I have read pretty much every thread in the section and I’m going with what I think most all of you would suggest for a serious multi-camera system integrated with Vera. 6-8 POE Hikvision cameras, Blue Iris, dedicated decent PC, vera plugin…you get the point. Trying to do it right the first time.
My question to the experts is what’s the current environment out there to purchased Hikvision cameras. China or USA, firmware issues etc. Hard to be sure what the current situation is so any insight would be greatly appreciated. I’m interested where you guys suggest buying cameras. Looking at Ebay is crazy, prices all over the map, some say USA some say china so that must still be an issue.
I personally buy the china (or multi language) ones from ebay. I have probley 12 total now from two houses. I have never had to return or warranty any and I have saved a ton of money buying the ebay ones vs. USA ones that even if one failed at this point I’m still ahead to just buy another.
I buy the 70.00 to 75.00 brown box ones (but some came white box anyways). I prefer the bullets but I have domes also.
I have updated firmware on one or two when I first got them, but it wasn’t an issue using google and looking for the multi-language firmware only. Other then that your not suppose to really update and could cause problems (so they say) if you do. That said hikvision is solid, blueiris does all the heavy lifting/ has all the features and the camera updates never really come out (not like it happens monthly).
Blueiris I buy the 40.00 ebay license. Also never had a problem and I work with KEN from blueiris on any issues I have. It’s a legit serial KEY.
I personally don’t use the VERA plugin and in the past ran into problems with VERA not being able to handle the load the 3MP cameras or images it puts on it. I have also found there is no need to have the images in VERA. Once you start to use it you’ll see how it works for you. In vera the images can’t be replayed or viewed and the quality is no good. I use the BLUEiris app for the best results and if I want to view live in the same app as VERA. Imperihome app for andriod can connect directly to the camera or even better Blueiris and display the camera directly in the same app and side by side your other vera sensors. This will not put any load on vera doing this. If you want motion sensors, the virtual motion sensor plugin can do this and works with the same concept at the blueiris plugin (it is the same).