re: General security camera discussion (was "Unifi Protect security cameras")

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view with 6+ camera feeds on it

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Ahh. This is barely on my radar for the future. A pair of doorbells +2-4 bullets is going to be plenty for my house, and I may realistically never add a backyard or driveway view. I don’t think I’ll use the g3 instant I have for much. I have it set to always run, never record and catch my cats doing silly things throughout the day. The wife likes to move the camera around when I’m not home just to see if I check it. Indoor views for a home seem like a good thing if you need them, but there’s not much I feel like I need it for.

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but is the main problem that it doesn't have rich notifications (i.e. a snapshot image)? I see that complaint a lot. They have some coding to do to catch up to ring and nest here.

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The smart detections are pretty great when the app wants to work well. I’m sure you have used them- you have a little window on the timeline with a still frame, and clicking it takes 1-30 seconds to load. 1 being awesome and 30 being “why the frick can’t they fix this stupid thing?” You can set the amount of time before a detection to record, and clicking a thumb gives you a good idea of what you’re going to see on video before you see it.
There’s no “save snapshot” feature, but I’m fairly certain there’s a still-frame image capture button available on the desktop (when logged into the UDMP) version. And if not, it’s pretty easy to download a clip, pause it in the right spot, and still frame it. Maybe I’m missing the point, but when the thing can be set to pretty accurately record what you want in the zone you want in a few second clip +/- a buffer and auto-delete after a set time frame, I don’t think a static image that’s easy to download is something I am “missing.” But I admittedly don’t know a ton of the features on the competitor cameras. Just mostly that they are essentially all cloud and/or subscription based. My brother has a Ring and commented on how much nicer the g4 doorbell picture looks than what he is used to seeing.

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You're getting pretty deep now.

In case you haven't seen it, pretty good review of UniFi Talk on reddit.

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For a weirdo that wants a home phone, it seems like a pretty good and cheap option. $80 for a wifi phone that you can Zoom, Microsoft teams, and view doorbells from and then pay $10/m is probably more, though not unreasonably more, than most homes would need. The videos I saw do seem to suggest that Access and Talk are sort of unifying (ha) the doorbell/phone. I haven’t seen anything suggesting this is in the pipe for the g4, but the Protect app is supposedly available on the UVP phone. Wife has been after me about getting a home phone. I have another year or so contract on a VOIP service at the office, so I am getting my hands dirty on this to see if, as it matures, it is going to be able to replace what we have in the office. I did attempt spinning up a 3cx server with VOIP.ms on the backend. I was given some legacy Cisco phones. I decided it was not really worth my time to configure them after about the 4-6th hour. I tried one of the older Unifi tablet phones, misreading the specs and thinking the first gen ones also had a camera and wifi. I did not get good results from 3cx but got it working with VOIP.ms pretty easily. It’s something that if I am going to be able to do, I need to be able to get it up and running fast, and there are quite a few caveats involved, so a “simple” VOIP service for a 20-person office with a single DID may actually be in the cards in the future. If I waste $160 on toys and $10/m on phone service for home but add some value by having a functioning Protect screen working In a room that my doorbell can’t be heard from, I won’t be horribly upset. I’ve also read of a guy or two getting 3rd party phone working with Talk, but you can’t setup Talk to do this without an officially supported phone. So without the ATA being in stock and my silly desire to have a second screen with Chrome to do telehealth calls from on my work from home day, I took the plunge. But their two-day shipping is a six-day lie so far.

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Also I really don't understand their PoE floodlight priced at $99.

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My house and basically every house in every neighborhood I’ve lived in has floodlights on every corner. I don’t know who the target audience is, but I’m pretty sure I’m not it.


Speaking of “wtf” products, they made PoE ceiling-tile lights.
Lights.
To add a light or two is one thing.
To market this as if Ethernet + PoE ports/switches are cheaper than an electrician in that setting is just...odd to me. Maybe I’m way off on the cost of this, but I don’t think you can save enough to justify just the sheer cost of the switches you need to run the things, particularly if staying in their stack.

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I'm seeing more of the direction they're going with the "Protect" branding, but they sure seem to be zig-zagging along the way

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They sure are doing an odd mix of consumer-centric devices with small-office-type prices.
If they came out with a $10 simple window sensor, I’d probably put one on every window and convince my wife to stop paying $40/month for the alarm that we haven’t turned on since we moved here. And if they made a sensor for smoke/CO/temp/humidity, I’d consider replacing what I’ve got, though I really am not overly excited with these things being “connected.”
There’s a handful of smart garage openers for $20-30, including a Meross model that works with Google, Alexa, and HomeKit. It both opens/closes the garage, keeps a 15-30 second delay to prevent you from “double-triggering” the motor, and comes with a sensor that tells you if the door is opened/closed (and can push this data to the chosen app). They want double the price just to report open/closed without the function of triggering the motor? And on top of that, they want to give teenagers an “exit quietly” button (though the app I’m sure will still log the event).

I could see them eventually pulling it all together, but it seems like something they are going to swing, miss, realize, and quit.



I hope I’m wrong and they become the industry standard in various home sensors in a few years.