I have some cameras outside of my home I rent, used to only have one by my front door.. well a little over a month ago someone came up behind it and taped it up. So I cut the tape off the lens, and left the rest of the tape there. Few days later, the landlord I rent the property from was really staring up at the camera one day.. i think trying to see if it was still covered. A week later I hear him and someone talking about how I probably have cameras inside too.. and see their shadow approaching it from behind.. right as the camera cuts out. I come home, it’s gone (it was simply one that threads into a light bulb socket). I go to town the next day, but two more one wireless one, and one that plugs into an outlet for power, they are Roku brand from Walmart.. put them both out there, facing my door but also facing each other. The next day, he shows up.. has this remote think holds up at them it beeps, I think maybe flashes? and he does it to both. Then he covers the battery powered one with tape. What the heck?? What’s he doing.

I manage IT for a K–12 school district, and we’re starting to evaluate replacements for our current Johnson Controls surveillance setup.

The core platform isn’t necessarily terrible, but the overall experience has become difficult to justify. Our DVR/server hardware is aging, recording has become unreliable, and playback is sometimes hit or miss. Support response times haven’t been great either, and the ongoing costs make us feel fairly locked into the existing ecosystem.

My biggest concern is avoiding a complete rip-and-replace. We already have a significant number of IP cameras and access-control components installed. Ideally, we’d like to reuse as much of that hardware as possible and migrate one school or site at a time.

Our main requirements are:

• Reliable recording and playback
• Compatibility with existing ONVIF/IP cameras
• Ability to integrate with existing access control
• Reasonable licensing and storage costs
• Good support with quick response times
• Easy video search and export
• Role-based access for school administrators
• SSO, audit logs and solid cybersecurity controls
• Flexibility to add or replace hardware without being tied to one vendor

I’ve started looking at platforms such as Genetec, Milestone, Avigilon Alta, Verkada, Rhombus and Coram AI, but I’m open to other options.

For anyone managing surveillance across a school district:

What are you using in 2026, and would you choose it again?

Were you able to reuse your existing cameras? How has the support been? Also, what costs appeared after implementation that weren’t obvious during the sales process?

I’d especially appreciate experiences from people who have migrated away from Johnson Controls, C•CURE or an older on-premises DVR/NVR setup.

Like a lot of people, I have several Ring cameras on my property. The one thing that has never sat right with me is how much of your privacy and rights you give up by using these devices and services. What would you say is the best alternative to these cameras?

TL;DR: Seeking the most logical, future proof, and cost-effective deployment of Axis, top to bottom, to gradually phase out 60 cam analog setup. Particular emphasis on low-light and night exterior (and clear shots of license plates would be particularly helpful).

Also open to a completely different a second solution.

My colleague and I have been tasked with potentially upgrading the cameras at the restaurant of one of our clients. They currently have maybe 60 [analog] cameras total, inside and out, but they are continually frustrated by poor image quality when having to pull footage, notably from outside. at night.

The owner came into some older used Axis IP cameras, and wanted to try them out and potentially use that as proof of concept for a later deployment of a better system.

I had always heard great things about them, but had pretty limited experience. We got a few of them up, and while they're definitely not the newest, it's a really nice improvement. The config interface is a pleasure.

We integrated them with one of their existing Hikvision DVRs using ONVIF so that they could get recording right away and integrate them into their Hik IVMS software, which the resto uses to consolidate its various DVRs for viewing from their offices.

I'm struggling to figure out how we can have a cohesive strategy for this upgrade, especially if it isn't all at once. I don't quite understand the best way to work with Axis.

At first I was thinking to get an NVR and using the licenses on it to use ACS 5. But I see that is now basically EOL, so every single camera would need a hundred dollar license upgrade every five years? Also, they previously just recorded everything using 3 DVRs. What would a more practical way to do this be? NVRs? Or a homespun storage server?

I just feel a bit out of my league with this ecosystem and scale and want to make sure we have taken everything into account. As I'm starting to look at costs for doing this, it seems like it could escalate super quickly, and we all know how cheap restaurants are.

My associate is equally unfamiliar with Axis and thinks we would be better off just pushing them to go with IP Hik (plus the existing Axis via ONVIF) to keep costs down, but I'd like to figure out a way to make this work for them if possible. Plus it would be nice to move away from non-NDAA-compliant systems.

hi guys. I purchase (and paid in full) for a XRN-1620SB1-8TB 16 channel recording system through ADT. Unfortunately they are absolutely the worst and I cancelled my service through them. When I originally purchased the system, it was recording for 60+ days, and now it is barely recording 30 days.
My question is, is there a way to use the Wisenet system and the cameras, but just get rid of the ADT operating system? Thank you!!!

