buellwinkle

These cube style cameras can be mounted on a wall, ceiling, placed on a desk, no problem aiming them as you wish. You can chose to record audio or not. The video and audio are put together in one video file using the h.264 codec. It's not about distance, it's about bandwidth. Figure each camera will be putting out about 6Mbps for each connection, so in theory 10 is 60Mbps, so in theory you would be OK with say an "802.11N" router, but it's misleading, you'll never reach the maximum rated speed for a WiFi router. Also you may have other things going that use WiFi and you may have multiple connections to the camera, for example if multiple people are viewing or recording. Then if you use a home type WiFi router, it's even worse. Commercial grade WiFi APs can run about 3-4x the speed of home WiFi, so maybe one Ubiquiti Unifi Pro may do it, maybe not. What I would recommend is you setup a separate WiFi network for the cameras from your office network as you don't want to slow down what you currently do. As for recording, you said you were looking for cameras to do recording, these cameras record within the camera. If you have a PC, you may want to consider getting NVR software to do the recording and provide an easy way to see all cameras on one display and have remote access if needed. For a reasonably low cost solution for an office, I would recommend Milestone XProtect Essential, about $49 per camera for the license. It's very efficient so you can use a slower PC, like one with an i3 or i5 Intel processor. You can view the cameras on any PC using their client, you can also view using a browser or smartphone apps.

If it's one of the Hikvision or Dahua NVR's with the PoE ports, then the NVR does have an internal router for the cameras that's not easily accessible from outside the NVR anyway.

Check with the Digital Video Recorders section of the forum as this is the IP camera forum and many of us like me have never even seen a DVR other than a display at Costco or Walmart. You can try the Hikvision Euro portal here - http://www.hikvisioneurope.com/portal/

I had the same problem and it was a setting under Day/Night called Smart IR. I think the night vision is awesome. I have the 5.1 Firmware on it, so your options may be different. It's actually on loan from them to do the review. I have it in my pitch black backyard and it's doing pretty good.

That is very odd that port 8000 does not work. Nah, just kidding, use port 554, works fine, been using it for a while without a problem. If you want to use it outside your home network, then I'm sure you know you have to do port forwarding on your router.

Did you set IP address in compatibility view mode? In IE 11, go to the gear icon above, select Compatibility View settings and add the camera IP to the list.

With the Brickcom you'll need to buy the cameras and MicroSD cards to record on the camera. Brickcom is the only company I would trust with this high a resolution and WiFi as they have very good radios. Not much competition in this space. And I agree, 10 3MP cameras will totally wipe out a consumer grade WiFi network. You may want to look into a commercial WiFi solution to handle the workload. Take a look at the Ubiquiti Unifi AP Pro, looks like a smoke detector, works pretty well. They sell them in convenient 3-packs for $650. You installed them at different locations near the cameras and use a special Ubiquiti PoE Tough Switch (TS-5) to power them and connect them to your network. This will give you WiFi range and the bandwidth you need for the 10 cameras and still let you use WiFi for other stuff like laptops, tablets and such. Figure the cameras with microSD cards will set you back about $4,000 and the WiFi access points another $750 not including wiring costs.

Indoors, outdoors, price range, resolution, day only, day/night, built in illuminators? I'll throw out two simple indoor solutions that are WiFi and have built in Mic and Speakers; AVTech AVN813 - I reviewed the AVN812 but the AVN813 adds an SD card slot for recording. Is day only but has a white LED illuminator. Brickcom WMB-300Ap - is day/night, 3MP, has an IR LED illuminator. Check your local laws on audio recording. In the U.S., about 16 states don't allow audio recording unless all parties in a conversation agree.

Well that describes a totally different problem, you get a picture but you get this green cast over portions of the image. To me, that looks like a bad sensor or a lose connector to the sensor but since you determined there's no cables, then it's likely just throw away. Hopefully they weren't expensive. As for cold, when I had cameras in cold climates here in So Cal, like down to 10 degrees, they tend to just lock up, never seen any of them work but display odd colors.

