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The Full Buyer’s Guide For Home Security CCTVs

It’s a minefield out there. The number of security systems out there is ridiculous. With basic information regarding choosing a system to assist you, you have enough information to make a well-educated choice, so you don’t get any unexpected surprises when you purchase the system now.

 

Crucial Features Of A CCTV

Resolution

First of all, let’s begin with some general information, which probably applies to most cameras out there. So first of all, let’s start with resolution. So in terms of resolution, you’ve got 720p 1080p, and 4k, but an important value to take into consideration is the megapixel value.

Now some systems don’t actually highlight that it’s worth actually reaching out to the manufacturer and asking them what the megapixel value is in general, I’ve found most cameras have one to two megapixels and mostly they’re two megapixels. Even though it says 1080p picture, the quality might be quite poor only because it might be a one-megapixel camera. For instance, the megapixels in a camera aren’t sufficient enough to guarantee better picture quality.

Image Sensors and Algorithms

Other things to consider are the lenses and image sensors together with image processing algorithms on the camera, so all in conjunction help in improving the picture quality, if you’re after a camera with a zoom facility best to go with one with optical zoom on there is digital zoom will Be reasonable, but not as good as optical with optical.

You can zoom in quite a lot and see quite a bit of detail. So keep that in mind if you’re after that option. The other thing to keep in mind is the microphone and speakers, so some cameras actually have a microphone built in as it’s recording footage.

Audio

It’s also recording the audio that’s going on around. You may not think that’s that useful, but in some scenarios, it can be because some cameras even have the ability to alert you if there are noises of a certain decibel or certain levels and send you a notification that some noise is going on as well as motion Detection, which can be very useful too so as well as microphones, you can also get a speaker as well.

So if you get a speaker, then you can have a two-way audio situation. If the person’s fairly close to the camera, you can have a conversation with them. Now keep in mind the fact that if they’re a fair distance away from the camera, then sound quality may be a little bit poorer.

So you want to have it at a reasonable distance. So if you had your camera, really high up and they’re about three meters or four meters away and you’ve got background noise outside, you may struggle to hear them or they may struggle to hear you but again an option to keep in mind. You may want to speak to them when they’re close to your property or, if you’re inside your house, for instance.

Storage

The next thing is storage, there are a number of different storage options, so many cameras have micro, sd card slots.

You just put a micro sd card in and it records locally. In terms of recording the way it generally works are if it’s a wi-fi camera and you lose wi-fi connectivity, the recording still gets recorded onto the camera and that’s general.

Amongst most of these cameras, then you have a situation where you have a base station and the recordings are made directly onto that. So I can give you an example of that one. So EUFY is a good example that has a base station wireless cameras and the data gets directly recorded onto the base station.

One advantage of that is if the camera gets stolen, then you’ve got no footage if you’ve got the base station. At least it’s recorded on that and the base station would be on your property. Another example of a base station would be a NVR or DVR system.

So that’s where you have a recorder, so that’s a full CCTV system over here and that NVR would be placed in your property as well, and if the cameras get damaged or get stolen, for instance, the footage will all be on there now the thing to be aware Of if your property gets broken into, they can steal the base station or the NVR, so the other option is cloud-based storage.

This is where you have internet connectivity and there’s some storage in the cloud and it gets transferred up into the cloud and you can access it via there now keep in mind. If you have an unstable internet connection, then there’s no point in going for that option.

Only because there could be the potential to lose data. Another thing worth mentioning is compression all the devices when they record use compression algorithms to compress the video data. The general format I found is h.264, that’s quite new these days and it provides a good amount of compression, so you can get more data onto your card or your storage. Another thing worth mentioning is ONVIF, which stands for open network video interface forum, and any cameras that support this.

It gives a generic interface for applications to add in those cameras, so you don’t have to go for the app associated with the camera. You could get a generic app on your phone on your computer, for instance, and you can connect directly to that camera.

All you’ll have to do is enter the ip address, username, and password, and that’s it but be aware. You may not be able to remotely connect via it. You’ll still have to use the software for the camera unless you open up ports on the router, and that may allow you to get around that.

Camera Options: Which One Should I Get

So that’s some basic details to be aware of now. Let’s move on to different camera options there, so you’ve got three types of camera options. The first one is battery-powered, then you’ve got wi-fi and then a fully-fledged CCTV system.

Battery Powered Cameras

Now coming on to the battery side of things, you’ve got a number of options. So, the first one being standalone cameras, standalone cameras. A good example would be the energy camera. I’ve got here, a wi-fi camera x batteries, another one would be Rio link.

They do a couple of cameras which also work off an internal battery for some of them. You can even buy a solar panel to keep that battery charged up, so that’s normally a trickle charge depending on the weather conditions.

