We are soon to have an exciting power-over-Ethernet (PoE) switch. I need to run a Cat 5e wire (the punchdown block is Cat 5e so we’re sticking with old tech) out to the edge of the back yard to support a TP-Link Omada outdoor wireless access point (example). We have a Synology NAS, which can support IP cameras. I was thinking that it would make sense to run a second Cat 5e wire to support an IP camera to keep watch over the back yard.
In the unusual event that an actual bad person shows up (not to say “bad guy” because criminals may come in a rainbow of gender IDs), a camera that moves to follow them and turns on some little spotlights might scare them away. The Reolink RCL-823A seems to do all of this and Reolink cameras are purportedly compatible with Synology. The Amazon reviews are mixed, especially with respect to the auto tracking.
What else is there that might work, other than leaving a ferocious golden retriever to patrol the yard at night?
I say go for quantity (low priced, quite capable, get a handful): https://www.wyze.com/ They also sell more of a security system as well as a camera floodlight (so that may do what you want). They are VERY RELIABLE. You can put a microSD card in the cameras if you want continuous recording (rather than event-based). These folks started making cameras for iSmartAlarm (a Kickstarter project originally, now defunct), but quickly realized they had a goldmine, but I think they price them a bit too low (but am happy to take advantage of that).
Thanks, Paul, for the suggestion. I can see only one outdoor camera on their site and it doesn’t seem to be powered by PoE. https://www.wyze.com/products/wyze-cam-outdoor
After looking at all these, I decided that I just don’t have enough time for setup and management of custom camera integration, Synology, etc and I wanted cloud support anyway.
At the end of the day I settled on Google (Nest) doorbells and cameras (and locks) – for annual fee they store shitload of video in the cloud. Overall OK. Power supplies are finicky and some of the cameras don’t always come back after power failure. I had to switch to the low res upload because bunch of cameras consumed close to 1TB upload bandwidths a month, lol.
If you thought configuring three dozen carrier-class Cisco media switches was challenging that’s only because you have never tried to configure a Synology home NAS. There is a whole universe of possibilities for the stuff that the Synology can do, but every step is painful and leads to tons of error messages, e.g., “there is no team directory” when you’re trying to back up a single PC to the NAS.
One of the reasons I decided not to install custom camera setup is because I have Synology NAS 😂
But configuring it beats custom Linux box any day. I tried to deploy NAS on Linux, and it was slow. Finally I got to the step “recompile kernel with driver for your network card” and said “fuck it”.
It sounds like a good idea as long as the motion detection that trips the lights isn’t dodgy and either over/under sensitive, easily triggered by other things in the surroundings, etc. You may have to experiment with location. A couple my NJ friends have set up similar systems and had them triggered by deer and other critters, which are fun to watch on the cameras but not so much fun late at night.
I haven’t set up a high-tech system but used to have some good old Radio Shack equipment incl. motion sensors and some microswitches (on the door and window) wired to a light and a LOUD alarm (which would sound for 30 seconds and then switch itself off) that I temporarily fitted in one of the garages I rented in a big city, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It was protecting my Audi and a motorcycle. It worked very well and only went off “accidentally” once, when a guy backed up his car too far into the vestigial driveway and bumped the door of the garage, triggering the system.
Good luck in your search and BTW: Florida is a “Stand Your Ground” state inside your home. You are not required to flee an armed attacker inside your home (as you are in Massachusetts, until you have no place to go.) I hope you never have that problem, but if you do, I’m sure you can find someone in Florida who will give you good advice regarding home defense and concealed carry.
https://www.orlandodefense.com/castle-doctrine-florida/
When standing your ground don’t forget about gun control!
Thanks, Alex and TS! So far we haven’t heard about any serious crimes within Abacoa (it is a little too dense for a criminal to work without being observed).
Not exactly what you are looking for, but I have been pretty happy with Ring POE cameras and security system. They require a monthly fee, but if you use their security system, you don’t pay additional fees for the cameras (max $10 or $20 / month). You have to trust Amazon, of course, but I certainly trust them more than Reolink (Chinese) and almost as much as Synology (previous hacks). Dead simple to setup and use. They constantly record and analyze on the device and then push recordings to the cloud (including 4 seconds prior to motion recognition).
Nest for the fee pushes *everything* to the cloud.
