Best outdoor dome camera?

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stefxx
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Best outdoor dome camera?

Post by stefxx »

Hi,

I am looking for a new outdoor camera for under my porch. What I need is:

- Dome
- Small
- IP
- Pan and tilt
- Motion detection
- Night vision
- Ethernet (no wireless needed)
- Easily integrate with Homeseer/HStouch

What would be an extra bonus:
- White housing
- Some kind of motion detection I/O port
- Zoom
- Cheap :D

Thanks for your suggestions!
gjniewenhuijse
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Re: Best outdoor dome camera?

Post by gjniewenhuijse »

foscam fi9828w
stefxx
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Re: Best outdoor dome camera?

Post by stefxx »

Thanks! I was looking at the Foscam and it really seems to fit most of my needs, but how do I mount this under my porch (it needs to me mounted on the ceiling, not the wall...)?
gjniewenhuijse
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Re: Best outdoor dome camera?

Post by gjniewenhuijse »

Maybe its possible to remount and shorten the wall mount device.
olof
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Re: Best outdoor dome camera?

Post by olof »

Sorry for the long post, but I thought some more information is important here.

- POE. look for a camera with PowerOverEthernet (POE). the Foscam fi9828w does not have it. POE is nice because you only have to run 1 wire to that part of your building instead of 2 (ethernet & power). Routers/ubs with POE ports are cheap these days
- PTZ is a cool function to play with when you are sitting behind the controls. Like a full time security guard or so. But in a home situation, in my humble opinion, it is not a necessary feature. The camera will be operating on its own 99% of the time anyways. And PTZ adds unnecessary costs to the end-price and decreases the longevity of the camera (mechanical moving parts). Given a budget level, I would forego PTZ and increase the quality of the camera and/or IR lights
- Low Light. Most economic priced IP camera´s can show nice pictures/movies during daylight. It is at night where the issues begin. So to me, a very important feature (and end-price cost element..) is the performance of the camera during low light conditions. I do not know this Foscam model, but in the past I have been less than impressed with their low light performance.
- Low light performance is so important because in the end, we want to see a clear face at night (the burglar, the thief, the new boyfriend of your daughter,...). See for example poor Tane´s example from a while ago (his bike got stolen at night...)
domoticaforum.eu/viewtopic.php?f=14& ... ike#p59633
- Without PTZ, you need to decide on the camera lens and where to focus it on. Security guys call this ´choke points´ inside the field of vision. This is the area where facial recognition should be possible. It can be 1 meter from the camera or 10 meters away. But the further away, the higher resolution and stronger IR lights you need..
- Movement sensor. is very important, your NAS can´t record all hours of every day. But outside movement detection is rife with issues. The most stupid things will trigger it, movement of the sun, changing shade conditions, falling leaves, temperature changes,... Typically, the movement sensing in IPcamera´s is pretty basic (for lack of space and/or budget reasons). I suggest that you consider running separate software (on the Homeseer computer, which I do) which can add more sophistication to it. I use, for example, BlueIris.

Perhaps some other brands to look into are Hikvision (becoming very populair with the hobby crowd in the USA this past year), Dahua and Acti.

A nice blog resource to dig into is http://www.networkcameracritic.com who does very, very extensive reviews on many IP camera´s. Here are some examples of this reviews on dome´s
http://www.networkcameracritic.com/?p=2158#more-2158
http://www.networkcameracritic.com/?p=2254#more-2254

good luck!
Olof
kriz83
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Re: Best outdoor dome camera?

Post by kriz83 »

For motion detection, one could wire a PIR sensor to the input of the camera
HomeSeer - PlugWise - RFXComm - Philips Pronto TSU9800/9600/9300
stefxx
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Re: Best outdoor dome camera?

Post by stefxx »

Thanks for your responses. POE would be nice but not necessary. Cabling is not an issue. All the other considerations are very true. I do however have a real need for the pan and tilt, because of the narrow space the camera is in and there are situations I need to adjust the camera to really see what is going on. Alternatively I should hang two cameras...

Coincidentally I recently looked at some reviews of the HIK cameras and they do look very nice. I do have some more reading to do. Thanks again guys!
olof
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Re: Best outdoor dome camera?

Post by olof »

Please let us know which camera you decided to go with and why.

good luck!
olof
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Re: Best outdoor dome camera?

Post by olof »

There's a new candidate for small outdoor dome camera

Dahua IPC-HDBW2200E
http://www.networkcameracritic.com/?p=2418

Price in US is only USD 130,-..
vincenttor
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Re: Best outdoor dome camera?

Post by vincenttor »

That is no cam with PTZ,

and if you still like to use 1 cable you can always choose for the poor mans POE
Use the wires in the network cable that are not used and normally used with POE, open the cable , clamp a plug on it and leave the i believe blue and brown wires out of it and use these to power whatever you device is.
DrDoo
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Re: Best outdoor dome camera?

Post by DrDoo »

Look at Hikvision (And Dahua too).
kriz83
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Re: Best outdoor dome camera?

Post by kriz83 »

Does someone have experience with GigaMedia cameras ?
HomeSeer - PlugWise - RFXComm - Philips Pronto TSU9800/9600/9300
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