Ubiquiti AirVision Cameras

[SEANHAWG 1]

Has anyone used these cameras before?

[thewireguys 3]

Definitely interesting but some things you should know.

 

1) fixed focal lenses only

 

2) color only.... no IR or cut filter

 

3) cameras are not 802.1af POE so they will not work with standard POE switches without their adapter cable.

 

4) No ONVIF so they only work with their VMS

 

 

 

[hardwired 0]

They are using a modified version of Zoneminder for their NVR software, with a pretty nice front-end on it. I've been tinkering around with putting their front-end on a standard installation of Zoneminder.

[SEANHAWG 1]

Cool, thanks for the input. I got an email sent to me the other day and just never heard of them before but thought it looked kind of interesting.

[Sawbones 0]

Hmmm... that's new.

[prairietech 0]

Found this thread from Oct 2011. Anyone able to get these cameras and NVR to work? Judging from the Ubiquiti forum, it still looks buggy.

 

I bought an AirCam and set up the included NVR on a Kubuntu machine. Still unable to get decent playback video to work without crashing the viewer.

 

The video from the camera is also fairly poor. But what should I have expected from a plastic lens?

 

Now I'm looking at selling the AirCam and finding something more stable for a NVR.

 

Any suggestions?

[buellwinkle 0]

Some camera brands include their NVR software for free. I've used AVTech and ACTi cameras that work very well for me and their NVR software free (you provide the PC). Also Vivotek provides the NVR software for free although their cameras can be buggy. If you want to mix camera brands, I've used BlueIris software ($50 per server) and it works well with a broad range of cameras. Zoneminder runs on Linux and is open source (free). At home I use an small Atom based PC with Windows 7 for the past year or more. It's tiny, quiet, has HDMI port so I can use a TV as a monitor, lower power consumption and cheap.

 

If it help you get started, you can see reviews of different cameras on my blog.

[prairietech 0]

Yes I have read your blog and found a lot of very useful information. So useful, I'm about to put the AirCam up for sale and move on to something that works. Ubiquiti very well may be able to get AirVision working better in the future but my need is sooner than later.

 

An Atom based PC for recording video!? Wow! How many cameras? Frame rate? Resolution? Which software?

 

 

Some camera brands include their NVR software for free. I've used AVTech and ACTi cameras that work very well for me and their NVR software free (you provide the PC). Also Vivotek provides the NVR software for free although their cameras can be buggy. If you want to mix camera brands, I've used BlueIris software ($50 per server) and it works well with a broad range of cameras. Zoneminder runs on Linux and is open source (free). At home I use an small Atom based PC with Windows 7 for the past year or more. It's tiny, quiet, has HDMI port so I can use a TV as a monitor, lower power consumption and cheap.

 

If it help you get started, you can see reviews of different cameras on my blog.

[jhonovich 0]

We tested the Ubiquiti bullet a few months ago. It performed fairly well, especially relative to its low cost. Daytime almost as good as similar class Axis M series, night-time notably worse

 

Btw, Ubiquiti cameras supports RTSP for 3rd party integration. We did our tests integrated with Exacq.

[Sawbones 0]

I managed to get an Aircam working with Luxriot.

 

Interesting cameras, but a decidedly "cheap" feel. They're very lightweight plastic.

 

But what do you expect for $100 bucks? Honestly, for what it costs, it's not a bad little camera. The daytime picture is quite reasonable.

[prairietech 0]

Yes I agree with you. I think Ubiquiti might be trying to do too much for too little for only $100.

 

My day job involves installing Axis cameras using Genetec NVR software. I'm just trying to installing something at home that is completely IP and PC based. Giving up features and quality is acceptable since my budget is limited.

 

The AirCam / AirVision line from Ubiquiti appeared to be the answer but the NVR side is still certainly beta. I wonder how many have successfully got it to work? Naturally 99% of the postings in their support forum are from users with problems and not from those with success stories. I posted a question on their forum days ago and have not received a reply yet.

 

I didn't see any pricing on the Luxriot site. Is this professional or consumer priced software?

 

 

 

I managed to get an Aircam working with Luxriot.

 

Interesting cameras, but a decidedly "cheap" feel. They're very lightweight plastic.

 

But what do you expect for $100 bucks? Honestly, for what it costs, it's not a bad little camera. The daytime picture is quite reasonable.

[lgRich 0]

I have 3 AirVision cameras already installed and it’s work very well with Blue Iris and I am very satisfied of the result.