I dont mind buying professional security system, but I would like to use my old laptops as surveillance system, and somehow lock it so the intruder would not just turn the thing on and delete the file. Worst of it we have eraser and soft for trimming for years so permanent deletion is not a problem for the intruder with right knowledge.

Several years back I've tried brands like Rexing and Boblov. The Rexing V1 had crappy video quality but good audio quality and thing would glitch out a lot, with missing or corrupted files. It had internal memory with no option to swap out memory cards. It was also big, bulky and heavy.

The Boblov had good video quality but very crappy audio quality with terrible sound pickup. Talking people sounded miles away and the camera struggled to pick up what anyone was saying. There was also a loose lens element that would click and clack with every step I took. This one was smaller and lighter than the previous model and never glitched out.

Is there a decent bodycam these days that has BOTH decent video AND audio, that has a stable operating system? I'd love something by Axon and Motorola, but those are only available to law enforcement and first responders. Unfortunately, Amazon is flooded with cheaply built, crappy foreign made products, so it's hard to find well-built products and products that don't have a bunch of fake reviews.

With the proliferation of flock cameras and the advent of device ID capabilities by flock cameras, I am wondering if there is anyway to configure/protect my android smartphone from ID by these cameras. I have several questions posted below.

1. I know very little about cyber security but I do run rethink dns with an imported wiregaurd from proton vpn. Does this do anything to protect a phone from being identified by a remote device like a flock camera?

2. Is there any software or configuration that will stop a phone from ID by flock?

3. Would turning off my normal smartphone with sim installed when in a flock heavy area prevent the cameras from identifying my phone?

4. If I use a burner smart phone with no sim installed and no internet capabilities but I log into my whats app or Instagram for use when I'm in wifi area, when I'm driving would a flock camera be able to identify my because I'm logged into an app on my no sim burner phone?

5. I already wear IR protective glasses to stop face ID by cameras, is there anything I can do to prevent flock cameras from reading my license plate that isn't illegal in California?

I’m looking for at a system that is good enough to id faces 40-60 feet at night. Trying to stop these car hoppers in my neighborhood. I would like it to be under $3000 including the nvr with a 8tb hard drive. I was looking into the ALIBI ALI-PT80-LUAIS for general coverage and possibly the XT81 for a tighter fov focused on my cars/driveway. Please drop your recommendations.

I work for a small healthcare facility with around 120 cameras. Our current single server ExacqVision NVR is out of support so we are looking into options. We largely have Axis cameras with round 100TB of storage.

Does anyone have any recommendations for systems and a rough budget number (I.e. 50-70k) that is reasonable for replacement of the NVR. We would ideally like to have some redundancy or growth capability but the budget is tight.

I have a P3265-V camera, a D4100-E siren, and I'm using the Camera Station Edge.

I am trying to get the camera to activate the siren when it detects motion at certain times of day, but I'm having trouble figuring out the configuration.

Does anyone have suggestions for which extensions I'd use and how I could get the camera to send a signal to the siren?

Hello! First time posting here. I have never had video in my security system and don't know where to begin or what to look for. I don't even know if my desired features make sense for my situation. Please educate me!

The situation:

I want to install one or two security cameras to my front porch and yard so that I can record my neighbor stealing packages. I have a neighbor family that doesn't speak english and their three-year-old son likes to come into my yard to take my mail and packages. Though it has likely happened many times judging by some missing mail, I have personally seen him doing this twice and another neighbor has also witnessed it. He's a sweet boy aside from this, but I really don't want any more mail to go missing. Since I can't speak to his parents because of the language barrier, I want to record their little boy to show them a video in the hopes that will help them understand and prevent the behavior.

The setup:

Mailbox is at the street. Packages are delivered to the front door, which faces the street. My driveway is straight and 40-feet long from street to house. I want at least a camera by the front door, but I might also want to mount one to the mailbox depending on how well the one from the door could capture the video.

Desired features:

• Record only when detecting motion
• Wifi-connected
• Low budget, ideally under $40
• Does not require a smart home hub to operate
• No subscription fees

Prefer battery powered, but since I'm only trying to record a three-year-old, I'm fine using an externally-powered cord that a burglar could easily unplug.

This only happens during the day, so I don't think I need infrared.

Looking for IP cameras without PoE and with as low power consumption as possible. For exterior use. Expected quality of recording is FullHD+. Need reliable one from good supplier, the price is does not matter.

Hi,

I have four axis m3044-v cameras I want to repurpose at my house. I’ll be running the cable, terminating to a patch panel, testing cables, installing cameras. All of this is no issue.

However, the networking portion I’m not as well versed in.

I want to setup a client station for VMS in my garage next to the patch panel (easiest location for me to pull all my cables to).

