Updated copy/paste for what camera or system should I get.

 While I love Unifi network gear, their cameras seem pricey and feature-limited.

For a doorbell, Reolink worked best for me (over Ring and Hikvision, which make most of the POE ones).

For other cameras, sort the specs to see the details you want in footage. Look for DORI numbers in the specs and ONVIF, or at least RTSP. Note that, as a rule, Reolinks do not have great night vision and offer limited image control. For color night vision, it gets tough. Many cameras, like Tapo, for example, crank down frame rates to brighten the image, which causes ghosting. Best is still Hikvision ColorVus, which will produce cloudy, day-like video if you can make out your hand in front of your face in the target area. Otherwise, if you can't see to walk without a flashlight or the moon, you want a camera that has IR for night vision.

Note: Avoid turning on in-camera lighting as it draws bugs and will white out close objects. Used IR floods or accent light as needed to add illumination.

Tracking is helpful, but it's best as an add-on. You want total area coverage recording 24/7 because no detection is perfect. Note: Reolink has a nice dual-lens tracking camera, but avoid the WiFi model.

NVR-wise, Frigate is free, and a lot of people seem to like it despite the setup pain. I tend to suggest Blue Iris for easy setup while still talking to most cameras and third-party integrations. I'd avoid all standalone NVRs. Especially Reolink's, which sets unknown passwords on the cameras, preventing direct access.

And of course, block all the cameras from the internet and the rest of your network. Preferably, only talking to the NVR PC.

Who is flying overhead?

 Especially since the July 4th flooding. There have been a lot of helicopters in the sky over my neighborhood and a lot of posts on NextDoor and Facebook asking, "Who is up there?" So here is a quick guide to finding out.

Planes and Helicopters

Start off by going to https://www.flightradar24.com/2025-08-05/22:44/20x/30.58,-97.96/14.

Where: 

2025-08-05 is the date you saw the aircraft in year-month-day format.

22:44 is the time you saw it in 24-hour format and the UTC timezone (add 12 hours for PM times and another 5 hours for Central Daylight Time, summer, or 6 hours during Central Standard Time, winter)

20x is the zoom. 20x is a good starting point.

30.58,-97.96 is the GPS to center the map on. (This is my neighborhood.)

14 is the zoom level. 14 is a good start for things overhead. If you are looking closer to the horizon, you will probably want to go to 11, which shows a wider area.

Click the play button to see the animation. It then turns into the pause button.

Once you see a likely aircraft, hit pause. Click on the craft's icon for info about it.

You can then click on "Route" to view the entire flight path.

Entering the tail number (R20045 in this example) in the search probably will return nothing because it is a military helicopter. So I'm using N3010X instead to show what a non-military aircraft would yield.

Clicking on that results gets you the history of its recent flights and basic info.

Sometimes adsbexchange.com has better info, though it is not as user-friendly. The equivalent URL for it would be. 

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?replay=2025-08-05-22:46&lat=30.430&lon=-97.933&zoom=11.0

Clicking on the military helicopter provides a bit more information.

Clicking on FULL DETAILS provides more information.

Drones

Drones are supposed to be using transponders now, too, but I would not count on them. You should see them on FlightAware, but I haven't seen any listed anytime I've looked. There are also apps that seem not to work well, according to reviews, and insanely expensive devices from Air Sentinel and DroneTag. Dedrone will not even disclose the price without contacting a salesperson, which usually means OMG pricing. Going DIY with an SDR dongle seems reasonable unless you are having issues with drones flying without IDs. Plus, that could give you a logging option that many of the others lack.