Home camera system with good mobile app

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u13turbo

156 posts

Master Geek

#303124 18-Jan-2023 07:22

I have been really interested in getting a eufy camera setup. Mainly because of the ease of use, aswel as having the doorbell camera all combined in the one app. My main issue with them is it seems night motion detection cannot be set to human only and this would result in alot of notifications for local cats etc. Aswel as the price point($1000 for 3c system, plus $280 for doorbell)

I currently have a 2 camera system with a cheap DVR. It is terrible to use, no reliable mobile app, no motion detection.

Is there a wired system like eufy that has a good mobile app that will alert when motion is detected? Even better if there is a doorbell addon?

alsta

276 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3023031 18-Jan-2023 08:11

Ive just setup a 2C Pro system here at home. Very impressed with ease and mobile app. Have integrated it with HomeKit too.

Haven't spent much time looking at the detection stuff, not sure if I'll do that through the eufy app or with HomeKit. But for $800, 4 cameras at 2K is a pretty good deal. I looked at the 4k series 3 ones - decided they were quite expensive for less cameras and the 3's don't do HomeKit yet

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FineWine

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Nurse (R)

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#3023033 18-Jan-2023 08:34

There is also this Topic: Are Eufy security cameras any good?

I have just purchased this system: eufyCam 3C (S300) 2 Pack with HomeBase 3

One pointing down 40m driveway and the other above front door.

Installed it on Saturday and spent the last few days tweaking all the settings.

We now use the Home and Away settings.

Turned off Pet detection as we have two cats.

Turned off Notifications for Home settings.

We now do not get spurious Notifications and False Positives.

Notified two neighbours on driveway side as we can see their front door and back doors. Though cameras are not triggered. We also told them we can blank those areas out if they felt privacy impinged. They were fine with us having the cameras and understood the reasoning.

So far we are happy campers.

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

Silvrav

469 posts

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#3023036 18-Jan-2023 08:47

I went the Reolink route as they priced well with great reviews. Feature-rich and run POE so I only need to run a Cat6 cable.

https://reolink.com/product/rlc-810a/

mrgsm021

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#3023041 18-Jan-2023 09:03

I just replaced UNV camera system that came with the house with Reolink, after a thunderstorm last year fried the POE circuit in the NVR.

Just bought 4 Reolink RLC822A and plug them into a Cisco POE switch and up they go.

https://reolink.com/product/rlc-822a/

RLC822A supports motion detection with alerts but I've not bothered to set up the alerts/notification though.

App works well

reven

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#3023161 18-Jan-2023 11:01

If you can do wired, POE. One option (may or may not fit your needs, may fit someone else who stumbles upon this page), would be BlueIris software running on a server.

You can use an IP camera pretty much then, so get the best camera for the area you want to monitor.

It can use software for advanced detection, this can be a little involved to setup if you want smarter detection (it can detect horses vs bears etc).

It doesnt do a door bell camera exactly, if a door bell exposed a rtsp/http feed then it could.

There are apps for it, but personally I just use the webinterface when needed, or feed the cameras into home assistant and use home assistant to monitor everything.

It is windows software though, there is a docker container of it but not so great, so either running it on a windows machine or a VM is required.

Like I said, may not fit your needs exactly, but maybe it does.

Kyanar

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#3023296 18-Jan-2023 15:22

If you're looking at Blueiris or similar products, I'd drop a mention of Milestone XProtect VMS. It's designed for enterprise use, but has a free version (not crippleware - doesn't support alarms or enterprisey HA stuff, and free version only does 8 cameras)

Stu1

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#3023323 18-Jan-2023 16:30

Eufy easy as ,it just works

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reven

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#3023327 18-Jan-2023 16:50

Stu1: Eufy easy as ,it just works

Eufy do have its problems though (not including the whole security stuff they got called out on last month)

but

- A lot of their cameras are just event based, cant stream to a NAS, but can live view them for a bit, but feeds do stop

- Limited products you can use with it, ie their products (which obviously makes sense, but still its a con of using a system link eufy)

- Their products cost more than just generic IP cameras (also makes sense)

Eufy can be great, the solar power cameras do look cool if you can't wire them up. I have 2 spotlight eufy cameras on my house, but I also have IP cameras recording with blue iris that I can monitor at any time.

So if you dont want to wire everything up, you dont mind paying a bit more, and you want something that just works for the basic stuff, then Eufy is a good option.

Now, regarding the security issue, that was way blown up, but how they dealt with it was really really bad. That has put me off using their products TBH. They should have just come out and said exactly what was happening, acknowledge any issues, and moved forward. instead, they stayed quiet, then sneakily updated their website in a few places.

Wheelbarrow01

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Chorus

#3023444 18-Jan-2023 23:28

I have a Eufy 2C Pro system at home. There are dozens of neighbourhood cats that come and go through the night (I know because my Philips sensor light on the garage is triggered by them) however they've never triggered the Eufy system in night mode - but humans still do.

It could be because I have my detection level settings right in the sweet spot I guess (motion detection on, human only [void at night], sensitivity level 5 [out of a possible 7])

[EDIT: clarified settings]

johno1234

2801 posts

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#3023477 19-Jan-2023 08:26

FineWine:

Turned off Pet detection as we have two cats.

Funny. I'd turn on pet detection just to see what the cat's up to.

gehenna

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#3023479 19-Jan-2023 08:29

I use Unifi Protect. It's great. Especially the Android TV app so I can show the grid of cameras on my TVs

freitasm

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Geekzone

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#3023480 19-Jan-2023 08:33

Interesting no mention of Ring. It's a good ecosystem, integrates well with Amazon Alexa, Amazon Fire TV and works with pretty much all home automation systems.

The mobile app is good, there's independent person and motion detection and a lot of other features.

johno1234

2801 posts

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#3023481 19-Jan-2023 08:35

Wheelbarrow01:

There are dozens of neighbourhood cats that come and go through the night (I know because my Philips sensor light on the garage is triggered by them) however they've never triggered the Eufy system in night mode - but humans still do.

If those cats are annoying, you might want to check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIbkLjjlMV8

Actually, everybody should see this.

robertsona

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#3023554 19-Jan-2023 09:34

johno1234:

Wheelbarrow01:

There are dozens of neighbourhood cats that come and go through the night (I know because my Philips sensor light on the garage is triggered by them) however they've never triggered the Eufy system in night mode - but humans still do.

If those cats are annoying, you might want to check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIbkLjjlMV8

Actually, everybody should see this.

Actual LOL! In fact, tears...

lchiu7

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#3023587 19-Jan-2023 10:58

I didn't do any research but a rel of mine had both Google Nest and Arlo cameras and decided he wanted to stick to Arlo and only have one subscription and so gave me his external Nest camera. I stuck it outside the front door and was so pleased with its functionality and integration with my Google smart home setup I bought another one, located inside the house to peer up the driveway.

I like that if I have my Google Chromecast with Google TV displaying on the TV something I can say "Hey Google - stream porch camera" and it shows me the stream. That streaming also works on all my Google smart displays.