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

The app really is great, I don't know why other companies can't put out anything close. The only real complaint I have about the app is a detail about notifications. Notifications on the whole are excellent, but I really need to configure settings on a per detection zone basis rather than per camera. For example, I want to draw a zone to detect vehicles in my driveway, and another zone to detect vehicles passing on the road, but I only want notifications for the ones in my driveway. I can't do that. I can only turn on notifications about motion, people, and/or vehicles per camera. Right now I get around that by having a regular motion zone on the road, but I would really like it to classify as vehicles so they appear as such on the detections page.


Something to note about the app, by default live and recorded video play at an adaptive bitrate for performance and data consumption reasons. You can force high quality viewing if you need it, but it's kind of a pain to switch it on then back to automatic/adaptive again. Downloaded clips will be high quality though (except for timelapse clips).

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If the only reason you haven't hung a big black PTZ on your house was the $1800 price, go ahead and grab one now.

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For that price, I want it to shoot lazer beams at any potential intruders!

Honestly $1800 is not an awful price for the hardware. Other manufacturers sell 4K 22X PTZ at a similar or higher price. $999 is kind of a steal.

Big update to Protect today. A few highlights:

Added support for Animal Detections
G4/G5/AI series: cat, dog, cow, sheep, horse, deer, bear
Added support for new Audio Detections, including classification and event filtering:
G4/G5/AI series (with mic): baby crying
AI series (with mic): speaking, car horn, car alarm, glass breakage, barking
Added support for Vehicle Type Classification and event filtering
AI series (except 360): car, van, truck, bus, motorcycle, bike, SUV
Added support for Vehicle Color Classification and event filtering:
AI series: black, blue, brown, gray, green, orange, pink, purple, red, white, yellow



Nice that they were able to add animal detections to the older G4 cameras. Also nice that they have finally added more value to the AI cameras, maybe I'll consider getting those now. I hope the new cheaper "Ultra" line of cameras which are coming soon will be as capable as the current G5 line.

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Reolink RLk8 turret

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There are several versions of this camera. Ask, specifically, which one they would be installing.

I will thanks, and I can probably get whichever variant I should get, that's just the starting point he offered. Assuming it's one of the non-4K ones to start.

At a high level, are the 4MP Hikvision/2k RLK setups alright for most residential purposes? I probably won't opt for the lowest level, but knowing "even if you got whatever baseline package he's offering with those you'd have a reasonable decent system" would give me some peace of mind. Brand new to the POE stuff.

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I probably won't opt for the lowest level, but knowing "even if you got whatever baseline package he's offering with those you'd have a reasonable decent system" would give me some peace of mind. Brand new to the POE stuff.

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The best part about PoE cameras is the bulk of the cost is going to be installation. Once the cables are run it's relatively cheap to swap cameras out for better models in the future. You can do it yourself with basic tools. It's best to keep the camera/nvr manufacturer matched to take advantage of some features, but most are cross-compatible via ONVIF standards which most companies follow at least loosely (hik is pretty good here, reolink alright but they don't strictly follow the standards, and ubiquiti is a notable company that does *not* follow the standards). At minimum you'll get video and probably basic motion detection, but more advanced stuff like person/vehicle detection, crossline, etc are hit or miss via ONVIF. So again best to stick with a manufacturer. Almost everyone with Reolink has been pleased, hik and dahua (and all their white label brands) are good (though some take issue with their ethics/etc), but I'm partial to UNV (Uniview) when ONVIF is required. UNV has some really, really high quality cameras at decent prices (and there are many white label resellers here too).

Thanks to you both. The NVR pairing makes sense. So in addition to making sure the NVR and cameras are capable of whatever AI features I want, worth doing the 4K variants or nah?

Looking at Reolink, I see some just say person/vehicle detection, is that what is meant by wasting time differentiating or is that a decent option?

Any input from you two about a good "starter" Reolink that is 4K with decent enough AI but doesn't have to be the best?

FWIW I want to know if there is a person in the yard and it's not a shadow or a tree branch, although I'm used to false alarms with my wifi stuff and it's not the end of the world. I don't care about having perfect recognition but I don't want to buy multiple generations behind, if that makes sense.

Thanks again, this is all so helpful.

ETA - Just saw the links above, thank you

The other good think about reolink cameras (and I assume most other brands) is that so long as the NVR is on the same wired/wireless network the NVR will detect it. So, if you can provide a camera with a wired ethernet connection (or wi-fi connection for their wi-fi cams) and 12v power, the NVR will add the camera to the network. I personally don't have any of my running that way currently, but I have set them up like that temporally and they work great. Unlink the blink camera and the like, since they're constantly powered, you don't have the wake up latency you do with conventional battery operated wi-fi systems.

I'm telling you this so you can think about how you want to layout your cameras to protect your property. If you absolutely can't get a cable to a location, but can supply power, you still have options.

Next time I'm home on the east coast I'm upgrading my dads ancient 480p system. I'll have to utilize the wi-fi option for one camera at the end of his driveway.

And now that I've told you the good things about Reolink, Korkstand will tell you the bad. At night, their framerates drop significantly, and you often get motion blur with fast moving or objects that are far away. This leads to ghosting and occasionally missed motion events (you still get a motion event on the NVR, but it doesn't post it as an AI (pet/person/vehicle) alert. This is why like like the camera versions with spotlights on them. The switch from b&W to color night vision when they detect motion. The only time I've ever really cared is when we had a mailbox thief in our neighborhood.