Home security cameras, which company to sell my soul to? (Ubiquiti, Reolink etc...)

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Home security cameras, which company to sell my soul to? (Ubiquiti, Reolink etc...)

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neb

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#3353328 12-Mar-2025 22:39

Feedback so far is that it's pretty good, in particular the in-camera tracking is a night-and-day difference from Frigate driving the Dahua. The latter would often lose track of a person, the Reolink doesn't.

coffeebaron

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#3353383 13-Mar-2025 10:58

I'm another one in the Ubiquiti camp. I've installed quite a few of these on farms and they love the ease of use and smart alerts etc. I've also recent helped install a Ubiquiti gate controller with numberplate recognition for gate opening.

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reven

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#3353397 13-Mar-2025 11:46

I just had my ali express cameras all fail on me, went from 192 network to 10, and well these cameras need Active X to change settings, so eh, pita, im giving up on them. Was using with frigate. I have some Eufy ones which are very much meh. Theyre slow and unreliable.

What I want is

PoE 4k bullet style cameras
PoE 4k turret style cameras
Solar powered outdoor cameras, or mains powered and wifi (I cant run ethernet everywhere)
somethiung I can connect into home assistnat so can show feeds on a dashboard
NVR , rack mountable is huge bonus

I know Unifi does some of those, I know reolink does some of those, but does anything do all of those?

SumnerBoy

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#3353398 13-Mar-2025 11:50

reven:

I just had my ali express cameras all fail on me, went from 192 network to 10, and well these cameras need Active X to change settings, so eh, pita, im giving up on them. Was using with frigate. I have some Eufy ones which are very much meh. Theyre slow and unreliable.

What I want is

PoE 4k bullet style cameras
PoE 4k turret style cameras
Solar powered outdoor cameras, or mains powered and wifi (I cant run ethernet everywhere)
somethiung I can connect into home assistnat so can show feeds on a dashboard
NVR , rack mountable is huge bonus
I know Unifi does some of those, I know reolink does some of those, but does anything do all of those?

Think Unifi does everything except the solar option.

SumnerBoy

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#3353400 13-Mar-2025 12:10

The new alarm manager with custom web hooks is pretty handy for home automation as well. You can get triggers on smart detections which you can feed into HA or NodeRED for doing all sorts of things.

Mehrts

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#3353522 13-Mar-2025 13:42

reven:
...
What I want is

PoE 4k bullet style cameras
PoE 4k turret style cameras
Solar powered outdoor cameras, or mains powered and wifi (I cant run ethernet everywhere)
somethiung I can connect into home assistnat so can show feeds on a dashboard
NVR , rack mountable is huge bonus
I know Unifi does some of those, I know reolink does some of those, but does anything do all of those?

@reven
Out of that list, what doesn't Reolink do? Their cameras can be integrated into Home Assistant.

Metamorphic

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#3354567 17-Mar-2025 11:36

AlDrag:

I currently own a Dream Machine SE. I stupidly bought it as an impulse buy when I purchased a new home, as my coworker has one and raves about it.
I do admit, it's bloody nice and do love the UI, but it's definitely super overkill for my small townhouse.

I have no idea of it will make you feel any different, but I recently purchased a TP-Link 3 in 1 Omada router. Compared to your Ubiquiti, it was one third of the price, which is why I purchased it. I could not justify the significant extra cost in $. That's a win for TP-Link, obviously.

However, after having it for just a few days, there is certainly an extra cost in time. Just getting online was challenging. I already knew the need to add a VLAN tag to connect with Mercury, but what I didn't understand was the need to also check an obscure (to me) checkbox called "802.1Q Tag". Only after checking that would the router receive an IP address from Mercury. After checking that and finally getting online, I updated the router firmware, and lo and behold, that checkbox option has been removed. Maybe it applies it automatically now? If so, it probably should have been applied automatically before as well, which is not a great look for TP-Link.

