I’m very new to this community, and generally speaking, a novice in home security. I’m very knowledge with smart home technology, and also a video engineer by trade, but I find that what I’m looking for in home security is a middle-ground I don’t know much about.

For context, I’m heavily in the Apple ecosystem, and have a half-dozen Eufy cameras (mostly 1080p, some 4K) around my home. For one reason or another, I’m interested in upgrading one of my cameras, which faces directly at the street, to something that is high quality, can record indefinitely (meaning allowing me 24-hour scrub), and allow me the ability to view the camera’s view with low latency.

My goals are:

• To be able to capture indefinite video of the activity in front of my home, including every car driving by (preferably with the ability to store several days worth of video somewhere so I can review it at leisure).

• Capture high enough quality (in daylight) that I could make out the license plate of the cars driving by, which drive at roughly 20-30 feet in front of the camera’s location.

• Capture high enough quality (at night) to be able to make out the type of vehicle, and as much detail as possible.

• Be alerted when activity occurs in front of my home, including when a car drives by or a person walks by.

The mounting location of the camera allows for me to hardwire it electrically, as well as run any sort of video or networking (I’m presuming that’s HDMI, SDI, or Ethernet) without having to open any walls, given the unfinished garage.

What I was thinking:

My video engineer knowledge pointed me to considering something like a PTZ camera, a decent 4K one. I considered the idea of then mounting this at the desired location, and running a SDI cable into a recorder, such as a Blackmagic Hyperdeck, that could record indefinitely. However, this is where I get stuck. Capturing 4K video is going to require massive amounts of space; do most people only keep a certain amount of footage and go through it constantly to keep only what’s needed? Are there options in the hardwired camera/CCTV space that do most of what I want, without ad-hoc video production equipment as a solution?

Grateful for any and all help in advance!

This is a Vista 20P system that I need help with. In actuality, it is an ADT installed equivalent, but I don’t think this is pertinent to the problem.

In addition to the Vista alarm board, there is a zone expansion module. There are also 2 touchpads. Because of the additional power draw of the expansion module and 2 touchpads, the installer put in a second transformer and battery for these 3 items. Pretty standard stuff from my research.

The problem is, if the power goes out, the battery for the expansion module and 2 touchpads will drain out first. If the alarm is set, the alarm will go off because it is detecting a tamper fault on the expansion module, because it has gone dead due to the dead battery. To make matters worse, I can’t even turn it off because the touchpads are dead too. I end up having to pull the terminals off the batteries to stop it. Mind you, this is happening in the middle of the night with the power off. Fun.

2 possible solutions come to mind.

1. This is wired improperly and the batteries should provide backup to the entire system, not one battery for the main board and the other for the expansion module and touchpads, as it is now.
2. The expansion module needs to be somehow excluded from the tamper circuit.

Any alarm installers out there that can provide some insight?

If there is a better place to ask this question of a Vista 20P expert, please let me know.

I’m looking to stay completely away from WiFi and would like my system to be as reliable as possible. Of course I need cameras and wiring, but where and how do I store video footage? I think I’ll be fine with at least a 1080P setup unless you strongly recommend otherwise.

Hello guys, hoping I could get some advice.

I have an old shitty American ranger system that used to go off, and American ranger wouldn’t help me unless I paid them (it was installed by previous owner/contractor).

During remodeling my closet I pulled out the box, and took a photo of the wiring just in case:

https://ibb.co/cgX9yS9

Now I’m moving over to a smart system that used the existing wiring of my house, however I realize I may have messed up.

Lots of the wires are the same color?

Is there a way to address this when I install the new alarm system.