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Home Security Systems Cameras etc

If possible, keep wiring runs 10-12" away from electrical wiring to avoid interference.
 
Power Over Ethernet is a good standard. IIRC Cat 5 ethernet wires are good for runs no more than 300 ft. And yes, definitely keep those wires hidden.
I recently bought a system capable of having 8 x cameras for home - starter pack with 4 x 4Mp POE Dome cameras, pre-made Cat5 cables, 2TB NVR recorder, 21" monitor and controller mouse plus software free download for the supplier. I bought an additional 8Mp POE Bullet camera with adjustable zoom for the front of my house. Yet to install it, and am nearly done testing. Also using the App that transmits to my cellphone for when I'm not home. Awesome picture quality with modern technology these days. Password protected WiFi and App go a long way to giving some peace of mind.
I use the App and Home alarm kits from the same company - software and circuit boards are all designed and built here in New Zealand, and carry a 5 year warranty. Haven't had any major problems in the 5 years I have been installing the gear.

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I know some people don't like WiFi, but it's better than no security at all.
 
Can the domes be programmed to pan back and forth or is it controlled manually on your device? I like the versatility of a dome camera, especially a programmable one.
 
Can the domes be programmed to pan back and forth or is it controlled manually on your device? I like the versatility of a dome camera, especially a programmable one.
These ones are fixed and pre-set at the time of setup - positioning is the key...and lots of cameras. Ideally a PTZ would be the ducks-nuts....but a little bit too spendy for a home install. Masking zones is a cool feature on the software - activation only zones that is. :)
Recording can be set either 24/7, or activation in the zone only.
 
I just put up blink wireless around my place. Very happy with them so far. I wanted to cover several access doors to the house and garage but wouldn’t have any good way to hard wire.
 
Can the domes be programmed to pan back and forth or is it controlled manually on your device? I like the versatility of a dome camera, especially a programmable one.

PTZ cameras are pricey as kiwi said but have their uses. We find that the ones we have would be better suited with fixed cameras as they will miss stuff if their constantly moving. You can buy 2-3 quality fixed cameras for the price of one PTZ and have the whole area covered all the time.
 
For Christmas my son bought me a Blink wireless camera system. He also has one. his works great since he lives in a two story colonial on half an acre. I have 11 acres with my house, shop and yard spread over almost two acres. I had to buy a booster so my cameras in the shop which is 150' behind my house would work. One of the three down there still only works 1/3 of the time. Camera's seem to have a mind of their own, work when they want to. Last night during supper we had 5 large turkeys in the front yard eating bird seed for 15 minutes, neither camera picked the up. 5:15 this morning one of the camera's picks up a squirrel in the front yard. system goes off line at least once a day anytime there is a blip in the internet. Not impressed with this system.
 
There seems to be a gap in the market between the $250 harbor frieght/Lowes systems and the $6000 professional ones.

My first HF system lasted about 5 years before it stopped writing to the HDD (HDD was fine) but it put a thief behind bars for 3 years!

I'm on my second one now for 3 years and still have 3 of the cameras from the first one.

Try to place your cameras so they can "see" other cameras.
This will reduce or at least record vandalism to the cameras (cutting wires).

Cat 5 UTP should not be susceptible to interference from power.
I even tie wrap the power and cat5 cables together.

One of the later technologies is H.265 compression.
Improves quite a bit over H.264.

Most if not all overwrite the video written to disk FIFO, meaning you end up with somewhere between 5 and 20 days worth of recorded video depending on how many cameras, the compression and how big a HDD.

Most systems will either trigger the video to start on motion, o set an alert on motion.
That makes finding "events" easier.

However, staring at a basically still image even at 16x FF speed waiting for movement still SUCKS.
 
i bought my security camera system from best buy, 8 camera's with nite vision, wired system , swann security is the brand, installed myself, wired into my router so i can see whats going on thru my phone. last december when we were in the bahama's sitting beside the pool, tapped the app on the phone and checked on the house cycling thru all 8 camera's....its money well spent, this is the 500.00 system, and i put up signs warning people its here...its a big deterent and my insurance company gave me a 10% discount because of it..
 