In the bigger picture, it's easy to find lots of excellent YouTube resources for beginners with Ubiquiti. For instance the YouTuber Ethernet Blueprint has some amazing videos for beginners. For TP-Link I'm finding it considerably more challenging to find beginner oriented videos.

Probably it comes down to the classic case of what is more valuable, your time or money. Running a TP-Link system will likely force me to learn more about networking fundamentals, whether I want to or not.

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AlDrag

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#3354590 17-Mar-2025 13:14

Metamorphic:

I have no idea of it will make you feel any different, but I recently purchased a TP-Link 3 in 1 Omada router. Compared to your Ubiquiti, it was one third of the price, which is why I purchased it. I could not justify the significant extra cost in $. That's a win for TP-Link, obviously.

However, after having it for just a few days, there is certainly an extra cost in time. Just getting online was challenging. I already knew the need to add a VLAN tag to connect with Mercury, but what I didn't understand was the need to also check an obscure (to me) checkbox called "802.1Q Tag". Only after checking that would the router receive an IP address from Mercury. After checking that and finally getting online, I updated the router firmware, and lo and behold, that checkbox option has been removed. Maybe it applies it automatically now? If so, it probably should have been applied automatically before as well, which is not a great look for TP-Link.

In the bigger picture, it's easy to find lots of excellent YouTube resources for beginners with Ubiquiti. For instance the YouTuber Ethernet Blueprint has some amazing videos for beginners. For TP-Link I'm finding it considerably more challenging to find beginner oriented videos.

Probably it comes down to the classic case of what is more valuable, your time or money. Running a TP-Link system will likely force me to learn more about networking fundamentals, whether I want to or not.

To be fair though, in my situation, I mostly just need to do a bit of port forwarding, maybe a VPN in the future, and that's basically it. The router will mostly sit there indefinitely without any configuration change. The usage stats etc from Ubiquiti is really cool, but I don't really care about it that much because I never look at it...
The Omada does seem like a great alternative. So much cheaper. Whether they continually support it with security updates is a different story, but I personally think in a residential setting, it matters less...touch wood.

Metamorphic

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#3354685 17-Mar-2025 20:53

AlDrag:

To be fair though, in my situation, I mostly just need to do a bit of port forwarding, maybe a VPN in the future, and that's basically it.

You are not planning on using the VLAN functionality?

AlDrag

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#3354687 17-Mar-2025 20:56

Metamorphic:

You are not planning on using the VLAN functionality?

Yea probably. Especially if I start getting things such as Shellys. But even then, I'm aware of the risks and not worried about it too much in a residential setting.

Plus I assume a lot of cheaper alternatives have VLAN functionality.

reven

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#3357116 25-Mar-2025 09:46

Went with unifi, just way better software than reolink. Just saw the G6 bullet/turret announced today (nearly bought 3 g5s yesterday, glad I didnt). Anyone have any clue when they will be available in NZ?

LostBoyNZ

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#3357170 25-Mar-2025 10:27

reven:

Went with unifi, just way better software than reolink. Just saw the G6 bullet/turret announced today (nearly bought 3 g5s yesterday, glad I didnt). Anyone have any clue when they will be available in NZ?

I usually find Paradigm PCs ( https://www.pp.co.nz ) and Go Wireless NZ ( https://www.gowifi.co.nz ) are pretty good at getting Unifi stock in quickly. It's probably good to send them an email to see if they have an ETA on the G6 cameras.

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AlDrag

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#3357332 25-Mar-2025 18:04

I'm still waiting for my G5 black turret ultra from Pbtech...as it's out of stock. They estimate 27th of may, but doubt.

The G6 Turret would be perfect!!! But I assume it'll be about $600 knowing NZ....

Edit: maybe it'll be around $450.

lxsw20

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#3357343 25-Mar-2025 19:42

I got my Black G5 turret from Amazon AU. Was $207 to my door.

AlDrag

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#3357346 25-Mar-2025 19:50

lxsw20:

I got my Black G5 turret from Amazon AU. Was $207 to my door.

I ordered that before, but it came already open with dust all over it, so I returned it haha. Was just bad luck though.

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