Remote veiwable security cameras other than Ring or Arlo?

[WebSnyper]

Stupid question, but for the OP, does your primary alarm not have a built in battery backup and notify, presumably via a cellular connection, of power loss? Sounds like you resolved your concern already, but just curious.

 

[K_W]

Stupid question, but for the OP, does your primary alarm not have a built in battery backup and notify, presumably via a cellular connection, of power loss?

No.

 

[Steeler]

I've been using the Blink XT for over a year. Has worked really well for us. It took a little tinkering to get the settings where I wanted but not bad at all.
The first set of batteries lasted 11 months. I expect the 2nd set to last longer as I don't play with it by constantly commanding it to see what's going on while I'm at work. I just let it do its thing

 

[midget]

I've been using the Blink XT for over a year. Has worked really well for us. It took a little tinkering to get the settings where I wanted but not bad at all.
The first set of batteries lasted 11 months. I expect the 2nd set to last longer as I don't play with it by constantly commanding it to see what's going on while I'm at work. I just let it do its thing

Yep, this is what I use. Now that Amazon owns both Blink and Ring, I would suspect that Blink is going to get some of the Ring functions too.

 

[ghuns]

I was all in for this stuff, until I saw this...

Security Camera Catches Prowling Suspect Licking Doorbell For 3 Hours

Don't want to encourage such behavior.

 

[bwframe]

[video=youtube;9tnCKFg4-j4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tnCKFg4-j4[/video]

 

[Gingerbeardman]

I just dove into this tonight and, after reading Amazon reviews and a few "10 best" lists, I have a couple questions. First off, I want two cameras, outdoors, up high, which means I'd prefer solar backup and wifi instead of wired. I also think I want a DVR as I'm anti cloud in general. My budget isn't huge but I do like to buy quality so I only have to buy once. After reading this post I'm going to investigate Blink; do you have any other guidance? I've never shopped for home security systems before!

 

[Falconpuch]

I just dove into this tonight and, after reading Amazon reviews and a few "10 best" lists, I have a couple questions. First off, I want two cameras, outdoors, up high, which means I'd prefer solar backup and wifi instead of wired. I also think I want a DVR as I'm anti cloud in general. My budget isn't huge but I do like to buy quality so I only have to buy once. After reading this post I'm going to investigate Blink; do you have any other guidance? I've never shopped for home security systems before!

Blink cameras will throw TONS of false alarms compared to Arlo and ring. For as Anticloud? Might as well only look into wired cams that run straight into a dvr. Wired cams will be better video quality. Arlo cameras are great and the software is pretty good. I don't get any false alarms compared to what Blink did and Arlo will say Animal, car, person too. Blink's retrigger time is a whole 12 secs and that is a ton of time to not be recording. There is a new System called Argus 2 that looks really good for only $115 a camera but I haven't bought them yet to try.

This is about 15 feet away from the camera, I pulled this off the video. Arlo pro 2, Instead of looking through many many clips, Arlo will say Animal.

 

[T.Lex]

So, the cool thing with Blink is that it is pretty easy to move them around.

About the "up high" part - try to see what that looks like before you do the install. I thought about that at first, too, but up on the ladder, looking at my phone, holding the camera where I thought it should go... I realized that I couldn't see anyone's face if they were at the door. It is a terrible place if you want to be able to identify them.

Now, one of the next cameras is going to go up high to watch the driveway and street in front of my house, and that's fine. Just make sure your placement achieves what you want.

There are some DIYers who are connecting Blink cameras to solar panels. I don't really need that, but it looks really cool. It isn't an official solution (yet), but looks promising.

There is also a guy who posted some Powershell code to download the vids to a local Windows machine. The code is pretty straightforward, so it probably won't be long before there's a release (maybe not officially sanctioned) or integration with IFTTT.com to download the videos for longer-term storage.

There have been random times that Blink hasn't activated when I thought it should, but those times are at the edge of the performance envelope. It seems like it is working for the core reasons we got it.

 

[phatgemi]

Nest???

 

[Gingerbeardman]

I don't know a whole lot about cloud anything, would the video upload make me susceptible to anything 'bad,' for lack of a better term? My coworker told me her cameras don't work if the internet goes out, that would be cloud right? That's a good point about up high not getting a quality view, what's an average good distance to still get a usable photo?

 

[Cameramonkey]

I don't know a whole lot about cloud anything, would the video upload make me susceptible to anything 'bad,' for lack of a better term? My coworker told me her cameras don't work if the internet goes out, that would be cloud right? That's a good point about up high not getting a quality view, what's an average good distance to still get a usable photo?

True. And unless the cams have onboard memory to hold the recordings until the cloud comes back online, you are screwed.

 

[Gingerbeardman]

So I'm thinking wired cameras, hooked to a DVR, with battery backup, would be the best for me. I can mount two back to back, one watching the driveway and one watching the garage out back. There's a utility pole by the road that would be perfect to watch the driveway but since I don't own it I don't want to put a camera on it, and running a wire over there would be a pain.

 

[Notalentbum]

We are building a new house and I’ve been looking at security systems as well as video systems. One thing that one of the wired systems touted was they weren’t vulnerable to WiFi jammers. I had not given that any thought so I looked into it. For $20 you can buy a jammer powerful enough to knock out all WiFi in a radius of 100’. That is enough for me to make the decision to go wired with a dvr hidden somewhere in the house. I also want cellular based and hardwire monitoring. That way both wires connected to the system would have to be cut and cell service jamming would have to be employed to completely cut off the system. I haven’t found a single system that can do it all but two separate systems can.
Sams Club has a wired dvr system that will cover any jamming and my current choice for a monitored system is FrontPoint security.
Both subject to change if I find something better by the time the house is ready to move into.

Matt

 

[copo]

I use night owl and have had no issues with them at all. Mine is the 1080p with 6 cameras, wife and I can watch on our phones and we also leave it on record all the time. it has 1 TB of storage.

 

[Notalentbum]

I use night owl and have had no issues with them at all. Mine is the 1080p with 6 cameras, wife and I can watch on our phones and we also leave it on record all the time. it has 1 TB of storage.

Night Owl was my choice until I wondered about WiFi jamming.

 

[Cameramonkey]

I wouldnt worry about jamming. Most crooks arent that smart.



I think getting hit by a perp that smart/prepared is right up there with the odds of you being directly involved in a terrorist attack.

 

[BiscuitsandGravy]

We started with wired analog cams years ago and eventually swapped them all out for IP cams. Everything is PoE then networked to a dedicated PC running Blue Iris. The system is on a 500va UPS for outages. I get email snap shots when people pull in/leave/UPS etc/Dogs/Front door/back door/etc...

 

[T.Lex]

There's a utility factor at work in this decision. For me, 99% of the time, a wifi based system is going to be fine. For the 1% or less, that a motivated baddie is going to move against me in my home, we have other defenses. Layers are best.

Now, for commercial applications, or if I had a home-business that offered an attractive option to bad guys (like a home firearms business or something), then sure. That risk assessment changes.

But me, I'm just a regular guy in a regular neighborhood of dozens of softer targets.

 

[dnurk]

Tagging for future interest