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Do you have any hyperlinks to resources for those who want to go DIY-ish? Thanks in advance.

bhauer 7y ago
You can read about Ubiquiti's self-hosted gear at their web site, ui.com. A good starting point is their NVR/SDN controller, which they call a "CloudKey Gen2+" [1]. A slightly unfortunate name because using the word "Cloud" in the name makes it sound as if it's hosted in a third-party cloud when it's actually an on-prem device that can (optionally) be configured to allow remote access via the Ubiquiti cloud service. [1] https://unifi-protect.ui.com/cloud-key-gen2 https://unifi-protect.ui.com/cloud-key-gen2
js2 7y ago
Here's a review that covers a few of their cameras and both their older NVR software and newer Protect. I didn't write this, it's just a blog entry I came across while looking for a comparison of Unbt's video offerings. https://michaelkummer.com/tech/unifi-video-review/ https://michaelkummer.com/tech/unifi-video-review/
jcrawfordor 7y ago
I'm not sure if there's a good guide, maybe I ought to try to write one. I would say the simple things to keep in mind are just to buy cameras that are ONVIF compliant, since this more or less guarantees that you will be able to use them with any "open standard" NVR you want. tbh the ONVIF spec itself is frustrating and not that much help, it's just that ONVIF compliance guarantees you that there will be RTSP streams available and that an NVR will more-or-less be able to configure automatically. When it comes to NVRs, there's a million options and I couldn't produce reviews on all of them... but Blue Iris is probably the most popular commercial NVR and ZoneMinder and Shinobi the most popular open-source. I would describe ZoneMinder as hopelessly obsolete and Shinobi as unstable and hard to get running on other than their supported platforms, but Blue Iris is Windows only so everything has its problems. The only "big" NVR solution I've worked with is Milestone, and I'd say it's very good and actually not that expensive, but it is pretty heavy to deploy (e.g. needs MS SQL Server) and you have to buy through a VAR which is kind of a huge hassle to go through for a license that is only around $100 (for the lowest-end package). Also, if you run cheap no-brand Chinese made IP cameras like I do... the cameras are often pretty damn good very a very low price, but sometimes it's a real adventure figuring out how to configure them (e.g. firmware not completely translated to English, often shared between many models so half of the settings don't apply to your device) and I recommend blocking them off from the internet because some have management/cloud recording features that you can't disable and it's a little sketchy having them connect out to some white-box overseas cloud management solution all the time. It's a best practice to put IP cameras on their own VLAN anyway and it's not really that expensive to get home equipment that can support this, e.g. Ubiquiti's routers/switches and/or the TP-Link "Easy Smart" switches (which are 'semi-managed' and handle VLANs and QoS for well below the cost of a managed switch). But the machine I run Blue Iris on right now just happens to be a weird x86 single-board machine with 2 GbE interfaces, so I have the cameras on a physically segmented network just because it was easy.

You can read about Ubiquiti's self-hosted gear at their web site, ui.com. A good starting point is their NVR/SDN controller, which they call a "CloudKey Gen2+" [1]. A slightly unfortunate name because using the word "Cloud" in the name makes it sound as if it's hosted in a third-party cloud when it's actually an on-prem device that can (optionally) be configured to allow remote access via the Ubiquiti cloud service. [1] https://unifi-protect.ui.com/cloud-key-gen2 https://unifi-protect.ui.com/cloud-key-gen2

js2 7y ago

Here's a review that covers a few of their cameras and both their older NVR software and newer Protect. I didn't write this, it's just a blog entry I came across while looking for a comparison of Unbt's video offerings. https://michaelkummer.com/tech/unifi-video-review/ https://michaelkummer.com/tech/unifi-video-review/

jcrawfordor 7y ago

I'm not sure if there's a good guide, maybe I ought to try to write one. I would say the simple things to keep in mind are just to buy cameras that are ONVIF compliant, since this more or less guarantees that you will be able to use them with any "open standard" NVR you want. tbh the ONVIF spec itself is frustrating and not that much help, it's just that ONVIF compliance guarantees you that there will be RTSP streams available and that an NVR will more-or-less be able to configure automatically. When it comes to NVRs, there's a million options and I couldn't produce reviews on all of them... but Blue Iris is probably the most popular commercial NVR and ZoneMinder and Shinobi the most popular open-source. I would describe ZoneMinder as hopelessly obsolete and Shinobi as unstable and hard to get running on other than their supported platforms, but Blue Iris is Windows only so everything has its problems. The only "big" NVR solution I've worked with is Milestone, and I'd say it's very good and actually not that expensive, but it is pretty heavy to deploy (e.g. needs MS SQL Server) and you have to buy through a VAR which is kind of a huge hassle to go through for a license that is only around $100 (for the lowest-end package). Also, if you run cheap no-brand Chinese made IP cameras like I do... the cameras are often pretty damn good very a very low price, but sometimes it's a real adventure figuring out how to configure them (e.g. firmware not completely translated to English, often shared between many models so half of the settings don't apply to your device) and I recommend blocking them off from the internet because some have management/cloud recording features that you can't disable and it's a little sketchy having them connect out to some white-box overseas cloud management solution all the time. It's a best practice to put IP cameras on their own VLAN anyway and it's not really that expensive to get home equipment that can support this, e.g. Ubiquiti's routers/switches and/or the TP-Link "Easy Smart" switches (which are 'semi-managed' and handle VLANs and QoS for well below the cost of a managed switch). But the machine I run Blue Iris on right now just happens to be a weird x86 single-board machine with 2 GbE interfaces, so I have the cameras on a physically segmented network just because it was easy.