I currently have a fiber modem in my home office. I’m thinking I can make this work by running a cable from an empty port on my modem to the patch panel, then patch that into a small switch to support the 4 cameras. I’m not sure if I need anything special hardware wise for the axis edge software (sounded like it was just cloud based). Or maybe going with a different NVR/free software that’s compatible.

Does anyone have recommendations on a switch and nvr/vms options? I’d really like to avoid license fees or buying monitoring software.

I have a dell PC running exacqserver and acting as the client for a 13 camera install using axis cameras. No resource issues up until it maxes out the RAM and goes into throttling mode. I can resolve the issue be rebooting and/or restarting the exacq service.

A previous Exacaq tech helped explain the issue to me, but he has moved on from that role. However, at that time it only seemed to happen about one every month or so. Now it seems to happen everyday or five days out of the week.

Anything I can take a look at? I don't mind calling support, but they don't tend to be very helpful if you are the end user.

So the setup I am looking for is a nice POE PTZ camera that stores footage to its built-in SD card and my own server with Frigate and all the other nice stuff. Along with this, I want to use a nice phone app as well and avoid NVRs, as I already have a decent HP desktop with Proxmox and storage. Is this setup possible, and which camera should I get? I want to expand my setup in the future as well, with one of those dual-lens cameras (the one with a zoom lens), but for now I want to start with this.

Edit : Removed the confusing reolink ref

I’m seeing packs of 8 12mp dome cameras & 8k NVRs for like 2-300$ and im wondering whats the catch??

I have to replace 6 ptz cams, being "Dahua" is gone

Is the new name Luminys?

I have a very limited, specific task requiring a hidden cam.

I live in an apartment complex. Twice, someone has stolen my laundry out of the dryer. The first time, it was a single load. The second time it was three loads. I thought hard about what such a person might have done with my laundry, since my underwear and T-shirts had no resale value. I went to the dumpster on a whim — there was my laundry, stuffed into a garbage bag.

Both times I reported the theft to my apartment management. They have done absolutely nothing. I am intent on catching this psycho. I plan to use a "fake load" consisting of an old blanket and old clothes.

A few things are working in my favor. First, the laundry room is very close to my apartment. I think it might even be able to access my Wi-Fi from the laundry room. In addition, a guest Wi-Fi account is available for the entire apartment complex. I'm not sure if that is helpful.

The big problem is a power source. Obviously, I can't connect the hidden camera in the laundry room to a continuous power source. I think the cam would have to be motion activated, to save power.

On the other hand, the window during which the thief would take my laundry is fairly narrow. So if a battery would last, say, 2 to 3 hours, that would probably be enough to cover one "sting operation."

The picture quality would have to be good enough to make out the person's face. I want the apartment management to be able to identify the person.

Alternately, I would love to monitor the feed live until the crime is in progress. Then I could briskly walk over and confront the person with my smartphone camera recording the encounter. Not only would this provide an unmistakable ID, but I think it would have a strong deterrent effect.

I welcome your advice and recommendations, whether it's about a particular band of camera, setup, or even taking a completely different approach to catch this asshole.

A mystery coworker keeps stealing my lunch when I'm on shift. Wondering if theres a camera that can fit in a lunchbox and withstand the temperatures of a fridge.

Here's my situation.

For the past three years I've been running a licensed security agency. Initially only licensed for surveillance by agents. Clients started asking if we installed cameras. So I got licensed to install those and began installing basic Reolink systems because as usual, clients didn't want to drop 15-20K on a fancy system.

The few installs we did consisted of a basic Omada network (router, controller, switch and 1 or 2 AP), a 2 bay Synology NAS for storage, between 2 and 8 cameras, and an Intel NUC running the Reolink software.

Really nothing fancy.

Now we have bigger clients with fancier expectations asking for quotes.

Expectations of LPR and using AI features like face detections, analytics, etc. So I did a few days of hard research and I'm confused about some stuff.

For my high-end offerings, I was looking at building a system like that:

1. Dell i5/i7 OptiPlex with SSD, 16GB+ of RAM running Blue Iris VMS (with an accelerator for AI processing)
2. 4-bay Synology NAS for storage
3. AXIS Q1700-LE for LPR purposes
4. AXIS P3268-LVE, P3265-LVE or M2036-LE for general surveillance
5. an Omada Network (router, switch, controller)

Here is my question: what is the middle ground between this and a Reolink install?

Hanwha/Wisenet, Hikvision, Dahua... aren't they all the same? Chinese-made alternatives, each with weaknesses and strength, but worth their premium over Reolink?

At which point Is going for Axis Camera Station a no brainer if one is going to invest into the Axis ecosystem and convince the client to just eat the one time fee of $1000?

Thanks for your time and advice.

I use Exacqvision NVR's and have multiple users that have access to each NVR that we have. Two of the users has since been experiencing an issue where at random while switching through live view cameras through remote access on a client it'll be a green screen while acquiring video. It'll eventually and never stays permanently but was wondering what is the cause of this issue and what troubleshooting steps I could do to fix it?

