Home Surveillance

Who has home surveillance with outside cameras or a home surveillance company that need a pay by month subscription. What I would like to get is a wireless system???

 

I got ADT. Wouldn’t recommend them. Totally proprietary. Can’t add zones or sensors myself - requires $250 service call. Impassa controller is solid but horrendous to program. Next house will be DIY w/ alarms.com

 

Cameras only, I've got Wyze. Wireless network or wired, plug-in for power or solar. Can view video, have sound, and set for motion alerts all via phone app and they have different price levels, including monitored.
I've liked them, but I'm not a demanding customer...

 

Ring doorbell up front and spotlight over the driveway. Doorbell is wireless, spotlight is wired. Both connect through bluetooth/wifi easily. You can talk through either, see live view or watch any old videos. Spotlight also has an impressive alarm you can set off just to mess with peeps if you want. We'll worth the small fee to get all the functions, I'd recommend em.

 

I have a Ring doorbell, ring floodlight with camera for the driveway and two more cameras around the house. Easy setup and good video. I would recommend them.

 

If you have any tech know-how at all, do it yourself with a LOREX wired (PoE) system. Best $750 I've ever spent.

 

Been using rings spot cams and doorbell for years. Works great, easy to use and good quality.

 

I have this at the beginning of my driveway.

 

Have ring plan. I left a shed unlocked and door blew open. Police dispatched and arrived right away. Too bad my phone was on silent or I would have gotten the call and stopped it, lol. But I know it works!

 

Dog food is pretty expensive nowadays, so I guess that would be the equivalent to monthly subscription fees...

but 4 legs and 42 teeth multiplied by (a few) have served me well over the years

No thanks on paying some whackadoodle to 'monitor' my property, and for the life of me I can't figure out why folks would share surveillance through a neighborhood program... No offense intended if this is your thing, but it just doesn't make sense to me

 

I always steer away from these signs, same with stickers on your truck window. If Im a criminal see a SIG sticker on a truck that’s the window I’m smashing to check the glove box.

 

We use a Lorex system from Costco. it's been awesome. but you have to run the ethernet wires to each camera. but they have been perfect. 8 high rez cameras. no fees. phone app works well. main security system is hard wired when we built it - 1998. we pay a local monitoring company $20/month.

at the lake, we use Arlo. We LOVE arlo. you can buy as many cameras as you want. all wireless. phone app is awesome. you can pay a fee for monitoring or, like us, monitor yourself. on most of our cameras we use the solar panels to keep the batteries charged. all the cameras are wireless. this house came with Vivint security. it's nice, but $54/month.

we tried Ring. no thank you.

 

I can't stand subscriptions for what I already own or use. So I also use Wyze (besides cams, they also sell security lights, interior light switches - all of which are controlled by the one same phone app). Records to your SD card.

I also use CloudEdge (records to your SD card), no fees or subscriptions, have both static and app adjustable position cams. Both products are inexpensive (compared to the 'name' brands out there). I have multiple facing autos from different angles, gates are covered, backyard (useful when away for a few weeks to monitor plant water levels/to control sprinklers - Use B-hyve sprinkler controller for that).

Get them on Amazon via prime and if you don't like em send them back for free. Luck all.

 

I have ring devices and like them. I also have bark devices, love them. Bark devices are mobile however and sometimes travel with us. Ring devices stay home all the time

 

Same, we've got a few Wyze and self-monitor, I don't trust outside monitoring. The girls are the 'active response' monitoring system and the only signs I have are to not pet the dogs and that they're on electronic fences...that's the deterrent. Nothing about the video, firearms, or backhoe.

 

We use the blink systems. I like it a lot. I think I paid $180 for six cameras.

I like how you can read the ambient air temp from each camera.

We vacation for 4 months a year. I have 2 cameras inside to easily monitor the house utilities as well as a shop cam so I can find out if the mice are getting into the cars.

I pay $10/month for remote monitoring and clip storage.

I deactivate the subscription when home and just use the onboard USB storage option.

 

I do NOT recommend SimpliSafe. The security system is fine but their outdoor cameras are dog shit. I just added a Ring doorbell but I need to get a mounting wedge to point it down. It keeps missing delivery drivers.

 

We have Allied, it's the same way, totally proprietary.

Right now we have a glass break sensor that isn't functioning and I get an error code every time I set the alarm (which fortunately still functions), but I'm calling them to fix it because I don't like getting bent over.

I would just switch over to something like SimpliSafe, but the Allied system is built into the house.

 

I have had a Lorex system for almost a year now and I can agree with others it is good. All wireless cameras including my doorbell with audio in and out, an "alarm" mode to scare off peeps if you're not home, solar charging and the app is easy to use and no fees.

 

I build large camera systems for work and still use Wyze at home. It's hard to beat value to cost. $30 for a camera and SD card that gets you 24/7 recording with ZERO subscription fees if you don't want them. Is it on par with multi-million dollar systems? Not at all, but they work fine for a home. Unlike many that record to a cloud, using the edge storage, you have your recordings even if the internet were to drop. I realize there are a ton of opinions so just throwing in my 2 cents.

 

Good info. Subscribed.

 

I can't emphasize enough how important it is (in my opinion) to have wired cameras. Wireless cameras just do not have the resolution to make an effective ID. Even wired cameras sometimes fall short. But as a property crimes detective, I see a lot of submitted footage and most of the stuff from wireless cameras is borderline useless.

Now, that said, I do have a wireless Ring doorbell camera. I have it in addition to my wired Lorex system and it is useful for seeing who is at the door or if a package has arrived. But it mostly works OK because it's capturing at close range. To capture footage around the exterior of your house/yard, there is just no substitute for wired cameras.

Here's a clip of an attempted vehicle burglary caught on my wired Lorex 4K Nocturnal HD system a couple months ago. Unfortunately, the suspects were covered up pretty well but we were still able to discern some details about their vehicle and clothing, thanks to the quality of the footage. You will not get this from wireless cameras.

 

agreed.

wired cameras rule.

luckily we were able to run all the wires in the attic.

 

GE Cync system with wireless outdoor cameras here but self installed. The paid subscription is only for cloud storage; you can opt out by installing SD cards in each camera which you can access footage with their app.

The system only operates on 2.4Ghz Wifi so installing requires shutting off your 5Ghz temporarily. You can use Alexa or Google Home to control the system or control it through the CYNC app. Through the app you can set up you alert zone and sensitivity. Cameras have IR illumination too. Effective detection range is about 20ft.

It's can be buggy and has issues. Only reason I'm running them is because I have other products, lighting and outlets, from their system.

Not recommended; you'll need to have patience and some technical knowledge to get them running correctly. Pulling up the feed can be very slow at times. The phone alerts can get annoying especially if you run a high sensitivity and/or larger zone.

 

I have a 9 camera system with a PTZ Ai tracking eyeball camera hosted on a windows machine running Blue Iris. All the cameras are Dahua or rebranded Dahua, its an extremely powerful system.

With that being said, i'd go with Ring and pay the $100/yr for the Protect service and call it a day, lol.

Let me know if you want to go down the rabbit hole.

 

Blue Iris is definitely the way to go for the DIY tech crowd.

 

Calling in a favor to help/do run some coax for to hardwire 4 HD nice cameras to a DVR and house is wired for monitoring so after the first will pick someone to monitor for when we are gone. Lately been having kids/crack heads/who knows roaming the neighbor hood in the weee hours. I had trail cam pictures of a guy walking to our front door and checking to see if it was open. Too bad I didn’t get the WiFi one to signal.

Thank you all. Merry Christmas to everyone and hope everyone has a Happy New Year!!!!!