Eufy CCTV

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My wife wants us to install some CCTV not overly interested in a alarm etc. We have come to the conclusion that we want two cameras one at front of the house that would allow us to monitor the cars etc. one on the rear to cover the garden and she also wants a camera door bell system.

Looking what is available I am keen on the Eufy system over some of the others. Anyone on here got any feedback on these?
 
I've got the Eufy indoor 2k pan & tilt camera that I point out of the windows and they work great, with the night mode turned ofd. I expect the outdoor ones would work better if you're looking for those types.

The only issue I have with them is even though they record to an SD card locally, they don't record if you lose Internet access. This might not be an issue for most people but we've started turning stuff off at night and during the day when it's not required and the cameras are useless without the Internet.
 
Why not have a look/post in the main CCTV discussion thread?


I looked at various CCTV options from Arlo, Blink and Eufy as well as others for my parents bungalow, but it comes down to one simple question: When is it OK for your CCTV system not to record? Personally it isn’t ideally. So anything that needs a battery to be charged or relies on Wi-Fi, or a working router/internet connection to function or stores it’s data on an SD card isn’t acceptable. That’s not to say they won’t suit you, but I absolutely do not want to be in a position where something happens and the cameras I installed aren’t working.

With that in mind, I went hard wired PoE cameras and a dedicated NVR with a UPS to smooth out any power cuts. It’s not the cheapest option, but no ongoing subscription costs and less chance of it not working when it’s needed. In terms of the specifics I was recommended Hikvision or Dahura and chose the Hickvision ColorVu 4mp range with two way audio, as the low light colour reproduction is very good and the cameras can be picked up for circa £80 each if you are willing to accept EU stock (instead of clicking ‘Update firmware’ on the UI, you have to manually download it, put it on a flash drive and then plug it into the NVR and select the file), the 7600 series NVR’s aren’t exactly high end (if you go this route, make sure it’s at least a ‘B’ revision so it’ll run current v4 firmware), but they do all the basic stuff with zones and line crossing well along with push notifications and reasonable app with a decent track record of ongoing support unlike systems such as Swan etc. In the first four days the property was left unoccupied we had three incidents of trespass, it turns out one of the neighbours was walking his dog in the grounds and rummaging through the bins.

Either way choose the compromises you are willing to make carefully, the less intervention required to keep them running, the better.
 
Echoing above, happy with my Eufy cams. I have the 2k pan and tilt indoors to keep an eye on the dog, a 2k wireless doorbell and one of the newer solar cameras on the garage looking down the drive. Had no issues with any of them - been super impressed with the solar one, battery had no issues getting through winter, though it is south facing but between two houses so only gets a few hours if sunlight a day. Good products to be honest.
 
I use blink but have a grandfathered account so don't pay subscription fees, the doorbell finally landed on Amazon today so I just ordered one, been waiting for it for years. i have a camera on the patio, garage and kitchen side door, 2 of the cameras are 3 years old this year and have never had their batteries changed but they are scheduled for night time use only, I also have an indoor camera to keep an eye on the dog but that's not on a schedule just use it to check on home when we're out

They never set off false alarms but that's because I've set them up correctly which took some effort, previously cats would set them off but I've not had an issue with this for for a long time

If you put your phone on do not disturb at night you can bypass this in notifications for the app for motion events which is great

I don't use IVR at night, I have cheap solar powered motion lights that assist the cameras and this works well when the light and camera detects motion

Hope that helps in some way, looking forward to the doorbell arriving so I can mess around with it and get rid of my cheap wireless doorbell
 
I have Eufy Pro cameras on the front of the house, both with the optional solar panel seem to work well, same for the doorbell.

Spent the time creating the motion detection zones, and rarely get false positives now.
 
I've got the door bell and 2 cams, one for the garden the other for the garage, they're great. Only thing that'd potentially put you off is is there's a lack of internet then I think it's not possible to get any recordings.
 
Eufy works well for us. We've got the 2C cams that record to the base station and to my NAS.

Need charging twice a year, not a problem compared to the hassle of running cables.
 
Eufy works well for us. We've got the 2C cams that record to the base station and to my NAS.

Need charging twice a year, not a problem compared to the hassle of running cables.

I have to ask, how is having to retrieve a camera to sort the battery twice a year not a hassle, but spending 20-30 minutes cabling in a PoE camera properly, that you don’t need to touch again a hassle? I can see an argument for less destructive install on a listed building or a rented property, but beyond that using batteries is something best left to TV remotes, children’s toys or a trail cam. I’m glad it works for you, but it’s something anyone considering installing probably needs to give some thought to before going either way along with the recording limitations of Eufy. What’s right for me clearly wasn’t right for you in your opinion, neither may be right for op.
 
