I know I could do it, but too much on the plate at the moment. I am doing a new build and would like someone to recommend for a company to install a POE security camera system. Anyone you could recommend?
I do not have personal links, but my findings online of companies that appear to be licenced under Ministry of Justice for ST/SC COA:
Aotea Security
Wellington Security
Codec Security
Axis in my experience is awesome quality and software but you pay top-dollar for a camera not made in China.
Avigilon/Motorola/Pelco/IndigoVision is USA/Canada but cameras are soo large and IMO terrible design (Pelco was previously owned by Schneider Electric).
Hanwha (was Samsung cctv), Milestone, Sony, Bosch, Panasonic I don't know much about.
Mobotix is German.
Dahua & Hikvision work fine but is Chinese, USA has banned these under NDAA and NZ Govt has some restriction on them for government use.
Uniview is Chinese.
Reolink in my findings is consumer crap. Great mobile apps and designed for the end user but the physical quality is cheap to fail in 5 years.
Arlo, Eufy, Swann, etc are just more consumer crap. Swann I have found to have awful quality software in particular.
-----
ST - Security Technician, SC - Security consultant, COA - Certificate of Approval.
A COA means the person has been background checked by Ministry of Justice and has completed necessary training for being ST/SC.
This also means if you think they have installed your security system in breach of laws, you can make a complaint to Ministry of Justice.
If you hired someone without a COA and they refuse to fix issues, along with complaints tribunal you can complain to Ministry of Justice and they'd most likely be fined about $20k for not having a licence.
You can search an individual or company, this also shows when the person first got their COA (they maybe a new business and not have a reputation yet): justice.govt.nz Public register of COA holders
I have Ubiquiti / Unifi cameras and they're halfway between cheap and insanely expensive. If I was doing it again I'd opt for Reolink cameras I think - 1/4 of the price and under CGA they should last 5 years...if they die after that I upgrade to a newer technology (2MP --> 4MP --> 8MP) and $ for $ buying 4x Reolink cameras over 20 years will give me a longer life than buying a single over-price Ubiquiti camera....and if the Reolink does last longer than expected that's just a bonus.
Then I use Blue Iris as a recorder + integrated the AI object recognition platform - and it works very well with almost no false alerts at all!
What I do wish though is that more cameras were built like the Ubiquiti cameras - plugging in a CAT6 cable, and only a CAT6 cable, into the back of the camera and straight into the wall behind the mounting plate is really nice....most other cameras have external cables, plugs buttons etc which is just plan UGLY and MESSY to work with.....so if anyone knows of a good Ubiquiti alternative that works with Blue Iris and is a simple single cable solution I'd love to hear about it!
@Bewildered, thanks for taking the effort to reply.
I concur with your statement about having a simple cat6 cable. I saw AXIS camera having only a cat6 connector inside their box. But, those cameras are not cheap.
Dahua, hikvision and provision are what most companies install for homes. Axis, bosch, and other brands like that are commercial gear mostly and avigilon and milestone are mostly commercial for lots of cameras, Swann, reolink, etc all cheap home brands
technician14: Dahua, hikvision and provision are what most companies install for homes. Axis, bosch, and other brands like that are commercial gear mostly and avigilon and milestone are mostly commercial for lots of cameras, Swann, reolink, etc all cheap home brands
and the 3 first are all poe camera brands
@technician14, thanks for the reply. much appreciated.
I have Ubiquiti. If you decide to go the self route in my view they are a good option. A lot of haters for EOL that suddenly appears, and people have a point. However for ease of use, and self setup they are much more simple than the mainstream Chinese brands (and less options/parameters accordingly).
We also have a UVC-G4-DoorBell (which I rate) and under the newer Unifi Protect system the whole system works extremely well. Caveats of the Unifi system are price, and I would recommend the dedicated NVR like a UNVR-4 as opposed to a dream machine, thats laggy to use. My original G3 cameras are going fine 5 years+ later
If you are handy enough to plug and setup the system this is a solid option. All you want is the sparky to run Cat6 to the soffits, front door etc, and then your side is rather simple without having to pay someone with security cert to do. Hell you could supply cameras and get the sparky to install the soffit end in (understanding they are not installing the system).
Are you subscribed to our RSS feed? You can download the latest headlines and summaries from our stories directly
to your computer or smartphone by using a feed reader.