SK, Nest doesn’t do POE so you are limited to Wifi and if it is constantly pushing to the cloud, it would partially saturate Wifi and Internet bandwidth. I’d also assume limited quality if constantly streaming to the cloud.
One additional benefit that I see with the Ring ecosystem is that the powered Wifi cameras and doorbell are only using bandwidth when motion is detect (via video processing rather than infrared), so you don’t have to worry too much about the bandwidth that Wifi cameras are using. Battery cameras use infrared motion detection; I’d avoid those if possible.
Marcus: From what I can tell, the only Ring product that is PoE is Stick Up Cam Elite with PoE adapter: https://ring.com/products/stick-up-security-camera-elite-poe
Is that what you’re using? I don’t see it scaring off the bad folks (in a range of gender IDs) like the moving Reolink! (and maybe it is a good thing that folks in Beijing will be watching our back yard!)
I am sure that the Chinese have no interest in your yard or anyone else’s in the US. They just have a habit of spending minimal money on software and security, so your camera might end up as part of a bot-net sometime in the future, or maybe they hope they end up in top secret manufacturing facilities.
Ring previously offered a lower priced PoE camera, but I think the Elite is the only one left. The PoE adapter that is included injects power into the line. If you have a PoE switch, you do not need the adapter.
I have tried various PTZ cameras over the years. I am sure the tracking is much better than before, but it generally didn’t work well for me in the past. It might be good if you are trying to scare someone away, but you would probably do just as well with a flood camera. The advantage with the Ring flood cameras are several:
– They offer plug in and hardwired options (if I remember correctly). The plug in version has long cord so it is easy to wire.
– You can assign zones that enable the lights.
– Since the process on camera, you are not using up Wifi bandwidth. This allows the camera to record and process higher resolution. If you have high enough resolution and a wide (and fast) enough lens, you don’t need PTZ, other than to scare away Florida Man with your giant robot surveillance devices.
Finally, I don’t love the idea of Synology because it is made to work with lots of different cameras so I would assume that it works with individual cameras poorly (do cameras auto-update, etc). If trying to avoid cloud devices, I would prefer an all-in-one solution from a reputable US based company.
BTW, Ring is not perfect; I don’t love the app. And there is a delay accessing recent video while it uploads to the cloud. You can access the live camera feed relatively quickly.
Little spotlights won’t do. The Greenspun compound needs at least some lasers, surface to air missiles, & booby traps, POE & Wifi compliant of course.
Amazon blink for low cost solution. Minimal setup and decent motion detection capabilities.
Anon: Thanks for the idea, but it looks like it is WiFi and battery-powered. I.e., the very opposite of PoE!
Yes for both, missed PoE part 🙁 If you ok with Wifi part though, the battery life is very long.
I’m curious, why do you want to install security cameras? Did you had them back in your beloved righteous state of Maskachusetts? If this is for protection, so there is no break-in, have you considered looking into ADP or similar services? Installing security cameras will not alert you or dispatch cops in the event of an incident.
George: We had Ring cameras back in Maskachusetts, but no PoE. Our house in Florida actually already came with an ADT system. Mostly I want to put one in because we will already have the wire and the Synology. I don’t expect civilization to collapse in Jupiter (some neighborhoods in West Palm Beach, maybe!).
Get an ONVIF compliant camera. It’s a standard, so it won’t get unsupported or crippled, unlike cloud cameras where you are at the mercy of the provider and they can change the terms or functionality whenever you want. You can also replace your NVR software if you don’t like it or if technology improves (e.g. GPU-accelerated computer vision).
Canon (who also own AXIS) and Bosch make good cameras with excellent low-light capabilities and most are PoE capable. Whatever you do, put them in their own segregated VLAN with only the NVR accessible from outside.
Fazal: Can you please explain why the one camera needs to be in its own VLAN? And what does that mean for the Synology? Will we need to use the second RJ45 jack on the back of the Synology?
You want all the cameras to be in a separate camera-only VLAN with no access to and from the Internet. Like all Internet of Things devices, they are rife with security vulnerabilities and some of the Chinese ones (Hikvision IIRC) have been caught setting up P2P networks to the outside for no defensible reason. A local-only VLAN precludes that. It also protects you from someone outside unplugging your camera, jacking into the network and doing who knows what inside.
You then want your Network Video Recorder (NVR) to be in that VLAN so it can talk to the cameras, but also on another VLAN like your default home network so that you can access it from home or from the outside, and that would be the way you access the footage and cameras, not directly.