[prairietech 0]

I tried adjusting the focus on the AirCam to improve focus. Even when connected direct to the camera, the video looks fuzzy. Mostly likely poor quality optics. Can't imagine why Ubiquiti would make a megapixel camera with such poor quality optics?

 

Your able to record the rtsp using Exacq or just view?

 

 

 

We tested the Ubiquiti bullet a few months ago. It performed fairly well, especially relative to its low cost. Daytime almost as good as similar class Axis M series, night-time notably worse

 

Btw, Ubiquiti cameras supports RTSP for 3rd party integration. We did our tests integrated with Exacq.

[prairietech 0]

Thank you for your posting! Maybe I can still salvage my AirCam?

 

Are you able to take advantage of the megapixel image? Digital zoom with an acceptable picture?

 

 

 

I have 3 AirVision cameras already installed and it’s work very well with Blue Iris and I am very satisfied of the result.

[jhonovich 0]

Prairetech,

 

Yes, RTSP allows for both live viewing and recording. That's what we did with Exacq and I am sure you can do that with dozens of other VMS systems that support RTSP.

 

As for focus, the design of the lens makes it tricky to focus, especially since your fingers can cover up the imager/video when focusing. It is easy to get it out of focus. However, if you are patient and slowly adjust the focus, you should get a clean, sharp image. Definitely a usability problem but one that can be overcome with technique. We did a video screencast reviewing that point.

[kirmou 0]

I have been trying to to find a reliable, low cost NVR kit with 6 cameras that is to be mainly used remotedly through browser.

 

I ran into these AirVision units. To me the Ubiquiti NVR and Cameras seem to be better than the Chinese no-brand kits.

 

In this thread the AirVision NVR software was seen as buggy but the thread is quite old.

 

The user's manual seems to be well written and the functionality is rather extensive:

http://www.eurodk.com/files/catalogue/ubiquiti/user-guide-airvision.pdf

 

I wish if anyone with current experiences could share them.

 

The AirVision-C NVR with 500GB HDD at ~300 $ and the cameras ~100$ apiece seem to be quite appealing if the combination is working properly.

[buellwinkle 0]

Their $100 cameras are day only, 1MP and should be fine in very well lit areas. They are replacing them sort of with their new UVC cameras like the Ubquiti UVC, about $150ish, indoor bullet, day/night. Also available soon is their UVC Pro, 1080P (2MP) and you should be able to find it for under $500ish.

 

Their NVR software is a re-skinned Zoneminder that makes it easier to use, so people like it, but it's still Zoneminder which is CPU intensive, so you pay for faster PC to run it on, or pay for better software.

[CoPSA 0]

I work for a small city in Northern NY and we use 4 of the AirCams with the UniFi Video 3.0.7 Beta as the NVR for them. I bought one to try at home a few years back and tried AirVision 1.x and it didn't work well enough to even consider using. AirVision 2 was a different story and worked well enough that I stuck with it instead of going with Milestone which is a great system but isn't free (although they do have some very reasonable prices for the basic package). It worked well enough that we decided to try it for monitoring several Kiosks we deployed throughout the city and haven't had any major issues with it.

 

The quality of the cameras have been pretty accurately described in this post so I won't address that. You get a very decent camera for the price. It doesn't compare to the HD cameras we use at the police department but they cost $800ish each and the AirCams give you far more than 1/8th the performance of those.

 

As far as CPU usage on the NVR goes it doesn't seem to be that high in our system. We are currently running UniFi Video 3.0.7 Beta (the latest official release v3.0.5 gave us a few connection problems that 3.0.7 fixed) on a 6 year old Dell OptiPlex 755 (Intel Core2Duo 3.0 GHz) running Win7 x64 with 8GB RAM and a new 2TB drive for the recorded video. I have checked it several times and the CPU usage stays consistently between 5% - 10% occasionally peeking around 20% while streaming all 4 cameras on a different PC. When viewing the 4 streams on the 755 itself the CPU usage bounces between 20% - 40%. Two of the streams are very active (busy city intersections with lost of traffic) while two have little activity. So you can run the NVR software on a pretty modest machine with good results (while only using 4 cameras anyways).

 

We like the cameras and software enough that we're using them for a DIY security system at one of the other departments for about 1/10th of the lowest quote we received from the local vendors. To be fair their systems are probably more robust but the Ubiquiti system is more than we need. I'm working on a Server 2012 R2 Guest running on a new ESXi host to run all of the cameras on and we'll see how that fares. So far with only 1 test camera it's doing fine.