This is to record my parked car in front of my detached garage. I don’t want to worry about batteries since it would be near an indoor outlet that I can run a cable to. I don’t want to purchase an additional recording box, so wifi or SD card recording would be great. Any recommendations?

So I’m a newbie, input up and number of Alexa/Tuya capable cameras around my house.

I don’t have an Alexa Show and I’m looking at other options to view the cameras.

What do you guys recommend? I’ve got a number of large computer monitors etc as well as a few old callphones, but I’m not sure if these are of any use.

I’m wanting a largeish screen that I can monitor the cameras on, without having to go to the expense of a large Alexa Show.

Has anyone done anything similar to what I’m trying to acheive, or so I just bite the bullet and get the Alexa…which isn’t cheap here.

If anyone’s done anything as a cheaper option could the let me know and explain it to me like I’m 5 as I’m not overly literate in all this kind of stuff.

Please no hate, I’m learning here and wanting to protect my family on the budget I’ve available.

Thanks.

TL:DR: I feel like the $70 (+tax) I’m paying is pricey for the features I need (FTP, good human sensing motion alerts/recording, NO subscription fees for alerts, and preferably some option for remote playback, PT, good audio). Looking for another camera that has the fairly slick and working features of the Reolink, but perhaps a lower price point?

I know $70 isn’t a ton of money, but I already went from $50 to $70 for just the FTP feature, and I feel like I’m losing other features (better fps) while the other features the Zoom comes with just don’t seem to work that great (namely the zoom).

Currently I’m using it as a stand alone camera, but may eventually (i.e. probably 1-2 years) use it with some linux or PC based recording software (Blue Iris, Frigate, etc).

So I tried a Reolink E1 Pro…

For the most part I was happy with it. Image quality was good and for the most part I liked the software (although improvements could be made). My biggest issues were the audio (though this isn’t a huge requirement for me) and the inability to store the data to an FTP or other local server.

This was problematic because in my scenario I want to set the camera up to be very sensitive to human motion (get anyone being tricky) and in doing so it would also capture lighting changes, etc. The Reolink software is actually decent here in that you can set the sensitivity very high but tell it you only want alerts/recording for “people” motion. This did serve to cut out most of the false positives. The problem is that the E1 Pro only supports this feature to SD card. You can use the PC client to capture “all” motion events, but they don’t allow to filter based only on human motion.

Because of this I switched to the E1 Zoom. This was advertised as a higher tier model as it was 5MP instead of 4MP and most importantly supports FTP upload, which also supports the “people” motion filter. This now meets my needs (in theory at least, I’m still testing it).

However, I am a bit disappointed that the E1 Zoom hid a little fact that it only supports 20fps as opposed to the Pro which actually supported 25. Additionally, the “zoom” feature is mostly worthless (for several reasons, including Reolink’s tracking AI is buggy, and the speed and focus lock of the zoom seems really slow). The audio also doesn’t seem any better.

I am paying like $75 for this camera, and I feel the real reason I’m spending it is to get the FTP upload feature which isn’t available in the other E1 models. I don’t need the zoom.
I also, for my current usage don’t really need the P/T features either, though I feel I may want them in the future. The 2K resolution is also nice, but wondering if I wouldn’t be better suited for just 1080p and a higher fps.

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So… suggestions for something that has reolink type features but maybe does my prime ones better? And hopefully at a better price point?

I have a bunch of questions and am hoping someone can point me in the right direction.
I am looking to install about 2 to 4 outside cameras around the house.

I have a Synology 4 bay NAS DiskStation DS920+ but I use this as a PLEX Server at the moment.

In the name of security, it probably would be a bad idea to combine a Plex server and camera storage in the same location but I might have to depending on costs at the moment. Has anyone done that?
How much storage does this need that anyone has found for a few days of storage? Any hindrance on network?

I know POE cameras are great, and should be probably used but I just don’t necessarily want to run cables all over the place which would require a ton of cabling or drilling through a few walls and a floor. So, I was considering a wireless camera for outdoor use. Anyone use a Wireless camera with Solar panel for power that will connect to the NAS for storage? I haven’t really found much in terms of Googling.

IF this is a bad option to go and I should just bite the bullet and go with POE cameras, Is there potentially an easier way without running tons and tons of cable? or should I just hire an installer?

Note: I’m absolutely clueless to terminology or tech so forgive me please.

I know we have amcrest cameras, currently 3 plus the doorbell (so four I guess) hooked up to NVR. Recently the video whether live or playback is basically unusable because it keeps freezing and playing after just one second. Then it plays another second or sometimes a couple and then freezes. This is while viewing on the computer and on the amcrest mobile app.

We put thought about getting that blue iris software, but I’m unsure if that’s anything that would help this issue at all.

It’s extremely frustrating especially now because I need to make a police report and I can’t save a smooth video of the incident which makes hearing/understanding the audio impossible and it’s necessary for the complaint.

Aside from that urgency, we still need to resolve the issue and I don’t know where to start so if anyone has ideas it’s appreciated. When I Google I do find some info on similar issues but I can’t understand anything because it’s all written for someone with an ounce of knowledge in this. I’m willing to learn but I need to start at toddler level.

I am using a four-piece NVR wireless security system that functions exceptionally well. you only need to power the cameras with DC and wirelessly, connecting to the NVR. Now, I’m interested in expanding the system to include a camera at my gate, which is approximately 350 feet away from the NVR box. Although the provided antennas are not sufficient to cover that distance, I have a large, long-range 4G/LTE omni-directional antenna. I’m wondering if it would be possible to connect this antenna to the camera for improved signal strength?