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Is there a home solution as easy as Nest or Ring and which offers the same feature set?

by anonu 4y ago

gresrun 4y ago
UniFi Protect[0] is a decent on-prem solution and has all the main features of Nest/Ring. Certainly expensive though, minimal system for a doorbell cam is $199 for the camera[1] + $199 for the smallest NVR[2]. [0]: https://ui.com/camera-security https://ui.com/camera-security [1]: https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-protect-cameras/products/uvc-g4-doorbell https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-protect-cameras/produ... [2]: https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-protect/products/unifi-cloudkey-plus https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-protect/products/unif...
- schwank 4y ago
  I use UniFi devices throughout my home but the cameras (G3 specifically) are buggy and frequently disconnect, and don't auto reconnect. Basically useless. Over the year end holidays I was traveling and set one up to monitor my front yard. There was actually an incident while I was gone and I remoted in to find the camera offline, totally missed it when it should have had perfect perspective. The police asked me for video and in this case I would have shared it, but alas could not. Sucks as I have the CloudKey box for video storage, but its very undependable in my experience.
  - Axsuul 4y ago
    Would you not recommend UniFi then? Will you be migrating to another system?
    - zrail 4y ago
      I have a smallish Protect system (UNVR, four G4 Pros, one doorbell, two G3 Instants). The positives are that it pretty much just works. The mobile app is excellent, the web app on the UNVR is fine, and it has full spousal approval factor. I have had very few issues with the system, primarily just the doorbell was unreliable until I upgraded the transformer and put an access point right next to it. I had an issue with the NVR right before it went out of warranty and I fixed it by replacing the internal USB drive with an SSD. The negatives are that it's more costly than other options, Ubiquiti has had perennial stock problems over the last few years, and you're locked into their ecosystem. The NVR won't work with generic cameras and you can't run the software on your own hardware. It's also possible that, if you have their remote access proxy set up (required for mobile app), you could be subject to the same warrant issues as with Ring.
    - schwank 4y ago
      The Access Points, PoE switch, and firewall work fine. My only dissatisfaction has been the G3 camera. As others have stated its a big investment so not moving off the ecosystem today. However when its time to upgrade everything I will certainly shop around.
  - zrail 4y ago
    This has not been my experience with mostly G4 pro hardwired PoE cameras. I have their G4 doorbell and did have similar problems until I upgraded its transformer and pointed an access point directly at it. Been smooth sailing ever since.
    - arrosenberg 4y ago
      This has been my experience. In a year of use I've had 0 problems with PoE cameras and maybe 2-3 disconnects on the doorbell over wifi.
      - schwank 4y ago
        Appreciate the feedback, glad to hear that I am an anomaly. The camera is on WiFi and I have a mesh network with multiple UniFi APs. Both get good signal where the camera is located. Even in the same room as the AP my max uptime is about 1 day before it disconnects.
        zrail 4y ago
        I ended up making a dedicated 2.4GHz-only SSID for my wifi cameras, which seems to have helped. I think forcing them to 2.4GHz, at least for my house RF situation, was the thing that helped the most.
  - surfsvammel 4y ago
    That is not my experience with them at all. I have about 10 G3 cameras. They have never been any problem at all. Nothing. My cloud key however, have killed a couple of drives over the years though.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    What concerns me isn't so much that the camera was down but that you didn't know it was down. Does it not alert you of that?
    - schwank 4y ago
      No. At least not by default. I don't believe in pervasive surveillance however so I only really use it when away from home for extended periods.
      - hot_gril 4y ago
        Hmm, there's no good reason the system shouldn't alert you of that by default. It's like if my Heroku jobs crashed and nothing told me.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  Aren't most of those PoE (the doorbell being the exception - appears powered by regular doorbell power supply)? So, you have to run cables to each camera. Not an easy undertaking for most.
sirwally 4y ago
as easy as plug and play? not really. blueiris(windows) & securityspy(macOS) offer similar features, but it takes a bit of setup to add the cams via RTSP/ONVIF, configure storage and retention, configure monitoring schedules/alerts etc..
WaitWaitWha 4y ago
> as easy This is a very subjective area. As I noted you can get all kinds of NVRs with notification and cameras, others have mentioned Ubiquiti, Roku is also getting into the home automation field, and of course there are open source solutions like Home Assistant.
giantg2 4y ago
"Is there a home solution as easy as Nest or Ring and which offers the same feature set?" I highly doubt it, for the fact that many of the features are incompatible with the goal of privacy and convenience. There are plenty of on-site options that offer the bulk of the benefits, like self contained NVR systems. Once you want things like texts, web access, etc then it gets tricky. Those typically aren't offered in a secure and easy way.
bobleeswagger 4y ago
Frigate takes 5 minutes to setup and try. There's really no excuse these days but these companies will keep walling-up their gardens.
- jjeaff 4y ago
  I use frigate and like it. But it did take me a few hours to figure out all the right config file settings for my 3 cameras and then figure out how to configure storage settings and the like. And that's not counting the fact that I already have experience with docker and Linux systems and already had a running server with docker containers launched from a docker compose file. In other words, frigate is not for the 99%.
hapticmonkey 4y ago
Apple HomeKit’s secure video is end to end encrypted and very easy to set up. You need compatible devices though.