Yes, no, maybe. The two alternatives I recommended + Mobotix have 2-way audio. The Axis has a mic built in, but no speaker but has speaker output so you can plug in a separate speaker. The Hikvision has mic in, audio in and audio out, so you would have to find a mic/speaker to work in your situation. Mobotix S15 would is also audio in/out, does not have a mic on the cameras. You don't have to have an SD card on any of them, you don't have to record at all and they can all be accessed via smartphone apps, but never tried any of them with 2-way audio. What you can do is have the doorbell tied to the alarm input on any of the cameras mentioned above and figure out someway to alert your phone that someone rang the doorbell, maybe have it send you a video text to your phone with the picture it took at the time the doorbell rang. Cool science experiment. There is a company here in So Cal that makes a box that holds an Axis M10 series with built-in mic and speaker and PIR motion detection built in and has a brass plate for the front that comes in different finishes. The problem for you is this door is on a slant relative to the hallway, so tricky to mount that to be effective.

60W is if you use a 24VAC power supply. The PoE injector they recommend is the Vivotek AP3001 which is 55V (odd that it's not the 48V PoE standard) and it's .6A or in other words it's 33W seems to run about $100. I'm surprised it doesn't come with this in the box. Other brands that I reviewed that require PoE+ injectors have it in the box. Check with Vivotek. Besides an injector, you can get switches that are PoE Plus (30W), so if this is your only PTZ, I would get the injector, if it's one of a few, the switch may be mo betta. For example, the ZyXel GS1100-8HP is an affordable gigabit switch that is PoE+. I believe they make one with 4 PoE ports and a 240W model with 8 PoE ports.

I'm not a fan of WiFi because of all the wires like the power wire and usually the lack of outlets where you want the camera. Also, the selection of cameras in this space is terrible and good ones are crazy priced like Brickcom for $1,000 but works well. Also being outside means your signal may be weak so you have to deal with that. What I would do if it had to be WiFi is put an outdoor access point, like a Ubiquiti Picostation. Get a 12v power supply and power a decent 3MP mini bullet like the Hikvision ds-2cd2032-i or Dahua ipc-hfw4300s. All together it should be just under $300 and provide very good picture quality. As for motion detection outside, you must have a lot of time because you'll get many false alerts, maybe hundreds as shadows, car headlights, people walking by, dogs, squirrels, plants swaying in a breeze, even clouds passing by. To minimize this, you can get an external PIR motion detector but these lower end cameras do not have alarm inputs for this.

I have 2 Mini 0801 with GPS, works great, very clear picture, day or night, cost $109 shipped. Also have the WS300W very good quality image, no GPS and larger than the Mini 0801 so does not fit where I want it in every car, but fits well in my Smart but not in my Audi. The larger size does provide for a nicer larger screen and also has decent battery life to take post accident video. Here's my take though, you can pay more but not sure paying twice as much even gets you a few percent improvement and not sure that a better image would give you better results in the court of law if your intent is to use this video to defend yourself because of a accident or say a red light ticket or speeding when you can demonstrate you were in the right. What I look for is - 1. 1080P, it's cheap enough to not want this 2. Wide Angle - look for 120-140 degrees to get a decent view in an accident 3. No noise to low noise at night 4. Size, for me it has to fit behind the rear view mirror so I don't see it. Everything else is optional or nice to have as I turn audio off (can't possibly help in court and in CA may be illegal to record a conversation unless all parties agree). G-Sensor is nice, most have this. GPS is nice, especially if you are trying to prove you were not speeding and to get location information and see the route you took on a map. One thing some people want is a rear facing camera built in to the front camera. The reason I stayed away from these is that they tend to not be 1080P and I don't want a video of me driving, can't possibly help in an accident, especially if I was not paying attention. What I would like but is not quite there yet is a camera recorder that mounts under the dash that has connections for two 1080P cameras. Mounted at my windshield and by my rear license plate, maybe the size of a stack of 3 nickels with a thin wire tucked into the headliner to feed back to the recorder. Then a small monitor mounted somewhere near the steering wheel that I can use to configure and view the cameras as well as use the rear one as a backup camera. I know in an accident the rear camera would be damaged, who cares, that's the least of my worries if I get rear ended.

