IP Security Cameras

ThisRegard

I asked a question on this back in November in the bargain thread but upon revisiting it I think it's better to extract it to its own as I haven't seen any similar threads recently.

I've been contemplating getting the Nest Outdoor Camera for some time at this stage but I see a bunch of others recommended since, such as the Logitech Circle Cameras (not officially available here).

While the cameras themselves don't seem to be a whole lot different, the Circle does have a rechargeable battery, specs say up to 3 months, presumably under ideal conditions. Will it last a fortnights holiday for example?

The other difference is the subscription costs, Cirlce seems to be much cheaper on a monthly basis than the Nest.

BK, you have the Circle, how do you find it, do you have the wired or wire-free model, mounted indoors etc? Issues with the subscription from Ireland?

Anyone else, what are you using, and why?

Edit: I now see the Circle, Circle, Circle thread on my laptop, didn't spot it on my mobile.

bk

I've two Circles.

Circle 1, which is indoor only, but has a battery, but doesn't really last long on battery, just 30 minutes of live viewing, I use it as a baby cam.

Circle 2, the wired one. Can go outdoors if you have power outdoors. But no battery, there is a separate battery model of this one that maybe more what you are looking for.

I'm very happy with mine. Work very well, no complaints at all. Great picture quality and relatively fast notifications (30 seconds or less for movement detected, 5 minutes polling if offline).

One thing, you definitely need good wifi coverage and quality for them to work well, so keep that in mind.

I didn't realise that they don't have subs available in Ireland! I don't need a sub anyway, 24 hours free is fine for me and one of the selling points for me.

I'd wonder if you could sub via the UK anyway using Revolut, etc. if you wanted that.

ThisRegard

Cheers.

I had a look again and maybe they do have subs in Ireland, in the FAQs it doesn't specify Ireland as where it's available but I think it's covered under it being a country as using the Euro

Circle Safe™ is currently available in the United States, Canada, European countries using the Euro, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, New Zealand, Australia and Japan.

It doesn't appear in the Logitech Ireland online store which initially lead me to believe it's not supported in Ireland, but I see that Argos stocks it so it must be.

I should be covered ok for WiFi. WiFi in the house can be spotty at times, but ironically I can get a signal from 50 or so metres across the field in front of the house. Speed should be fine.

I'm going to pull the trigger on one, reviews seem to be pretty good across the web.

bk

I just checked and I seem to have subscription options available to me:

Circle Safe Premium yearly subscription € 99.99
Circle Safe Premium monthly subscription € 9.99
Circle Safe Basic monthly subscription € 3.99
Circle Free - 24 Hours of Footage FREE

BTW these are per camera, so if you have two cameras, double the above, etc.

Uriel.

Worth looking at arlo too. Almost pulled the plug on a three cam system that was on sale before Christmas, but noticed they have a newer version/system that would suit my needs better but naturally is significantly more expensive, so waiting for price reductions there before following up

ThisRegard

Yeah, the current Arlo prices are the reduced prices, they were knocked down at the end of last year.

digiman

I'm looking for a really good quality outdoor camera, I currently have a Nest Indoor camera which is facing out the front window which works pretty well 80% of the time but has issues when there is rain drops going down the window or when there is condensation. Now I want to upgrade to something new but their latest camera is not available in Ireland at the moment and can't find a timeline for when it will become available.

https://store.nest.com/product/nest-cam-iq-outdoor/NC4100US

Are there any good alternatives out there that are of the same quality with cloud storage, motion alerts, facial recognition etc? I don't mind paying the subscription fee if the quality is good. I find the Nest interface pretty good to be honest, has anyone used Nest and some other one to be able to compare?

Should I be looking at any other options such as having the recordings stored in house, I have 1TB Google Drive storage, is there anyway to back up recording to the cloud with any of the online storage sites like dropbox etc?

bk

While it is not their latest one, Nest have this outdoor one here:

https://nest.com/ie/cameras/nest-cam-outdoor/overview/

I've a Logitech Circle 2 camera that I think is very good. But I don't know how it compares to Nest. Others here also say good things about Arlo Cameras.

Stoner

I've the nest external and Arlo cameras

Arlo is a simple set up but I'm not mad about batteries on so many items.

The nest camera is very useful

bk

Stoner wrote: »

Arlo is a simple set up but I'm not mad about batteries on so many items.

That is a very good point. Too much of modern life is spent keeping batteries charged!!

Hopefully we will see better and better battery efficiency on devices like these. Spend less time having to charge things all the time.

ThisRegard

It's what put me off the Arlo, well that and the the price. I went to the bring centre after Christmas with a big bag of batteries, and when you have kids you feel like all you do is change batteries. When you see the amount you go through it hurts the eco part of your brain.

The flip side is the hassle of having to drill through walls or doors to connect power.

Uriel.

The Arlo Pro 2 can be wire free or wired - partially why I held off on the arlo pro 1, I'd like the option - 2 outside wired cameras and 1 inside wireless one (power is a problem in the area), but like you guys I don't want to be changing/charging batteries regularly for a load of devices.