If its cloudy sun levels aren’t very high outside it won’t give much of a charge. But if sun levels are high, you can give a general charge to these cameras. Keep in mind the way these cameras work. They have a PIR sensor on them.

What happens when there’s activity PIR sensor then activates the camera to initiate a record. So the cameras are never really on just the sensors on now. There is a slight issue with that: activity happening the first second or half a second may be missed, and that could be the vital moment you’re after a bit of frustration with these cameras.

So if it’s in an area you’re not too bothered by getting the first initial movement that’s been detected, then these cameras are fine. If you are bothered about that, then it could be an issue.

With the base station, you’ve got a Xiaomi one here, links one here, and EUFY. All these systems have a base station and the camera connects to that base station. Does the recording now blinks-wise? I was really impressed by the fact that they actually give free cloud storage, but a disadvantage. if you didn’t want to use cloud storage – and you wanted just local recording for privacy purposes only because this is all being put on the cloud – you don’t know who’s going to have access to it. If you’re concerned about that, be not a good option to go.

For that EUFY’s a good option because it actually has a base station storage on there and it’ll record directly onto there. Now the nice thing about the base station is, it can be put in a location, which is a reasonable distance from the cameras and then the cameras can dump the footage directly onto the base station good option there.

But again because its battery powered the performance will be similar, that the cameras will be in sleep mode and when the PIR detects movement will wake up the camera, when the footage is recorded, porting wise teach will be minimal only because but conserve power here you Can increase the amount of footage that gets recorded but keep in mind that’ll reduce battery life and then you’ll have to charge it up.

That’s the real thing to keep in mind with these battery-powered systems, to factor, if you don’t like things off again and charging them up, not really a good option to go for. But if you wanted, the ease of installation no messing around with any wires is a good option here.

Wi-Fi Cameras

The next one to mention are the wi-fi cameras, these cameras, fire ones, normally 2.4 gigahertz, wi-fi, there’s some next on 5 gigahertz, the only ones I’ve come across so far is the sim cam s1 and the Rio link one here and that’s an outdoor camera comes to recording On these cameras, normally take a micro, sd card and record locally wi-fi signal is disrupted, recording still gets recorded on.

With most of these cameras, I’ve not really noticed it in a situation where, if you lose wi-fi, it doesn’t record anything. The good thing about this gives you a quick solution to get a camera installed and up and running thing to be aware of is power.

These are wired, so you’ll have to have a plug nearby to plug it in, and then obviously keeping this running with the outdoor ones can be a bit of a hassle only because of how many people have outdoor power sources, you may have the cable coming back into Your house, maybe through a window, doesn’t look nice but obviously gives you an easy solution to this now as well as this, you can get a complete CCTV system, which is wi-fi based as well.

They’re pretty good but the thing to be in mind is the range on them, so they have to be near the base station to have the recordings coming if there’s any sort of obstruction or any sort of jammer device.

That signal can be blocked and nothing recorded. I don’t like wi-fi Cctv systems only because of the hassle of having to have a plug nearby to plug this. In I know it’s not a big deal, but still got to keep that in mind.

The other thing is the range from the base station. So if you’ve got walls in the way or any sort of objects, obviously that’s going to restrict the range of the camera to nvr. So the network video recorder is, an easy solution if you find it too tricky to run cables around your property.

Wired Systems

Let’s move on to wired systems, so you’ve got DVR and power over ethernet, so both systems are pretty good, but in terms of ease of setup, I think power over ethernet is much better only because you don’t have to have a plug nearby.

Some of these DVR systems resolution-wise. It’s not too bad a price, wise, they’re, really cheap as well, but what you may have you may have to have a plug nearby, the camera or the cable coming down. You’ll have to have additional plugs nearby.

I don’t really like the idea of that. I prefer using an ethernet cable going directly from the camera to the system and that’s it and only one plug to power. The actual recorder. Now the system you see here that’s from rio link and that’s a 4k system.

Also has a microphone built, so not many systems actually have a microphone built-in and I think it’s a useful functionality to have on a CCTV system. So if you were alerted – and you didn’t see anything good to have the sound, so someone could be breaking glass or making noise there and you can hear what’s going on, and gives you a better indication.

 

Conclusion

I hope this has helped people. I didn’t want to push any particular system here. I just wanted to give some general information about what to expect with these different types of systems details for all these systems.

 

It’s a minefield out there. The number of security systems out there is ridiculous. With basic information regarding choosing a system to assist you, you have enough information to make a well-educated choice, so you don’t get any unexpected surprises when you purchase the system now.   Crucial Features Of A CCTV Resolution First of…

It’s a minefield out there. The number of security systems out there is ridiculous. With basic information regarding choosing a system to assist you, you have enough information to make a well-educated choice, so you don’t get any unexpected surprises when you purchase the system now.   Crucial Features Of A CCTV Resolution First of…