You can get the Dahua IPC-HFW4300S or the Hikvision DS-2CD2132-I for under $200 shipped, both nice 3MP cameras with decent low light sensitivity. Make sure you get the lens size appropriate for your location.

Patch cables tend to use a stranded wire, not that great for longer distances. If you are running cables outdoors, get foil shielded burial grade Cat5e or Cat6. The foil shielding will reduce any interference from other circuits and protect the wire a little better from rodents or other animals chewing the wire. The burial grade means it has like a grease coating under the jacket of the wire that sort of self-seals if the wire get nicked and keeps it waterproof. We had an installer use indoor wire outdoors and it's a mess now, just 2 years later we are having to go in and replace it all. So a few dollars spent then would save us thousands now, not cool. You don't need wire to go at gigabit speeds as most cameras are 100mbps but doesn't hurt to plan for the future. In a perfect world, use conduit to protect the wire because outside you don't know what can happen to it and easily get cut by an intruder. Don't know what they call it in your country, but we use EMT conduit above ground. Provides a clean professional look and can be painted.

Mobotix used to be good but their new cameras are not that great, especially with improvements in the past year on other brands. Besides the poor image quality, I would say they are also very complex to setup, maybe the hardest of all brands of cameras. They have improved low light performance but at the expense of noise, so I would put them as average in low light performance, not great, not bad. Also, consider you need two holes, one for day and one for night sensors and a place to mount the S15 box. Also, they flush mount making them harder to aim unless you get their swivel type mounts but that makes them stick out a bit. The other problem is you have a light between the door and the subject which would create a silhouette on a camera without an IR illuminator to compensate for that. If the light was at the door, it would be OK and light up the subject. If you want an easy to use dome that can record and playback from an SD card or NAS, consider the Hikvision ds-2cd2732f-is, it's what I use at my front door. It stays in color at night with the porch light and switches to B&W only in complete darkness and records quite well to SD card. It can also record to NAS, but that works for some, not others. Also, the price is cheap for $259 shipped. Compared say a $1,500 Mobotix S15, to me the Hikvision has better image quality both day and night. Another camera I would recommend is the Axis P3364-LVE. While it's only 1MP, the Lightfinder feature does excellent with minimal light and it has an IR Illuminator built in. This is heads above Mobotix MxLEO and with the illuminator, it will work in zero light. It can write to SD or NAS using the free Axis Camera Companion app that runs in the camera. Then you use Windows software to view the cameras and recordings. I costs about a grand, give or take but has features Mobotix does not have like remote focus and varifocal lens. Not sure why you would need more than 1MP because it's such a tight area.

Also, with Milestone, you have to install the "Device Packs" because the one that comes with the software is likely outdated.

You'll like XProtect Go. especially the smartphone apps.

I had the same problem with a camera that got shipped down under. Turned out it was ribbon cable that came lose during shipping. A lot of these cameras use ribbon cables that are not that well held in and can come lose, like when you shake it, LOL. I've gotten camera with weird colors and usually find ribbon cable that's not seated properly. While yes, there are warranties, sometimes it's easier to find the problem and fix it rather than wait for weeks for it to get fixed. This is an example of one. You can see the cable is not fully seated on the right. There's usually tabs that release the clamp that holds the cable. You move the tab that releases the cable and then reseat the cable so it's all evenly in place and then push the tab back that clamps down on the cable to hold it in place.

It's funny you mention fog because I'm testing the eyeball Hikvision and I have my ACTi E32 next to and I have IR turned off so my test only shows IR from the Hikvision and with the IR on you saw streaks running across it like a blizzard, the E32 with IR turned off looked like the same fog I see looking out the window.