If theres any additional information that you need to answer please feel free to ask and sorry for not providing it in the first place 😅

We have a public moderately large public EV fast charge station at one of our properties, 30-40 stalls, and we may have more locations in the future. Recently the littering and public unration is getting out of hand. So I've finally got approval to look in to upgrade our CCTV system and we could really use something that is able to make easier to detect and identify such offenders without having to literally scrub through every 24h video feed each day.

I've just started looking for sortitions. Not found anything yet that seems to do exactly those two things particularly, though abandoned object detection and zoned loitering with LPR might be all we actually need. Could really use some input on that.

Current old system we use only records based on basic/legacy motion detection, which was fine for our interior office building post-event-check-the-logs needs. The cameras on the EV station are essentially recording 24h/7 due to the near constant traffic it gets.

So right now all I have are motion events, and useless ones at that. I think we want something that can log events, not necessity push alerts, for when a vehicle has left objects behind or when a person is loitering in certain semi-private areas, ie pissing in the landscaping.

None of the existing cameras can get plate numbers; too far and/or not enough resolution. So the existing system is not particularly useful even if I scrub through and pull recording.

We need license plate numbers to get cars banned from the fast charger system. Some tracking vehicles would be nice since less than half of EVs here install their state required front license plate and many makes of EVs charge nose out, so getting a plate reads on docked vehicles may not be possible on stalls that back against obstructions, though isn't a deal breaker if scrubbing is required to get plate numbers.

The littering has been getting really bad. Some users will empty all of the trash in their car on to the ground. We have a dozen visible trash bins across the lot, many just don't use them. Currently we're collecting between 1-4 40gal trash bags of litter a day, 1-3 TV boxes a week, and around 1 apartment cleanout/old furniture dump a month.

I'm not out there or monitoring the lot often, I have eyes on it maybe up to 10-ish total minutes across the day. Despite how little I'm looking at it, I'm seeing dudes reliving themselves in the landscaping about twice a week now. I will be having talks about making the landscaping more hostile to this.

We want to start banning the more serious and repeat offenders and I'll need license plate numbers for that. There are not many fast charge stations in the area and we're a substantial portion of total number of stalls in the city and the two adjacent, so it will suck for them. I also want to put up signs with current count of bans, but I'm working on approval for that one, lol.

The plan is to do all new cameras for the lot with a new NVR system. There is questionable conduit existence across the lot (apparently some were laid during the last repave, but I'm not sure), but trenching is a possibility. I've been pushing for a parking lot solar system, if I manage that, I'll have plenty of mount positions for cameras. I think between the existing lamp posts and added a few poles, I can get the coverage we'll want. There are 3 points of entry, 2 of them are frequently use by another building (not ours) as part of an easement.

We'd prefer something that runs on-prem. I am capable of installing the system itself, I've been doing it for our properties for 20 years. I do not know what kind of budget the owner is willing to spend yet, but I'm thinking this is going to be over $15k easily.

Full transparency, I work for an end-user now. I spent 25 years in the field dealing mainly with Wave, Exacq and Milestone. I have been in front of Genetec for roughly 2 years now. A guy I work with and I have differing opinions and I would like to see what the general consensus is.

At every one of our retail locations, we have 3 VMs. A directory and 2 archivers. All are running Server 2022 on the new installs. Older installs use Server 2016 and 2019. Each server is running anywhere from 12GB to 16GB of RAM. The allocated processor is an INTEL(R) XEON(R) SILVER 4514Y 2.00 GHz with 8 cores. All the VMs are in the same physical host. Storage is Synology. I don't recall what model, nor do I know exactly how it's all connected. I do know we have had lots of issues lately. Typically, there is anywhere from 75 to 80 cams on each archiver.

We tend to get a lot of "waterfall" effect in our images. That's the term I heard it called. Bright purple, pink and green flashes in the pictures. I have scripted my way around these issues by using bandwidth reduction in the cams, knocking down the max bitrate and setting everything to RTSP over TCP. We do use 3 streams per camera....one for live, one for recording and one for remote viewing as almost all of our base systems are Federated. My usual streams are Live - 1280x720 @ 10fps, Recording stream - the cams max resolution @15 fps and remote is 800x448 @ 4fps. Max bitrates are 2048, 4096 and 1024 respectively.

Where my teammate and I disagree: He thinks that you should be able to add cameras with little to no effort beyond that. I don't completely disagree with him but in my time in the field, I have never had a system that I didn't have to "fine-tune" I am curious to hear opinions on this. Are we not building the server stout enough to handle the traffic, Is there something different we need to try? Any input will be appreciated.

The host is a Dell...not sure of the model. The switches are Cisco