Getting Started Advice Please

Other Devices & Integrations Door Locks & Sensors
#1

I’m thinking of adding cameras to my Vera network. I haven’t any experience in this area. Could someone explain what can be done with cameras on a vera network and also point me in the direction of a how to guide for setting up my first camera.

Many thanks in advance

#2

In sort of the same boat here. Noticing some funny activity on my street and think it’s about time to invest in a couple perimeter cams.
Some musts:
Secure - I’ve seen a couple videos exposing secuirty issues in wireless cameras. This is the main issue as far as finding a “go to” people still swear by here in 2015.
HD - Should pick up finer details like license plate #s from a hundred feet away. Also needs good night visibility without porch lights affecting it.
Discreet - Shouldn’t be any indicators that theres a camera, smaller the better but without sacrificing image quality, no night light.

#3

[quote=“col8eral, post:1, topic:188292”]I’m thinking of adding cameras to my Vera network. I haven’t any experience in this area. Could someone explain what can be done with cameras on a vera network and also point me in the direction of a how to guide for setting up my first camera.

Many thanks in advance[/quote]

I and many others like blueiris. It doesn’t exactly integrate into vera except that you can use it to view images through vera and setup the cameras to act as motion sensors. Most people rely on the blueiris mobile app. The downside is the investment isn’t cheap (you need a decent machine such as a modern i5 to run it), but it’s not expensive either. The upside is the versatility of blueiris and rich feature set.

[quote=“goltoof, post:2, topic:188292”]In sort of the same boat here. Noticing some funny activity on my street and think it’s about time to invest in a couple perimeter cams.
Some musts:
Secure - I’ve seen a couple videos exposing secuirty issues in wireless cameras. This is the main issue as far as finding a “go to” people still swear by here in 2015.
HD - Should pick up finer details like license plate #s from a hundred feet away. Also needs good night visibility without porch lights affecting it.
Discreet - Shouldn’t be any indicators that theres a camera, smaller the better but without sacrificing image quality, no night light.[/quote]

As far as I know, the two requirements you’ve mentioned are a bit too steep without going into greater budgets ($500 per camera). However, the current $150 cameras are a good compromise. In order to see anything at night, you’ll need a camera with at least IR. IR isn’t visible in most conditions, but at night you’ll see a ring of red lights on the camera (not too noticeable from far away though). At best, for a lower priced camera (under $200) you can MAYBE expect to read license plates from 80 feet away, and your camera would have to have fixed focus on that target distance.

#4

Are there any recommendations on the best type of hardware to use. I see many HD analog camera’s and DVR’s available now with Ip connection via the DVR. The DVR has the recording and motion detection built in keeping the loading off vera and I guess that the alarms from the DVR could be used to trigger events in vera.

Has anyone gone down this route and what advantages/disadvantages are there?