Consumer outdoor security cameras?
Posted: March 27th, 2021, 6:45 pm
The management board of my block of flats (jointly owned freehold) is looking at installing, at the residents' collective cost, a pair of CCTV cameras to monitor the security gates into the communal garden. They have a quote for just over £3,100 (inc VAT and installation) for 2 commercial grade cameras plus hard drive recorder. I'm wondering whether a lot of money could be saved by installing an outdoor-rated (IP65 or above) consumer setup such as something from Wyze, Eufy, Blink(Amazon), Arlo or Nest(Google). All of those have benefits and are way cheaper than the commercial system but none ticks all the boxes as in ...
1 - Either wired (to power) camera so it can record 24/7 without killing the batteries or be confident that it will have low latency when it triggers on motion.
2 - Ideally recordings saved locally to a base station that can be located inside our block. Second best is something like Wyze Cam v3 that can save to an SD card in the camera but if the camera is stolen then so is the footage hence the preference for a base station.
3 - Ideally no internet connection required both because it avoids an ongoing monthly cost and also because we don't even have FTTC fibre in our area yet and we only get about 1Mbps upload speeds. It wouldn't be too much of a problem if an internet connection is required for setup but ideally not for ongoing use. It also wouldn't be too much of a problem if an ongoing connection with sufficient upload speed cost less than maybe £20 a month but I'm not seeing anything except a Plusnet ADSL service in that price range and that is quoting 1Mbps upload speed.
I'm thinking that a Wyze Cam v3 might be the closest. It is, relatively speaking, insanely cheap, quite well reviewed, meets (1) above, fails (2) and I'm currently unsure on (3) although if it can save to an SD card then presumably it's not trying to upload a 24/7 video stream to the cloud so any internet connection it might require could be a slow and cheap Plusnet connection.
Does anyone have any experience with any of these systems or can anyone point me towards any other contenders that I might have missed?
- Julian
1 - Either wired (to power) camera so it can record 24/7 without killing the batteries or be confident that it will have low latency when it triggers on motion.
2 - Ideally recordings saved locally to a base station that can be located inside our block. Second best is something like Wyze Cam v3 that can save to an SD card in the camera but if the camera is stolen then so is the footage hence the preference for a base station.
3 - Ideally no internet connection required both because it avoids an ongoing monthly cost and also because we don't even have FTTC fibre in our area yet and we only get about 1Mbps upload speeds. It wouldn't be too much of a problem if an internet connection is required for setup but ideally not for ongoing use. It also wouldn't be too much of a problem if an ongoing connection with sufficient upload speed cost less than maybe £20 a month but I'm not seeing anything except a Plusnet ADSL service in that price range and that is quoting 1Mbps upload speed.
I'm thinking that a Wyze Cam v3 might be the closest. It is, relatively speaking, insanely cheap, quite well reviewed, meets (1) above, fails (2) and I'm currently unsure on (3) although if it can save to an SD card then presumably it's not trying to upload a 24/7 video stream to the cloud so any internet connection it might require could be a slow and cheap Plusnet connection.
Does anyone have any experience with any of these systems or can anyone point me towards any other contenders that I might have missed?
- Julian