I have to ask, how is having to retrieve a camera to sort the battery twice a year not a hassle, but spending 20-30 minutes cabling in a PoE camera properly, that you don’t need to touch again a hassle? I can see an argument for less destructive install on a listed building or a rented property, but beyond that using batteries is something best left to TV remotes, children’s toys or a trail cam. I’m glad it works for you, but it’s something anyone considering installing probably needs to give some thought to before going either way along with the recording limitations of Eufy. What’s right for me clearly wasn’t right for you in your opinion, neither may be right for op.
Charging is easy, just hook up to a battery bank, don't have to even take the camera down.

Issue with running cables is (I have no prev experience mind you):

- no idea how to get a cable to the front door easily
- no power socket in the loft so would need an electrician in
- no existing cabling round the house to hook up to a NAS/NVR
- would need a PoE switch/be able to terminate cables/hole saw/cable fishing wires
- it doesn't sound like a 20-30 minute job

Eufy is by no means the best for everyone but I could install it myself easily and it works well for our purposes.
 
I use blink but have a grandfathered account so don't pay subscription fees, the doorbell finally landed on Amazon today so I just ordered one, been waiting for it for years. i have a camera on the patio, garage and kitchen side door, 2 of the cameras are 3 years old this year and have never had their batteries changed but they are scheduled for night time use only, I also have an indoor camera to keep an eye on the dog but that's not on a schedule just use it to check on home when we're out

They never set off false alarms but that's because I've set them up correctly which took some effort, previously cats would set them off but I've not had an issue with this for for a long time

If you put your phone on do not disturb at night you can bypass this in notifications for the app for motion events which is great

I don't use IVR at night, I have cheap solar powered motion lights that assist the cameras and this works well when the light and camera detects motion

Hope that helps in some way, looking forward to the doorbell arriving so I can mess around with it and get rid of my cheap wireless doorbell

I also have a blink system - have two camera's attached to blink solar panels with the sync module and have just fitted the new doorbell yesterday.

Also do not pay any subscription fees.

Have only had to replace one set of batteries in the two years I have had them and I use IVR at night and also have a couple of Mr Beams security lights.

New doorbell seems to be working well - have just added it to Alexa as an additional door bell chime.
 
I have to ask, how is having to retrieve a camera to sort the battery twice a year not a hassle, but spending 20-30 minutes cabling in a PoE camera properly, that you don’t need to touch again a hassle? I can see an argument for less destructive install on a listed building or a rented property, but beyond that using batteries is something best left to TV remotes, children’s toys or a trail cam. I’m glad it works for you, but it’s something anyone considering installing probably needs to give some thought to before going either way along with the recording limitations of Eufy. What’s right for me clearly wasn’t right for you in your opinion, neither may be right for op.
20-30 minutes, do me a favour.

Batteries can be an arse but let's be realistic about the time investment of a CCTV setup in most applications. Cabling is never as quick and easy as you think, assuming you care at all about finish and visual impact.
 
20-30 minutes, do me a favour.

Batteries can be an arse but let's be realistic about the time investment of a CCTV setup in most applications. Cabling is never as quick and easy as you think, assuming you care at all about finish and visual impact.

So for the avoidance of doubt, you obviously do/have worked in some form of related cable installing profession such as Sky/VM/OR or done commercial wiring/data and have experience to base your opinion on?

Last install was at the weekend, two feeds, just under 50m of cable, I re-used the hole BT had made rather than my preferred option, so about 1m of white cable is visible running along a wall, that's obscured by a porch, I started at 11am and had cable pulled and was hands washed/sat down for lunch just before 12. One of those feeds involved a convoluted route up/round a porch, along two different roof lines, across a garage that I realised was bigger than my house, and down into the rear lounge, the other was just 20m ish of easy soffit work where I used an electric staple gun as it wasn't worth getting the compressor out.
 
So for the avoidance of doubt, you obviously do/have worked in some form of related cable installing profession such as Sky/VM/OR or done commercial wiring/data and have experience to base your opinion on?

Surely this is exactly the point? Most people haven't, so they won't be achieving anything even close to a neat and tidy cabled install in 20 to 30 minutes.

For people who aren't time served, experienced installers, it's clearly not half an hours work - it's either considerably longer (assuming you have appropriate tools to hand) or paying a professional to do it.

Either way is more faff/cost for most people than ordering a couple of wireless cameras from Amazon and charging the batteries a couple of times a year.
 
So for the avoidance of doubt, you obviously do/have worked in some form of related cable installing profession such as Sky/VM/OR or done commercial wiring/data and have experience to base your opinion on?