Is there a home solution as easy as Nest or Ring and which offers the same feature set?

by anonu 4y ago

Is there a home solution as easy as Nest or Ring and which offers the same feature set?

UniFi Protect[0] is a decent on-prem solution and has all the main features of Nest/Ring. Certainly expensive though, minimal system for a doorbell cam is $199 for the camera[1] + $199 for the smallest NVR[2]. [0]: https://ui.com/camera-security https://ui.com/camera-security [1]: https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-protect-cameras/products/uvc-g4-doorbell https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-protect-cameras/produ... [2]: https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-protect/products/unifi-cloudkey-plus https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-protect/products/unif...

schwank 4y ago
I use UniFi devices throughout my home but the cameras (G3 specifically) are buggy and frequently disconnect, and don't auto reconnect. Basically useless. Over the year end holidays I was traveling and set one up to monitor my front yard. There was actually an incident while I was gone and I remoted in to find the camera offline, totally missed it when it should have had perfect perspective. The police asked me for video and in this case I would have shared it, but alas could not. Sucks as I have the CloudKey box for video storage, but its very undependable in my experience.
- Axsuul 4y ago
  Would you not recommend UniFi then? Will you be migrating to another system?
  - zrail 4y ago
    I have a smallish Protect system (UNVR, four G4 Pros, one doorbell, two G3 Instants). The positives are that it pretty much just works. The mobile app is excellent, the web app on the UNVR is fine, and it has full spousal approval factor. I have had very few issues with the system, primarily just the doorbell was unreliable until I upgraded the transformer and put an access point right next to it. I had an issue with the NVR right before it went out of warranty and I fixed it by replacing the internal USB drive with an SSD. The negatives are that it's more costly than other options, Ubiquiti has had perennial stock problems over the last few years, and you're locked into their ecosystem. The NVR won't work with generic cameras and you can't run the software on your own hardware. It's also possible that, if you have their remote access proxy set up (required for mobile app), you could be subject to the same warrant issues as with Ring.
  - schwank 4y ago
    The Access Points, PoE switch, and firewall work fine. My only dissatisfaction has been the G3 camera. As others have stated its a big investment so not moving off the ecosystem today. However when its time to upgrade everything I will certainly shop around.
- zrail 4y ago
  This has not been my experience with mostly G4 pro hardwired PoE cameras. I have their G4 doorbell and did have similar problems until I upgraded its transformer and pointed an access point directly at it. Been smooth sailing ever since.
  - arrosenberg 4y ago
    This has been my experience. In a year of use I've had 0 problems with PoE cameras and maybe 2-3 disconnects on the doorbell over wifi.
    - schwank 4y ago
      Appreciate the feedback, glad to hear that I am an anomaly. The camera is on WiFi and I have a mesh network with multiple UniFi APs. Both get good signal where the camera is located. Even in the same room as the AP my max uptime is about 1 day before it disconnects.
      - zrail 4y ago
        I ended up making a dedicated 2.4GHz-only SSID for my wifi cameras, which seems to have helped. I think forcing them to 2.4GHz, at least for my house RF situation, was the thing that helped the most.
- surfsvammel 4y ago
  That is not my experience with them at all. I have about 10 G3 cameras. They have never been any problem at all. Nothing. My cloud key however, have killed a couple of drives over the years though.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  What concerns me isn't so much that the camera was down but that you didn't know it was down. Does it not alert you of that?
  - schwank 4y ago
    No. At least not by default. I don't believe in pervasive surveillance however so I only really use it when away from home for extended periods.
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      Hmm, there's no good reason the system shouldn't alert you of that by default. It's like if my Heroku jobs crashed and nothing told me.
alistairSH 4y ago
Aren't most of those PoE (the doorbell being the exception - appears powered by regular doorbell power supply)? So, you have to run cables to each camera. Not an easy undertaking for most.

sirwally 4y ago

as easy as plug and play? not really. blueiris(windows) & securityspy(macOS) offer similar features, but it takes a bit of setup to add the cams via RTSP/ONVIF, configure storage and retention, configure monitoring schedules/alerts etc..

WaitWaitWha 4y ago

> as easy This is a very subjective area. As I noted you can get all kinds of NVRs with notification and cameras, others have mentioned Ubiquiti, Roku is also getting into the home automation field, and of course there are open source solutions like Home Assistant.

giantg2 4y ago

"Is there a home solution as easy as Nest or Ring and which offers the same feature set?" I highly doubt it, for the fact that many of the features are incompatible with the goal of privacy and convenience. There are plenty of on-site options that offer the bulk of the benefits, like self contained NVR systems. Once you want things like texts, web access, etc then it gets tricky. Those typically aren't offered in a secure and easy way.

bobleeswagger 4y ago

Frigate takes 5 minutes to setup and try. There's really no excuse these days but these companies will keep walling-up their gardens.

jjeaff 4y ago
I use frigate and like it. But it did take me a few hours to figure out all the right config file settings for my 3 cameras and then figure out how to configure storage settings and the like. And that's not counting the fact that I already have experience with docker and Linux systems and already had a running server with docker containers launched from a docker compose file. In other words, frigate is not for the 99%.

hapticmonkey 4y ago

Apple HomeKit’s secure video is end to end encrypted and very easy to set up. You need compatible devices though.