Cheap Chinese cctv - worth it?

Dyson · 3 Jul 2019 at 14:45

Hoping to hear from someone that’s had experience of these sort of items:

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/123807904492

Looking for a cheap way of keeping an eye on my property when at work, or away. These look ok for the job, but wondered if any of you had used one before

Psycho Sonny · 3 Jul 2019 at 15:17

i use yi cameras.

they are good so long as you stick a micro sd in them or buy the cloud recording.

what i do is use micro sd when i'm at work. then when i go on holiday i buy a months worth of cloud recording. so should something happen i have the cloud recording when i'm away.

the issue with cctv is where will the video to be stored. cloud is an expensive monthly or yearly fee. otherwise locally you need a network video recorded or local storage in my case an sd card.

issue with cloud is you need internet. what happens if they cut the broadband or power? well then you are done for.

issue with local storage is what happens if they smash it up / burn it or take it with them?

you ideally want both. so long as you know the pro's and cons.

Dyson · 3 Jul 2019 at 15:26

Thanks for the reply.

We’ve had a spike in home burglaries in our town recently, and I want to make my house as least attractive to them as I can. We already have an alarm system in place, hoping adding a camera or two will also help.

Are the images these cheaper cameras capture good enough? I must try and find some sample footage.

b0rn2sk8 · 3 Jul 2019 at 17:35

Blink cameras are on offer at the min, are they any good? £45 each with a “2 year” battery. No subscription.

Dyson · 3 Jul 2019 at 17:45

b0rn2sk8 said:
Blink cameras are on offer at the min, are they any good? £45 each with a “2 year” battery. No subscription.

Actually looks really good, only thing is that I don’t have Prime which takes it to £100. If it wasn’t so tied in to Alexa I’d probably have taken Prime out just for this!

b0rn2sk8 · 3 Jul 2019 at 18:16

Just sign up for a free trial, buy and then cancel.

thegreysquirrel · 4 Jul 2019 at 14:09

Neos Smarthome cameras are pretty decent depending on what you're after. They're £25 (£20 camera £5 next day postage), record onto an sd card, give you alerts and saves 12 second clips for 14 days free onto the cloud.

Only problem is the 12 second clip is only on motion or sound detection and there's a 5 minute gap between each clip. Cuts down on their storage fees.

I got mine as a makeshift nanny cam/baby monitor so any security benefits are a bonus. Hopefully 12 seconds is enough to get someones face, or they don't steal the camera with the sd card, or I can record from the feed when I get a detection notification.

They're cheap enough to buy a few and dot about (hopefully one of them would get what you needed) but can't be put outside so not much of a "deterrent".

Psycho Sonny · 4 Jul 2019 at 14:18

basically a proper cctv setup costs money to do right. there is no such thing as a proper cheap setup. a cheap set up especially one without a cloud subscription and local storage will be flawed. cloud storage is the killer as it's a monthly / yearly fee.

the best cheap option is to spend £50-£150 each on hikvision cameras. then buy a NVR for £200-£300.

stick the NVR in the loft / attic where it's hard to get to easily.

Adam · 4 Jul 2019 at 14:46

I use the hikvision cameras from aliexpress. Absolutely fantastic and one of the best additions to my home.

Bluecube · 4 Jul 2019 at 15:18

I've bought three SV3C POE cameras from Amazon and hooked them up via a POE switch to a PC running ZoneMinder. The cameras were only £33 each yet seem to be built pretty solidly. They've put up with some pretty torrential rain recently and ploughed on resolutely! ZoneMinder is great but it does need a bit of patience to set up so it works the way you want.