For Christmas my son bought me a Blink wireless camera system. He also has one. his works great since he lives in a two story colonial on half an acre. I have 11 acres with my house, shop and yard spread over almost two acres. I had to buy a booster so my cameras in the shop which is 150' behind my house would work. One of the three down there still only works 1/3 of the time. Camera's seem to have a mind of their own, work when they want to. Last night during supper we had 5 large turkeys in the front yard eating bird seed for 15 minutes, neither camera picked the up. 5:15 this morning one of the camera's picks up a squirrel in the front yard. system goes off line at least once a day anytime there is a blip in the internet. Not impressed with this system.

I put in mesh internet (erro’s) before I installed mine. My barn is probably 150ft away as well. I ended up putting the main communicator for the blink in my bedroom which seemed to be the best place to keep the cameras from dropping out at the barn. I’ve been tweaking the sensitivity. I have 5 of them up currently. The one in the side yard was picking up rabbits at first. I seem to have a handle on it now. I’ll Probably add a few more.

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i bought my security camera system from best buy, 8 camera's with nite vision, wired system , swann security is the brand, installed myself, wired into my router so i can see whats going on thru my phone. last december when we were in the bahama's sitting beside the pool, tapped the app on the phone and checked on the house cycling thru all 8 camera's....its money well spent, this is the 500.00 system, and i put up signs warning people its here...its a big deterent and my insurance company gave me a 10% discount because of it..

I have install 3 swanns. 8 camera systems and I liked them. 2 were for Lieutenants at the prison where I did their system. One of them has mentioned moisture in a couple of cameras and killing them. But he easily changed them out. Overall a pretty good system.
 
I use the ring spotlight cams in front and back. I have been using them for over a year now and find them pretty reliable. Hard wire will definitely be more reliable ! The rings are super easy to set up although I can’t compare video quality cause that is all I ever used.
 
These ones are fixed and pre-set at the time of setup - positioning is the key...and lots of cameras. Ideally a PTZ would be the ducks-nuts....but a little bit too spendy for a home install. Masking zones is a cool feature on the software - activation only zones that is. :)
Recording can be set either 24/7, or activation in the zone only.

PTZ cameras are definitely the bee’s knees. I like the sound of your Setup more and more. I think you’ll be real happy. As I’ve not replaced my old lightening struck system, I might need to look into one like yours or T2R9 as his picture quality looked impressive.
 
Here is a shot of the rear camera last night. The light you see on the garage and house on the right are other cameras. You cannot see the lights with the naked eye. I do not have that particular system but I have recommended it to neighbors and it will produce the same results.

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That is an excellent night picture. That's how you tell if a camera is any good. Daytime all cameras have good pictures. At night the cheap cameras will have a hazy, or ghost like picture, blurry. A good camera will have a good clear picture at night.
 
PTZ cameras are definitely the bee’s knees. I like the sound of your Setup more and more. I think you’ll be real happy. As I’ve not replaced my old lightening struck system, I might need to look into one like yours or T2R9 as his picture quality looked impressive.

Mine is not a prepackaged system. You can get the same results with one like I posted and that is the way to go for most people. My system runs Blue Iris software on a PC with an external 6TB drive for storage. I bought used POE Cisco switches on ebay for about $25 each, and the cameras are 4mp domes from Amazon like this.
https://www.amazon.com/Dahua-IPC-HD...dp/B07C5QVZTQ/ref=psdc_14241151_t1_B07LF88Z8Z

The left half of the switch is the camera VLAN and the right is garage data.

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The rings have settings for video sensitivity. You can adjust for people only movement. My front is set for all so I get a lot of notifications but that’s what I want. There is a ring community so the good is you see what’s going on in your area. I had our police ask for video from me for 4 hrs in early morning. When I looked at it they were out all morning up and down the block looking for someone. I sent it to them, there has been a lot of crime in our area since the rona virus.
 
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