Hi Mark, already some great suggestions for you here for you, but I almost never post here, so I thought I would just add a few comments. First, Blue Iris is a very versatile piece of software. It can do just about anything that one can think of. But that versatility does come with a steep learning curve. I've been a "computer guy" since the dawn of the PC era, and I am not ashamed to admit that I still don't fully understand everything about Blue Iris. For example, just yesterday, I lost 30 days worth of video history. I'm still trying to understand why.Mark wrote: ↑Mon Jul 24, 2023 10:31 pm Hello, everyone! Can you tell me which cameras are better for home? I want them to be able to record both night and day. I want the camera to react to movement and start recording. And to be able to see the image on the phone.
Please tell me which ones do you use?
But barring such rare events and assuming that you are willing to spend the time with it, Blue Iris is capable of AI-based motion detection, so your cameras don't need that same functionality. At some level, any IP ONVIF / RTSP compliant camera will work fine. Image quality is, however, an entirely different matter, and it certainly is true that all IP cameras are not created equally. It comes down to just what you want to be able to see. If you are happy just to see that someone walked through an area, then almost any camera will do, but if you want to be able to identify a face, that is harder.
The idea of a wide field of view is at first attractive, but the reality is that as the field of view gets wider than (say) 100 degrees, the ability to recognize things like faces (or whatever) suffers quite a bit. Most 180 degree cameras are actually two cameras in a single housing, so those work about as well as a 90 degree camera, but they are also at least twice as expensive. 360 degree cameras can cover an entire room or area, but are arguably much worse for recognizing faces, and in my experience, are not great for use with Blue Iris, because they are at their best when combined with proprietary software and/or NVRs.
Practically speaking, it is easier/better/less expensive to just add more cameras. For example, in any given room (or area), a camera with a 90+ degree FOV can cover pretty much an entire room, if placed in a corner. Two cameras in opposite corners can cover a room even better, because I think you might be surprised by how many times it would be nice to have more than one perspective.
I think you will find that with the exception of 360 cameras, most modern IP cameras have a 16:9 aspect ratio. 180 degree cameras have something close to a 32:9 aspect ratio. There are still some decent (but not great) 5 MP 4:3 cameras out there. I have a few of them myself, but being older designs, they are all technologically inferior to all of my 16:9 cameras.
As for which cameras I own, I am a dealer for Dahua and UNV, so most of my cameras 4MP and 5MP models of those brands, although I do have a single 2MP Wyze Cam V3 (not Pro) and a single Amcrest pan/tilt camera (which is pretty much an older-generation Dahua camera). As for resolution, 4MP seems to offer the best compromise between resolution and low-light performance. 2MP is old tech, so you won't find the best performance in any 2MP cameras, regardless of brand. Although I have to admit that I have an older 2MP Dahua 12:1 PTZ camera that I like very much - it's not much good at night, but it's a lot of fun in the light of day! The Wyze V3 is also 2MP, and while it does have a starlight sensor, it is clearly inferior to all of my other cameras. The V3 was a heck of a deal, and it has a cute form factor, but the RTSP is a hot mess, and probably always will be. But it is one of only two cameras that I own that have Wi-Fi, and it is so small and light that it makes it really easy to preview potential mounting locations for new cameras.
Since I'm a US dealer, I have avoided Chinese gray market cameras, but they can certainly be had, and often at a significant discount, if one is willing to buy them sideways, so to speak. Sometimes they are equivalent to the US models, but as an example, I can't remember seeing any gray market Dahua Night Color cameras, which are my current favorites. Starlight and Starlight+ models are not bad, but can't hang with the true US Night Color models under really low ambient lighting conditions. Use of on-camera illuminators, be they infrared or white light, are always an option, but all of my experience has taught me to dislike them, so I currently use only one camera that has a white light illuminator. I'm sure that opinions vary widely on this subject, and probably fair to say that it's cheaper to add a light than the make the camera sensitive enough that it doesn't need one.
With that said, if all of your cameras will be indoors, you have the opportunity to provide whatever ambient lighting you please, so you might do well enough with some lesser cameras. I would suggest that if you delve into low-end cameras that you try to pay attention to WDR, as that feature can make a big difference in any high-contrast lighting situation. Even indoors, if there is a bright light source in the camera's view, it will cause the rest of the image to become too dark. WDR helps with that, and "true WDR" helps even more.
But again, it really comes down to what you want to be able to see. Getting a broad overview is a whole lot easier than getting specifics, like faces or license plates. I started out with a single 5MP bullet camera, and man, I thought i could see everything, until a bad thing happened, and then we couldn't see faces, cars, or license plate well enough to give law enforcement anything that they needed. It was that one event that helped me to understand that one can never have enough cameras!