The problem with the pro 2 is its incredibly expensive price tag. €650 at moment on amazon for a 2 camera pack and €885 for a 3 pack :eek::eek:

hopefully price will fall later in the year.

also with arlo they have a solar panel accessory but its about €115 and I think you'd need one for each outdoor camera and I am not sure how well they work.

flc37ie6ojwkh8

I have Arlo cameras installed myself and they are great.

bk

ThisRegard wrote: »

It's what put me off the Arlo, well that and the the price. I went to the bring centre after Christmas with a big bag of batteries, and when you have kids you feel like all you do is change batteries. When you see the amount you go through it hurts the eco part of your brain.

It is still a bit of a pain, but FYI Ikea has great rechargeable batteries and chargers. Great for toys, etc.

I've a bunch of them and I keep them topped up and rotate them through toys as needed.

Uriel.

This also seems like an interesting product (indoor only, although there are outdoor motion sensor cameras as an expansion) - perhaps this is more suited to IOT/Smart security generally

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/expandable-smart-home-security-from-honeywell#/

It doesn't seem to fully integrate with other honeywell/evohome products though - adding this device to the evohome security system would be a really great upgrade given the poor picture quality on the camera sensors. This new system doesn't appear to have glass break audio sensors, nor is there GPRS.

It's also not clear if it is battery operated only, or if it is possible to leave plugged in.

It's a kinda of weird mish-mash of services/functionality including ghome/dot flavourings. However, I think honeywell may have missed out on a system that ticks all (or most boxes)

bk

Yes, I say that new Honeywell system, seems like an attempt to merge IP security cameras with parts of a traditional security system.

I could see it maybe useful for someone wanting to add a bit of security to a small apartment or perhaps their room in a shared home. Though perhaps a bit expensive for that.

Uriel.

bk wrote: »

Yes, I say that new Honeywell system, seems like an attempt to merge IP security cameras with parts of a traditional security system.

I could see it maybe useful for someone wanting to add a bit of security to a small apartment or perhaps their room in a shared home. Though perhaps a bit expensive for that.

If it integrated with their existing security system it could move closer to an all in one package that delivers.
Still exciting times and lots of developments in this area

ctlsleh

Are any of the Arlo/Circle2/Nest integrates with Alexa/google/Philips Hue/IFTT....?
It would be great to set some rules like turn in the lights of motion is detected....?

bk

Logitech Circle doesn't, it is the one thing disappointing about it. It does have integration with Google Home where you can ask the video to be shown on a Chromecast, which is pretty cool, but that is all. I'm hoping more will come in time.

Nest has an IFTTT channel, so it at least has that.

ctlsleh

what i would really like to do is figure out how to buy IP cameras with proper night vision capabilities, hook them up to some kind of old computer that would run some open source detection software, send notifications, work with IFTT and aggregate the traffic to Google cloud.....that would be a great DIY project......has anyone tried that?

bk

I haven't tried anything like that. But I'd guess some Hikvision cameras would be a good place to start, they are more traditional CCTV type cameras that can work over ethernet and POE. They are supposed to have very good night vision. You can then set them to record their video to a NAS, which in turn you could backup to the cloud.

Detection software and sending notifications might be a bit trickier, perhaps Home Assistant has some options around that.

Personally I've just kept my IP cameras separate from the Home Automation stuff. Xiaomi/SmartThings/Hue motion sensors are pretty cheap. I have those in the same rooms as the cameras and simply use those to trigger lights, etc.

I think the IP cameras might be a bit slow to reliably trigger lights, etc. For instance it seems to take about 30 seconds for my Circle camera to notify me of motion detected when I'm out. That is ok for security purposes, but not good enough for day to day triggering of lights, etc.

Stoner

ctlsleh wrote:

what i would really like to do is figure out how to buy IP cameras with proper night vision capabilities, hook them up to some kind of old computer that would run some open source detection software, send notifications, work with IFTT and aggregate the traffic to Google cloud.....that would be a great DIY project......has anyone tried that?

I haven't done the IFTTT bit but I did everything else.

You can have the Alerts. Get a Nas with a tool for whatever online storage you want. So say a Google drive client

Pick one that is IFTTT compliant
Amazon
Dropbox
Google drive

Use the folder you are updating the footage with to trigger something on it iftt then stringify

I did the DVR kit
Then purpose built PC
Then Nas with ip camera function
Nas with ip camera function with cloud back up.

I'm back to DVR with a bag of different cloud cameras Arlo, canary, ring, nest .
It's a bag of tricks tbh and it's more about the tricks than the CCTV being honest


Imo the old PC thing is outdated , some Nas boxes are great for adding features with firmware upgrades, you might even have this already

bk

Stoner wrote: »

Imo the old PC thing is outdated , some Nas boxes are great for adding features with firmware upgrades, you might even have this already

NAS's are basically full PC's today. Intel CPU's (or ARM), motherboard, lots of RAM and obviously loads of HDD and full Linux OS (usually). They can do almost anything a PC can.