I don’t have any personal experience with Synology but supposedly they support ONVIF, so you could use your Synology as a NVR, and in fact they have specific models that are marketed primarilly for this purpose, along with an accessory that acts as a proxy for real-time monitoring of the cameras.
I have no idea how complex setting this up is, but it might make sense to engage a VAR or security camera specialist to do the configuration for you. Alternatively just convert an old PC into a NVR machine and install the (usually Windows) software to do that. Most PCs made in the last 10 years have enough grunt to record, but doing actual video analysis would require a faster CPU and possibly a GPU.
Regarding the dual VLAN setup, using both Ethernets should certainly work, but apparently Synology has support for IEEE 802.1q, the standard that allows sending multiple VLANs over a single Ethernet connection.
Essentially packets are wrapped in a “Q” encapsulation packet that holds the VLAN number of each packet, and the device on the other end unpacks that and sends it on the appropriate VLAN. 802.1q links (“trunks” in networking parlance) are used to interconnect switches so multiple VLANs can be bridged on a single trunk, and most advanced server operating systems can also do this if you set up the switch port to be a trunk rather than a regular client port.
There is a quasi religious belief that some Chinese made cameras have a malicious piece of software that can access your home network and transfer harvested data to the Chinese KGB. For that reason, many people place cameras and the DVR on a separate VLAN so that they could not access your secret home network.
For that you need of course a VLAN capable switch. The switch ports should be tagged to create multiple (2?) VLANs. I am not sure whether Synology can be accessed o two separate VLANs, the camera VLAN and the disk storage VLAN. I rather think not.
I have a couple of PoE Hikvisions (Chinese made cameras) that have served reliably for at least 5 years in two different houses. Originally, in a bout of paranoia, I placed them on a separate VLAN including the DVR. However, after the lightning had killed my VLAN capable switch, I did not bother doing it again.
I hate VLANs. A smart switch is just another thing that requires me to remember a password, user interface, and settings (and potential security problem). I’d much prefer a single dumb switch device that had two separate switches built in (with one power cord). Of course mix in PoE and I am imagining an impossible product. So two dumb switches is preferable to one smart one. But two separate networks in a home also seems like a pain relative to user friendly cloud enabled devices on net.
Philip, let us know what you decide.
I have several wired IP cameras, and the most recent purchase, a Ezviz C3X unit with special features for low light operation is way better than any of the others (Hikvision and Dahua)
This has dual color and mono cameras, combined via “AI”. Renders color nicely at night. AI motion detection can trigger voice responses but is prone to false positives – I turned that feature off. You can leave a tablet running the iVMS-4500 app to show the camera (or multiple cameras) image in the house. Can also record to an internal microSD card.
https://www.ezviz.com/us/product/C3X/21693
Circling back to this article. what did you end up getting?
I got the Reolink camera described in the original post. It worked out of the box and its app works. So far, however, I haven’t figured out if it can actually swivel to follow a person whose motion it has detected. It can be set to “patrol” and move from place to place on a timer. It will light up if it sees motion. It will record video if it sees motion. But my dream of a moving camera in response to motion has not been realized.
The Synology software is a nightmare compared to the Chinese-built software in the Reolink. The interface for connecting the disk array to the camera is terrible and confusing. The clips that are stored can’t be viewed within the Synology web client. You need to download a separate Windows program to look at them. Then, of course, I couldn’t connect this Windows program to the Synology. I need to block out a few hours to be on the phone with Synology to get that all sorted out.
I’m sure that the Reolink would work great if you paid for their cloud storage.
It’s not easy to find a decent piece of DVR software to record cameras. I went through several free/paid options none of which was entirely satisfactory: meaning minimum configuration and maintenance. Neither Synology nor QNAP both of which I owned at different times were any good.
I ended up using a little known piece of video management software, XPROTECT ESSENTIAL+, that has both professional and free versions. The free version supports up to eight cameras:
https://www.milestonesys.com/solutions/platform/video-management-software/xprotect-essential/
I have used the VMS for at least 5 years without any issues, but certainly individual experience may vary. It has a very good mobile client that you can install on your phone and access the recording server when you travel. It does require a Window box which may be a turnoff for other platform’s zealots. I run the software on an old Windows laptop without any issues.