CCTV

Huge savings in my experience. I was quoted €1,900 for a 4 camera system and that was with 2x Hikvision ColorVu cameras and 2 lower quality ones. It was about €750 in parts excluding the shite they added on.

I paid €530 for a 2TB HDD, 4 channel NVR and 2 ColorVu cameras. 4 cameras would probably have been about €850, less than half the cost and better spec than what they quoted. Very simple setup, just need to drill a hole in the wall of the house to run the cable through, mount the camera on the wall and plug the cameras in. The IP/network cameras are plug and play, just need to change settings for recording times and tweak network settings to get the app working on your phone.

Do a bit of planning on where to place your cameras and what ones to get.

In terms of kits, I don't remember them being much different, if at all.

ColorVu light can be on whatever time you set it to, power draw is minimal so you could do 24hr or just set winter hours and leave it at that. Brightness can be set to automatic if that helps. There's a firmware update for the Australian cameras you can use that will turn on with motion I believe.

I don't believe the length under 100m should be an issue as that's the specified length for Cat5/6 so should work the same as 2m, 20m etc.

In terms of "Programming for Hik Connect" that's something you can do yourself. The kits are plug and play and the app is easy to setup. The most difficult part is having to setup your router to ensure the ports are open for viewing on the app on mobile data. In my case I had to get Virgin Media to change my router to IPv4 on their end. There's a lot of settings for quality, when to record, what alerts to have and it needs to be applied to days individually so can be time consuming. By far the most complicated part of setting up ColorVu is having to log into the camera itself, which as far as I know needs to be done through a web browser as the setting isn't on the NVR. You'll want to change the exposure time higher than the default 1/25 as someone passing at night is blurry/ghosting effect. Rear camera should be fine as is as you're not trying to see details of a car passing or someone running past.

I can't see why you couldn't make your own cables if you wanted.

As an example, this is my back garden without any light. A neighbor has a back light on but that doesn't illuminate my garden. For comparison I added a photo from my phone that's very similar to what the eye can see. The camera quality is fantastic. Much, much better than the equivalent Ring/Nest cameras which are similar cost. No monthly fees, if internet goes down it still records etc.

Apparently there's an 8MP/4K ColorVu turret coming out in a month or two, I plan on replacing my front with that and adding the other one to the side gate.

Can anyone give any guidance on this for my HiK vision cameras.

The camera in my back shows colour 24/7, automatically switching the light on when the ambient light in the area drops at night. For the side camera streetlight seems to prevent the light automatically coming on so I had to manually switch to have the light on permanently, however, this gives me a permanent black and white picture. Ideally I'd have colour on the side as in the back with the light automatically switching.

I've fiddled with NVR settings but haven't managed to solve it and don't see any option to set the light on a timer.

Hi all, building house at the minute and will install some cabling now to add cameras later. For the POE cameras that HikVison supply (ColorVu), do I need cat5e or cat6 cabling?

Also, do people bother with internal cameras or is that a bit of overkill?

Edit, can't figure out how to unbold text above 😕😕

Cheers. Thanks for posting.

Hikvision, dahua and ezviz should work easily but Ajax supports RTSP protocol so most DVR or NVRs should work

https://ajax.systems/how-to-connect-camera-to-ajax/

Using the 7604 NI K1 with HikConnect. Mobile shows as 4G but it's a poor connection due to where I sit in the office (about 5m away from the windows) so it's around 2Mb/s on a good day.

Video recording is also a bit stuttery in places so I'll need to fiddle with the settings again. Don't know if there's any sub stream recording available I'll need to double check. Did see something about it on a other forum but not sure if it's supported.

Hello,

looking to place a eufy ( https://www.harveynorman.ie/computing/networking-and-connectivity/security-safety/eufy-floodlight-cam-2-pro-security-wi-fi-camera-white.html ) cctv system to the front & rear of the house, would you recommend this? end house semi-d. there is power cables from spotlights already which i can take down & use to power the units. reliable/good etc.

Long term lease so cant install a proper wired unit.

many thanks.

Looking at similar setup. Must say the huge range of cameras and names make it very hard to know what to pick.

Thought Ali express would be good value but saving looks very minimal unless buying a lot.

latest hikvision NVR is M series and isnt widely available. Probably could manage with I series which is cheaper on Ali but probably better to future proof as new camera features can test NVR bandwidth.