POE outdoor camera - limited choices?
I am looking for a decent POE camera for around my home. These cameras would go under eaves around the house, with SS for the software.
Yet, when I search for this on this site on the helpcameralist page, it shows just about 10 cameras (under $200).
That seems limited.
Would I be better off just avoiding POE? I am looking for simplicity in setup and good security.
As for wireless, I am concerned about the security of it (even with a password).
I have an APEX wired/wireless camera, and I tried using it wirelessly, and I found the setup to be a nightmare.
Thanks.
Mac
Yet, when I search for this on this site on the helpcameralist page, it shows just about 10 cameras (under $200).
That seems limited.
Would I be better off just avoiding POE? I am looking for simplicity in setup and good security.
As for wireless, I am concerned about the security of it (even with a password).
I have an APEX wired/wireless camera, and I tried using it wirelessly, and I found the setup to be a nightmare.
Thanks.
Mac
Comments
Wired PoE is definitely the way to go here. As well as your security concerns, wireless won't give you the same reliability and performance as you will achieve with a wired solution.
Your choice of cameras is mainly limited by your budget requirement (if you do another search on our list for a high-res outdoor PoE camera, without specifying a price, there are loads).
In your price range I would recommend the Dahua Technology IPC-HFW2100 or the (slightly more expensive) IPC-HFW3200S. They are both high-quality cameras that will give you a very effective video surveillance system.
Hope this helps.
When I searched in the $300 and below range (for POE Bullet), and then compared some of those between $200 and $300 on amazon, I saw that some of the more expensive ones were (on amazon) actually half the estimated price on your site. This puts them in the 100-200 range for actual cost.
Like the:
Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I and the IPC-HFW3200S. The first is $125 on amazon, and the other is $150.
Which would you recommend?
Thanks.
Personally I like the IPC-HFW3200S as I've had direct experience of it myself and I know it works very well. However we do have many customers successfully using Hikvision cameras too.
I'm not complaining about the price variations. Your list is still very helpful, Ben.
best,
Mac
It is a little cheaper than the 3200S 2MP on amazon, but the specs seem to be the same (with a higher resolution), but it's hard to tell.
Have you used this one?
Thanks.
Mac
I have an older indoor Axis camera.
I noticed that the Axis P1405-E (outdoor POE) is not on your list now.
Can you tell me why that camera doesn't work with SS?
Thanks.
Mac
Though we haven't tested the Dahua IPC-HFW4300S specifically, all Dahua cameras that we have so far come across have a very consistent API and work well with SecuritySpy, so I would be extremely surprised if this one were any different. If that's the one that you think will work best for you then go for it.
As for Axis - all Axis cameras are compatible with SecuritySpy. It's simply that the P14 series is very new and hasn't made it on to our list yet. I'll make sure to add it.
The axis P14 series turns out to be way out of my range.
Even their bottom of the line series (M11) is very expensive.
John
Rather annoyingly, the Dahua cameras seems to come preset with fixed IP addresses. It would be much better if all cameras were set to DHCP by default, with a fallback to a fixed IP, which would make them much easier to set up as they would then automatically get a IP address from the DHCP server (i.e. the router) and be visible on the network immediately.
The default IP your camera uses appears to be 192.168.1.108 (and the default username/password is admin/admin).
So what you will need to do is temporarily set your Mac to use an IP on the same subnet as the camera (for example, 192.168.1.109 - the first three numbers have to be the same and the fourth different), and then you will be able to access the camera at 192.168.1.108 using a web browser. You then set the camera to use an IP address on the same subnet as your network, reset your Mac's IP settings, and then the camera is visible to your network. This is described in our setup instructions for network cameras, under the heading "Cameras with a fixed address by default".
that worked. I can see all six cameras on Security Spy now.
John