There's is packaging material, it's those inflated bags, but looks like whatever punctured the package also deflated the bags as I see those from Amazon. I think the package services including the post office are a little rougher during the holidays. You don't know how many packages I got last week that where not for me. UPS dropped 8 huge boxes at my doorstep, none for me, they were so heavy I had to help him put it back in his truck, LOL. That's the SFP port if you are using fiber optic cable. You can only use one, the SFP port or the Ethernet Gigabit port, not both at the same time. When you look at what an SFP cable looks like, you'll see it's very long so the outside metal is just to guide it in, the actual guts of the connector may go in like 2". You should plug the cameras in and see if it all works as it may just be cosmetic as mine is bent too. If not, I'm sure they'll take it back. You can use the switch right out of the box but if you want to take advantage of the manageability feature, the default IP is an unfortunate 192.168.1.1. I was able to connect to mine by plugging in a laptop with a fixed IP address in that subnet, I made it 192.168.1.11. Then the user/pw is admin/1234 and then you can change the IP to something more favorable in your home network. I have mine in the garage attic so it's nice being able to power a camera off and back on if it gets hung and also see the power usage for each camera. Here's the IP setup screen - Here's details from one port

It will work in theory but consider if there's a light on inside the room, the glass will act as a mirror. For example, I have the very same camera in my review looking out a window at a lake and it works great during the day, but at night, it reflects back so I have it behind a curtain so it reflects the curtain and not the activity inside the room but certainly something to think about.

The extenders we use have PoE port on the remote side, so yes, you can run a long distance and still have PoE on the other side. To be safe, run Cat6 foil shielded burial grade cable. If it works, great, if it doesn't, you can still use the Cat6 extender. Also, get decent wire, not discount wire. Get it from a local trusted electrical supply store. Figure $200-300 for a spool. Also, run it in conduit and put pull boxes about every 100' because if you put too much tension pulling it you can damage the wire. It's all solid copper wire, stranded wire is for patch cables. There was one company in Taiwan that made a PoE switch that went out 200m which was very cool and was not expensive, under $100 for a 4 port PoE switch. I thought about importing them but would be afraid the demand would be too low. Don't know how they do it but they did a live demo and it worked.

I personally would refuse to buy an NVR with PoE built-in. The problem with the Dahua and Hikvision NVR's with this feature is that they have sort of a router built in. It assigns IP addresses in it's own subnet that's not accessible outside the NVR. The Ethernet connection on the NVR that goes to your home network is separate and the two can't communicate. If you want to communicate with the camera temporarily, you have to unplug it from the NVR, plug it into your home network with a PoE device, change the IP back to your home subnet using their management software, do what you want. Then change it back to the exact NVR IP address (same one or it will think it's a new camera like you experienced). Some people have connected one of the PoE ports to their home network to link the two up, but then you lose a port and it becomes more work than it may be worth. My advice is if you want to access the cameras individually through other software or browser, then you not use the camera ports on the NVR and buy a PoE switch and configure them as you like and add them to the NVR manually.

It probably won't be as easy as you expect. To do it properly, you need a PC or NVR device locally that captures events for all the cameras and sends the events to a remote location. Your device or PC would act as a buffer to hold recordings until network bandwidth can catch up. The commercial solutions I've seen at trade shows work like this. But I'm afraid what you want is the cameras to record directly to the cloud. If your cameras are HD resolution or better and most modern day cameras are, you need a minimum 4Mbps per camera with h.264 compression, so 15 cameras would be 60Mbps, but there's other factors like latency so an internet connection is not advisable. You may be able to get away with a dedicated OC1 circuit but likely need an OC3 circuit to the cloud provider. The alternative is to go with cameras that can write directly to a NAS like Mobotix and setup a remote NAS connection like at Amazon Web Services. Then only events are sent, not streaming video, but again, you need a fast connection if there's lots of simultaneous events going on.