Sorry for the newbie questions, but I searched the topics and missed this if its already here. I am looking at continuing the home integration project, started with the ST Hub and Ecobee 4, and cameras are the next option. I really like the options from Amcrest, but are there better options/ better choices? For reference/comparisons i was looking at the Amcrest NV4432E-HS 32 Chanel to run with the Amcrest UltraHD 4K (8MP) Dome POE IP Camera (IP8M-2493EB). I know i am definitely going with a pretty expensive route but i will be running this on home and business and want to make sure i could like multiple locations through the app if possible. Also, i do a decent amount of online gaming and wasnt sure what kind of issues i might see from POE cameras if i am trying to play. thanks for all the help and guidance
Hikvision, LaView and Annke (rebranded hikvision) are all better than Amcrest (rebrand US Foscam)
Really depends what you mean by better.
I have found both my hikvision and amcrest cameras to be more than adequate for my needs.
Amcrest cams are generally cheaper than hikvision, unless you buy brown-box hikvision cams on amazon with Chinese firmware that’s been flashed to English. But then you don’t get real tech support if you have an issue, and you can’t upgrade the firmware without reverting to Chinese.
Definitely not talking about the Chinese firmware, but my love you hit fishing and Auntie have been Rock Solid and work directly with the generic IP camera smart app Blue Iris and everything where as my amcrest continually has problems with a connection so your results May Vary.
That amcrest camera is less than $200 on amazon right now.
I just did a quick search for hikvision’s outdoor 4K dome camera. Seems to be going for about 800 bucks online right now.
Do I need the NVR or go PC and blue iris? Will the NVR integrate with Smartthings? Also is POE going to kill my internet speed?
If integration with SmartThings is important to you, then consider blue iris, as there are a few integrations that community members have created.
How many cameras are you planning to install? I only have two IP cams and a Blink cam, and I don’t do any online gaming so I can’t speak from experience. But if you were planning to put up enough 4K cameras that you’re considering a 32-channel NVR, then yes I could see that much streaming video potentially cluttering up your LAN so that it could impact your gaming.
I probably won’t do more than 6-10, depends on if I install indoors as well. As far as smartthings, I would prefer the integration but if that’s not my best option then i am open. I guess I should have phrased the topic differently. I am really wanting the highest quality option for security cameras with the least amount of gsming/bandwidth issues. Sorry for the ignorance
PoE = Power over Ethernet. All that standard means is that 48VDC is sent over pins 4, 5, 7 and 8. Bandwidth has nothing to do with this.
It depends what you mean by integration.
Do you want video feeds in the same mobile app that you’re using for home automation? ST isn’t very good at that, no matter what cameras you use. However there is a third-party dashboard webapp called ActionTiles that will allow you to combine video feeds (mjpeg only) and monitoring/control of your ST devices.
Do you want your home automation rules to incorporate the motion detection capabilities of your cameras? Or change camera settings based on your automation rules? You can do that with blue iris.
As for the combo of IP cameras and gaming, I’m afraid I don’t know the details of that, as I mentioned. There are ways to try to segregate the two types of traffic (VLANs) and prioritize the packets coming in and out for your gaming apps (QoS rules).
Maybe @JDRoberts can explain that more. He’s a network engineer.
To some degree depending on what is being done, the cable quality if wired and neighborhood traffic on wifi all come into play.
You also can do it with webCoRE
I have 10 cams running to a Blue Iris computer, and I did start to notice network slowdowns, so I got another router and put all the cameras on that one, which is then connected to the normal home router that runs the rest of the normal network and connects to the interent. The vast majority of the traffic the cams will generate is just to/from the blue Iris computer, so you can simply isolate that on it’s own router. Then if you connect that to the internet to have remote monitoring (lots of posts on how to do this securely), it still won’t have any effect on your gaming needs because it’d only be using that bandwidth when your connecting to it remotely (and likely not gaming at the same time), plus it’d only the blue iris web stream then, not all the streams all at once. Good luck!
I have mostly Amcrest cameras, and they’ve all been great for me…
Awesome, thanks for the info. What type of computer are you running Blue Iris and data storage? I would prefer to just do a new desktop if possible, double as office computer and then I could connect a large backup storage device. Seems to be a better route considering I need to update the home office anyways
Dell XPS, it seemed the cheapest way to get an i7 processor and a lot of hard drive space. I also used it to upgrade my “office desktop” so I saved overall. I added a 4tb hdd internal to giv em more recording room, although it’s way overkill.
I have the Amcrest ip2m 841 Camera’s .
Do i have to have blue iris running in order to implement smartthings with these cameras? I don’t use anything like that. Is there a handler to do this rather than having to run blue iris software? Thanks.