28th, 2021, 1:06 pm

richfool wrote:As someone who also lives in a block of flats, where we have an open entrance to communal car ports, and where we sometimes have people come into that area at night (and who have on occasions been caught charging their mobile phones through our car port electric sockets), it would seem entirely logical to me to be able to check video or CCTV footage the next day to see what if anything occurred. Most people here would not be wanting to watch a live feed through the night.

We too have been thinking of having a system of some sort of video monitoring system installed, but don't know what system, or how or where to monitor it.


But how does it assist you if you do have video that someone was charging their phone yesterday / last week / last month? If you expect the police to do anything I would imagine you will be disappointed.

Wouldn’t it be cheaper and more effective to put the sockets on a timer so they are not powered overnight when they are abused.

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Re: Consumer outdoor security cameras?

#399764

Postby richfool » March 28th, 2021, 1:32 pm

AF62 wrote:
richfool wrote:As someone who also lives in a block of flats, where we have an open entrance to communal car ports, and where we sometimes have people come into that area at night (and who have on occasions been caught charging their mobile phones through our car port electric sockets), it would seem entirely logical to me to be able to check video or CCTV footage the next day to see what if anything occurred. Most people here would not be wanting to watch a live feed through the night.

We too have been thinking of having a system of some sort of video monitoring system installed, but don't know what system, or how or where to monitor it.


But how does it assist you if you do have video that someone was charging their phone yesterday / last week / last month? If you expect the police to do anything I would imagine you will be disappointed.

Wouldn’t it be cheaper and more effective to put the sockets on a timer so they are not powered overnight when they are abused.

(For us) It's more a case of knowing whether people are entering the grounds at night, or whether it was previously just a couple of one-off incidents. Then we know whether we have an ongoing problem or not. Whilst none of the residents has seen anyone within the last 12 months or so, last year we noted a half drunk bottle perched on a wall at the back of one of the the car ports, which made us wonder whether it was an ongoing issue. Thus it would have been useful to have been able to review any overnight activity.

We did turn off the mains supply to the sockets for a couple of months last year, though have since turned them back on again.

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Re: Consumer outdoor security cameras?

#400033

Postby Julian » March 29th, 2021, 12:09 pm

Thanks everyone for the replies.

supremetwo wrote:The problem with cheapo IR cameras lies in their sensitivity settings, which cause false alarms.

Commercial ones are likely to have monitoring that will degrade a false alarm via an artificial intelligence-based system.


Actually from the reviews I've been reading on the internet I think you might be surprised. Even the <£100 cameras e.g. the EZVIZ C3N that I'm looking at (amongst others) have AI person recognition and I don't think I've come across a single review yet that doesn't say that it works well and cuts out pretty much all false alarms. Also in our situation false alarms wouldn't be too much of an issue because...

AF62 wrote:It seems you want a camera to record and watch after the event and not to be able to see 'live' what is going on, presumably to hand to the police if something happens.

Seems an awful lot of money being gambled that the police don't go - "thanks, but not a lot we can do with that / not clear enough / don't have the time or resources / not evidential / etc.".

I could see the point if it was a live streaming system which alerted the residents to something going on that shouldn't be, but 'dead' recordings?


Dead right and I agree with you. In a way that's the point. I'm not particularly in favour of this for just the reasons you mentioned and quite a few other residents don't like the idea at all because they don't want to feel like they are in a gated "fortress" environment. Plus the fact that intrusions into our garden are so rare that although annoying and expensive when they happen (we've had vandals throw our garden furniture into the river on a couple of occasions) I don't think this is worth it for a once-every-5-to-10-years serious issue. Politics in a block of flats can be complicated however which is why, if somehow the management board does manage to get a majority and push this through, I would rather that £500-ish was wasted (in my opinion) rather than £3,000.

richfool wrote:As someone who also lives in a block of flats...
...
We too have been thinking of having a system of some sort of video monitoring system installed, but don't know what system, or how or where to monitor it.


Yes, monitoring it is a big issue. The plan in our block is that we will simply have a recorder in the locked cupboard under stairs that already houses the electricity meters and the electronics for the door entry system so that stored video can be played back for evidential purposes as required. I think for privacy reasons our block probably wouldn't want to give residents the ability to watch a live stream of the comings and goings in and out of the garden.

I'll update as I do more research. I promised to send my cheaper option(s) to the board by 2 weeks today. Having done a bit more research in the last couple of days (actually a lot more!) I am amazed by the sheer range of options at very affordable prices that offer good quality and very sophisticated features such as the ability to detect and discriminate between humans and vehicles, ability to set monitoring and/or privacy areas and to set do-not-cross lines (recording triggers if the line is crossed), sirens, two way intercoms, the ability to record your own "this is private property, I have release the Velociraptors" voice announcements that trigger on motion, etc, etc.

My main conclusion thus far is that paying £3,100 for a 2 camera commercial system is way over priced for us and we could get the same or better for under £1,000 including VAT and installation.

- Julian

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Re: Consumer outdoor security cameras?

#400124

Postby AF62 » March 29th, 2021, 4:38 pm

Julian wrote:Politics in a block of flats can be complicated however which is why, if somehow the management board does manage to get a majority and push this through, I would rather that £500-ish was wasted (in my opinion) rather than £3,000.


I know exactly what you mean; I am one of the directors of the management company of a self managed block of flats my parents live in. The amount of discussion about where to place a picnic table in the grounds...

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Re: Consumer outdoor security cameras?

#400146

Postby Julian » March 29th, 2021, 6:13 pm

AF62 wrote:
Julian wrote:Politics in a block of flats can be complicated however which is why, if somehow the management board does manage to get a majority and push this through, I would rather that £500-ish was wasted (in my opinion) rather than £3,000.


I know exactly what you mean; I am one of the directors of the management company of a self managed block of flats my parents live in. The amount of discussion about where to place a picnic table in the grounds...

Hah. Ain't that the truth! "You have no authority here Jackie Weaver". I've been on the management board for our block of flats in the past for quite a number of years and, although it's never quite degenerated to the level of that Handforth Parish Council Zoom meeting that went viral, the level of passion that can arise from a debate about the most inconsequential matters is often surprising. I wouldn't be at all surprised if these CCTV discussions end up being a case in point.

- Julian


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