Where to buy HFW5241E-Z12E?

C

CompuGuy

n3wb
Jul 19, 2021
4
1
Minnesota
Is the HFW5241E-Z12E still the best choice for LPR? If so, where can I find one to purchase? Google wasn't any help although it did look like I could get one off of aliexpress its just I don't know if its a cheap knock off.
 
CompuGuy said:
Is the HFW5241E-Z12E still the best choice for LPR? If so, where can I find one to purchase? Google wasn't any help although it did look like I could get one off of aliexpress its just I don't know if its a cheap knock off.
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Amazon has it, I think the HFW5231E-Z12E is an older model

Amazon.com : Loryta IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E IP Camera 2MP Starlight WDR IR Bullet AI Network Camera English Version : Camera & Photo

Amazon.com : Loryta IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E IP Camera 2MP Starlight WDR IR Bullet AI Network Camera English Version : Camera & Photo
www.amazon.com
 
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Andy (@EMPIRETECANDY) comes highly recommended. I say this as a customer, and a reader of IPCT.

@MikeLud1 provided the camera's link via Andy's amazon presence. Here's the link for his storefront so you can purchase the mount box for it, as well as shop around for other items he offers.
 
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CompuGuy said:
Is the HFW5241E-Z12E still the best choice for LPR?
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It depends on your distance, whether or not you want it connected to a Dahua NVR that will process the plates, and how much money you are willing to spend.

But that cam is still the go to cam for LPR for most of us here that do not want to spend more for a truly dedicated LPR cam. The 5241 is the replacement for the 5231, so the 5231 is not better that the 5241 for LPR. The 5241 has better firmware that the 5231 cannot use.
 
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Amazon will have 6 arrive later this week, the chips supply meet some problems. We are trying our best to make them stock in asap.I think May.20th things will be back to normal.
This happen on the IPC-B5442E-Z4E and IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E.
 
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Justintoxicated said:
I have the older model. Is it worth upgrading?
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If you are using it for LPR and it is currently meeting your needs, then no, there is no reason to update it.

The 5241 adds AI which is useless to LPR since the field of view is so tight that it cannot see and acknowledge the vehicle fast enough to trigger an alert, and at night is is useless.

It does allow one to zoom in a little closer than the 5231, as well as the ability to manually set the focus and it stays, so the sunrise/sunset utility is not needed.

I have both and I prefer the image quality of the 5231. The 5241, as confirmed with many pics people have posted here as well as my own experience, tends to have a head/tailight trail regardless of what you do to try to knock it out. I have placed the two side-by-side and I get better distance out of the 5231 than the 5241 - I think the IR must be better on the 5231.

Now if you are using the 5231 for things other than LPR, the AI feature is a nice addition.
 
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wittaj said:
If you are using it for LPR and it is currently meeting your needs, then no, there is no reason to update it.

The 5241 adds AI which is useless to LPR since the field of view is so tight that it cannot see and acknowledge the vehicle fast enough to trigger an alert, and at night is is useless.

It does allow one to zoom in a little closer than the 5231, as well as the ability to manually set the focus and it stays, so the sunrise/sunset utility is not needed.

I have both and I prefer the image quality of the 5231. The 5241, as confirmed with many pics people have posted here as well as my own experience, tends to have a head/tailight trail regardless of what you do to try to knock it out. I have placed the two side-by-side and I get better distance out of the 5231 than the 5241 - I think the IR must be better on the 5231.

Now if you are using the 5231 for things other than LPR, the AI feature is a nice addition.
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I am using it to monitor our front gate durring the day, and at night I switch it to BW / License plate reader settings. The only issue is I never remember to adjust the sunset time as the days get longer / shorter. It's one of the more useful cameras we have installed as it monitors deliveries and every car pulling up our driveway, which is the bulk of where I tend to see action.
 
Justintoxicated said:
I am using it to monitor our front gate durring the day, and at night I switch it to BW / License plate reader settings. The only issue is I never remember to adjust the sunset time as the days get longer / shorter. It's one of the more useful cameras we have installed as it monitors deliveries and every car pulling up our driveway, which is the bulk of where I tend to see action.
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Do you have a PC running that you could use this utility?

Dahua day/night switch utility - DahuaSunriseSunset

I wanted to use stronger noise reduction at night and weaker during the day, but Dahua seems to have made a mess of the profile management. On most cameras, there doesn't seem to be a way to have the camera switch automatically between Day and Night profiles when the camera changes between...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
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Justintoxicated said:
I am using it to monitor our front gate durring the day, and at night I switch it to BW / License plate reader settings. The only issue is I never remember to adjust the sunset time as the days get longer / shorter. It's one of the more useful cameras we have installed as it monitors deliveries and every car pulling up our driveway, which is the bulk of where I tend to see action.
Click to expand...

If you use BI as your NVR, you can set the commands to execute at a time that is relative to sunrise or sunset. So if I set everything to switch to "nighttime" 15 minutes before sunset, BI will adjust the time accordingly throughout the year to ensure the camera gets set to "nighttime" 15 minutes before sunset every day - regardless of the actual time of day which might be 5:15 in December and 8:45 in July. The first post in the thread that wittaj just posted will walk you through the setup to set up BI to do this. I do it for my license plate camera and it works great.

Setting it up this way means that you don't have to have the DahuaSunriseSunset helper service running all the time. If you are already running BI, then it is "cleaner" to simply have BI handle this vs requiring the use of another program - at least IMHO.
 
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The HFW5241E-Z12E is what I just bought a couple of months ago and I am finally setting it up. Based on all I read on this forum that is still the best camera for LPR in this price range (~$200). I bought it from Andy (Empiretecandy). I bought it directly from him rather than through Amazon. It saves a few dollars but you won't have the "Amazon protection" but from my limited experience Andy is very responsive and reliable.
 
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Hate to dig up an old thread but hey I searched…. I have one of the HFW5241E-Z12E’s and a friend of mine would like to get one for his house. Where might one pick another one up?

Is there a better version that’s basically the same?
 
tangent said:
The camera in this thread IS NOT ANPR. It's merely a camera with good zoom.
Many people here use it with software on a PC to do ALPR. Hikvision and Dahua both make ANPR cameras that are quite a bit more expensive.
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let me rephrase
is there a similar HikVision camera?
I have got the dahua
now want to try hikvision to compare
 
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