Last install was at the weekend, two feeds, just under 50m of cable, I re-used the hole BT had made rather than my preferred option, so about 1m of white cable is visible running along a wall, that's obscured by a porch, I started at 11am and had cable pulled and was hands washed/sat down for lunch just before 12. One of those feeds involved a convoluted route up/round a porch, along two different roof lines, across a garage that I realised was bigger than my house, and down into the rear lounge, the other was just 20m ish of easy soffit work where I used an electric staple gun as it wasn't worth getting the compressor out.
This is irrelevant to your original point, most people are not experienced installers. 20-30 mins to install PoE cameras is unrealistic for the vast majority.
 
Lets just savour the moment, two people who haven't installed hard wired PoE cameras (one openly admits he has no experience) are telling someone who has as recently as yesterday that the timescale suggested is unrealistic for most people. Got to love the internet :D
Surely this is exactly the point? Most people haven't, so they won't be achieving anything even close to a neat and tidy cabled install in 20 to 30 minutes.

For people who aren't time served, experienced installers, it's clearly not half an hours work - it's either considerably longer (assuming you have appropriate tools to hand) or paying a professional to do it.

Either way is more faff/cost for most people than ordering a couple of wireless cameras from Amazon and charging the batteries a couple of times a year.

No, i'm not time served, nor do I do this professionally, though i've run a fair bit of cable either re-wiring or retro fitting cable for various purposes and was taught from an early age how to do things to the required standard by someone who was old school and time served. As you're comparing fitting a PoE camera and a WiFi camera, for the sake of argument the physical camera install is almost identical, you need a drill, drill bits, safety glasses and potentially a ladder depending on the install location. In addition to that, to install a PoE camera you likely need a bigger drill bit that's longer, a hammer and some cable clips, you can add another £8 for a cheap but adequate cable termination kit, factor that against the number of broken ends you'll accumulate over the years and it's pretty minimal. You keep dismissing me saying 20-30 minutes, I don't know any other way to say this, but it took me less than an hour to run roughly 47m of cable for two drops, you can choose not to believe it if you wish, but without a time machine you'll just have to take my word for it.

This is irrelevant to your original point, most people are not experienced installers. 20-30 mins to install PoE cameras is unrealistic for the vast majority.

Again, you don't need to be an experienced installer, pinning a cable along a mortar corse where it isn't an eye saw isn't really a skill, it's basic common sense (though sadly not a requirement of employment at OR judging by the state the recent re-pull on the property was left in). Heck even my 13y/o daughter can do that, just don't ask her to drill a hole with an SDS drill, she wanders all over the place. If you aren't capable for whatever reason or choose not to, then as said previously fair enough, but suggesting the vast majority of people are incapable of something in a timescale provided by someone who has actually done it when you haven't, surely you can see the irony in that? Lets be honest, the issue isn't 20-30 minutes, it could be 10-20 or 30-40, you just don't want to do it and are happy with what you have, again, nothing wrong with that. I like my cameras to work 24/7 and record everything in high enough resolution so that it's useful even if an event isn't triggered by something that isn't comparable to a webcam, if the power goes down my system still records and I really like my video to be useful if the worst happens, the 4-5mp ColorVu in near pitch black is genuinely a game changer, the 6mp DarkFighter's are a big step up in quality as well. Clearly you're happy with what you have, but no matter how you look at it, it's a compromise, perhaps it works well for you and you'll never be stung by it's shortfalls, but as a security product, i'd rather pay for better kit and know someone walking in with a £5 wifi jammer didn't render the whole thing useless.

Oh and to answer your previous post (in general terms, I don't know your home), cable can usually be run along a carpet edge next to the griper rod without being seen and with minimal disruption, behind UPVC trim to a door, PoE is from the NVR, not usually a need for a PoE switch (unless we're talking really nasty/old kit) and generally the second thing I do on any property I move into or refurb, is run cable top to bottom and to each room, internally or externally (guttering generally, I try and avoid it being on show eg conduit or old internal chimney that ran 3 floors when I put a combi here) it's just common sense and has been since the first flat I had in the late 90's and yes, each cable CCTV camera run should generally be a 20-30 min job unless we're talking removing furniture/flooring/floorboards, but I normally run back to the loft or under the stairs.
 
Your question was why I went the wifi route, I explained why. It's not about how long it would take you, it's about how long it would take me not just to run the cables but to do all the other legwork. I've never run or terminated cables, not got an SDS drill or cable fishing wires, not got a ladder that reaches the eaves, don't have any existing ethernet runs and don't want to be crawling around in the loft space. I just wanted basic CCTV which Eufy does with a much simpler install. I understood PoE is superior, but not superior enough for me to want to go to the trouble or paying someone else to do it.

To then go off on a rant about how easy it is for you just comes across as rude/arrogant and completely irrelevant to your initial question or to the thread in general. What's it achieved?
 
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It takes me 2 minutes to get my cameras on charge, and 2 minutes to put them back.

That is 8 minutes per year, or just underr 4 years until I reach parity with an unrealistic 30 minute install.
 
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