Monday, December 9, 2019

Answer to: I just want a decent system

The problem

Decent is pretty subjective. Kind of like asking what is the best way to get to work. You'll get answers from ride a bike to only a Karlmann King will get you there. Not only is it subjective relative to what they need and can afford it is subjective relative what they have actually tried model wise and using the resulting video. As one installer put it "I have to explain to my clients that if you have only ever ridden a horse and someone gives you a small compact car, you are gonna think it's awesome purely because you don't know you can get a Range Rover or a Truck for the same money."

But you still just want something for outdoors

If you just want to get 4 outdoor cams to cover the yard around your rectangular house you could start with this 4 4MP cam bundle from Reolink though I think it was like $50 cheaper last week. Still $341 is not bad to get you started. You can reuse the cams later with about any NVR. They are pretty decent for the money. And the NVR is speced for 8 cams so will probably cover you unless you need more features or go nuts buying cams like me. (60 cams as of this writing on 4 serversNote though you might have a time getting non Reolink cams to work with it.

Better yet if you have a PC not doing much,  get the Reolink RLC-420 cams and a copy of Blue Iris. Note however Blue Iris 5 seems to have developed issues with some cams (including Reolinks) that Blue Iris 4 does not have.

But you still just want something for indoors

Now if you are looking indoors and wireless get some Wyze cams. Pretty much a toss if you want to upgrade later but you are talking about $100 for 4 plus some SD card you can probably reuse if need be. And they come in handy for monitoring things where you want a temp setup or need to get something in place quick. But you read this about the issues with wireless.

On the other hand a bit of research could save you time and money 

The above setups will help you get a feel for the low end. But if you want to do the research up front to get the most bang for your buck you can start reading my post "What is the best camera for X?" to sort what specs you need to be looking for the match what you want to monitor.

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