Sounds like you have played with almost everything!

ctlsleh

Stoner wrote: »

ctlsleh wrote:

what i would really like to do is figure out how to buy IP cameras with proper night vision capabilities, hook them up to some kind of old computer that would run some open source detection software, send notifications, work with IFTT and aggregate the traffic to Google cloud.....that would be a great DIY project......has anyone tried that?

I haven't done the IFTTT bit but I did everything else.

You can have the Alerts. Get a Nas with a tool for whatever online storage you want. So say a Google drive client

Pick one that is IFTTT compliant
Amazon
Dropbox
Google drive

Use the folder you are updating the footage with to trigger something on it iftt then stringify

I did the DVR kit
Then purpose built PC
Then Nas with ip camera function
Nas with ip camera function with cloud back up.

I'm back to DVR with a bag of different cloud cameras Arlo, canary, ring, nest .
It's a bag of tricks tbh and it's more about the tricks than the CCTV being honest


Imo the old PC thing is outdated , some Nas boxes are great for adding features with firmware upgrades, you might even have this already

That sounds super cool, would love to hear more about what you’ve done in more detail.......It’s pretty cool to have made that all work together......

Would also be interested in your assessment of Arlo/Nest/circle in terms of which works best

And of those off the shelf models vs your homegrown version......?

I’m in two minds which direction to take myself

Stoner

I've just the DVR now and nest, Canary , ring and Arlo.

I've Arlo installed in my mother's house now. Very easy set up. I bought screw in stands. Batteries last about 6 months.

It's good but I prefer wired Cameras, they have wired ones now


I find the ring doorbell camera to be hit and miss for a cctv unit great bell thought

The nest camera is the best I've had.

Canary is great too but it's a bit big and it has other issues, see the sticky.

lintdrummer

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but didn't want to start a new one on this topic!

We've just bought our first house and I'd like to put up an IP camera at the front door and potentially one at the back of the house too.

I'm only getting started on home automation so a bit clueless on everything really.

My criteria for the camera are:

1080 with night vision
Wired
Motion detection
Alexa compatible
Local hard disk recording. Not keen on paying a subscription to get more than 24hrs of footage.

The only option I've seen so far that ticks all the boxes is the Arlo Pro 2. Not too keen on the "wired" option, seems to be just a micro USB plugged in, not sure how that will hold up in Irish weather. Also the price is way up there so it's difficult to pull the trigger on it.

Anybody come across a system that meets my needs?

bk

lintdrummer wrote: »

The only option I've seen so far that ticks all the boxes is the Arlo Pro 2. Not too keen on the "wired" option, seems to be just a micro USB plugged in, not sure how that will hold up in Irish weather. Also the price is way up there so it's difficult to pull the trigger on it.

I think the "wired" option is only for internal use, it isn't weather proof. They has a weather proof external wired option, but it got pulled and recalled because of issues.

lintdrummer wrote: »

1080 with night vision
Wired
Motion detection
Alexa compatible
Local hard disk recording. Not keen on paying a subscription to get more than 24hrs of footage.

Perhaps the TP-Link Kasa KC200, it doesn't do hard disk recording, but it offers 2 days of cloud recordings (motion clips up to 1GB).

Another option is Yi Outdoor camera. Again it doesn't have local hard disk recording, my it can record into a built in SD card and also records 10 second motion activated clips in the cloud for 7 days.

Maybe Logitech Circle 2, weatherproof, 24 hours of recording online for free. Though if you require motion zones or person detection, you need to get a sub.

lintdrummer

bk wrote: »

I think the "wired" option is only for internal use, it isn't weather proof. They has a weather proof external wired option, but it got pulled and recalled because of issues.

That confirms my suspicions so!

bk wrote: »

Another option is Yi Outdoor camera. Again it doesn't have local hard disk recording, my it can record into a built in SD card and also records 10 second motion activated clips in the cloud for 7 days.

This sounds like a decent option, would like to be able to review footage after a week away for example, but don't need another subscription service in my life

Thanks bk, you're a fountain of knowledge!

Alanstrainor

I've been looking at the Yi outdoor cam for a while now, and might yet take the plunge:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/YI-Security-Surveillance-Waterproof-Detection-white/dp/B0794TN8J5/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1541781256&sr=8-4&keywords=yi+outdoor

They do take an SD card, so effectively you have as much footage as the card can hold. And they do some cloud storage also. Obviously the risk of having the card is that all it takes is for someone to smash it off the wall and take the lot. But honestly I think the chance of that is relatively low. The above amazon link often has deals that reduces the price by 20stg or so. I'd wait for black friday and see if any deals come up. I'll probably take the plunge around then if there's any movement on pricing.

I have another indoor Yi camera and it has been great for me. Reliable, with very frequent firmware updates which include small feature upgrades too. Hopefully the outdoor cam proves as reliable.