Home Security - Advice and Recommendations

[johnnytheboy]

Avoid wifi cameras, I have ring and it’s terrible, slow and drops out a lot. £1k wasted!

Get hard wired cameras that have a motion alarm area.

 

[JTO]

A system using a proper mains powered control box with remote arming box and detectors is the way forward.

That's what my Yale system has. No wires anywhere else.

 

[willie_gunn]

Avoid wifi cameras, I have ring and it’s terrible, slow and drops out a lot. £1k wasted!

Get hard wired cameras that have a motion alarm area.

I'm surprised to hear that, but every situation is likely to be different.

I've not used Ring cameras, but the eufy and Dihoom cameras I've bought have proven to be faultless. The latter cost £38 each on Amazon, although they are currently unavailable, so a very cheap option. Very easy to configure, including setting up detection areas and sensitivity, home/away configurations (including turning them on automatically when the mobile phone goes outside of a defined geofence), and timed schedules. I do have fibre-optic broadband, which admittedly might help in terms of reliability.

The Dihoom cameras in the garden pick up every movement, whether that's the dogs nosing around the flower pots or the tawny owl that decided to perch on top of the greenhouse and then give it some! The one in the cupboard sends a notification, literally within seconds of the door being opened, and the detection at both day and night works perfectly. The ones in the garden are now hooked up to solar charging panels, but the indoor one runs on an internal battery that only needs recharging every 3-4 months.

Other than the option to run "permanently on", I'd personally struggle to justify going wired and/or cctv.

 

[wanderer]

Avoid wifi cameras, I have ring and it’s terrible, slow and drops out a lot. £1k wasted!

Get hard wired cameras that have a motion alarm area.

I wouldnt go for ring but i have bought a couple of Tapo cameras on wifi.
These are excellent IMHO and you can set them up in various detection modes and whether and when you want notifications.
Subscription free too, excellent images and around £35 for the ones i have.

I heard on a radio 4 program regarding Ring and similar subscription cameras that after a few years, a bit like phones, they become almost obsolete and require you to "upgrade" to the newer models.

So i wouldnt say to avoid wifi cameras, just pick the right ones.

 

[D3ave]

That's a good point about the fibre opticic broadband, we have had that for 18 months now and the Ring cameras have been faultless, so could it be lack of signal strength in some cases causing problems and the cameras getting the blame.

 

[wytonpjs]

I went with the Ring doorbell as it seemed the thing to do but then started the email bombardment to buy additional elements which, when you looked at the increases in service charge quickly became prohibitive. I had wired CCTV covering the house perimeter but replaced those with Tapo cameras which have been upgraded over the years, not because of reliability but principally because of improved picture quality (4k), APNR, tracking, etc. With a decent sized-memory card in each, there's no need to subscribe to TAPOs's cloud so no ongoing costs. Roughly half of mine are now pan & tilt versions (with pre-sets) so from anywhere in the world I can quickly scan specific areas of "interest". I also run the Tapo plugs, including the one on my chiller which means I can turn it on remotely so that its at temp by the time I return home with the carcass. The cost of these is ridiculously low IMHO and I note that the Eufy range (which seems as good as Tapo) is regularly being offered at a discount in CostCo.