Camera reliability?

[JohnKol]

During the past five years I purchased 11 cameras to cover the perimeter of my house, but in the last three months two of the cameras (a HDBW4231F-E2-M and a HDBW4231E-ASE ) have died. I contacted Andy who said that these cameras have a useful life of 5-6 years, which makes the demise of my two cameras statistically understandable, but implies a terrible reliability. I searched the forum and could not find many complaints about cameras dying, so I'm wondering whether any of you have witnessed cameras failing close to the 5-year mark, or I simply have horrible luck.

 

[bigredfish]

About right. I have a few that are older but frankly the advances in technology makes them obsolete at 5 years, and anything electronic that lasts 5+ years out exposed to the elements is doing good. I have 2 Dahua NVRs (outside in Florida in NEMA boxes), and 2 Dahua cams from 2017 that are still going strong

I've lost I think 3 in the past 10 years. Two succumbed to moisture and one from a nearby lightning strike..

 

[mat200]

During the past five years I purchased 11 cameras to cover the perimeter of my house, but in the last three months two of the cameras (a HDBW4231F-E2-M and a HDBW4231E-ASE ) have died. I contacted Andy who said that these cameras have a useful life of 5-6 years, which makes the demise of my two cameras statistically understandable, but implies a terrible reliability. I searched the forum and could not find many complaints about cameras dying, so I'm wondering whether any of you have witnessed cameras failing close to the 5-year mark, or I simply have horrible luck.

Hi @JohnKol

A lot depends on how well they were installed to be protected from the elements ( see the various posts on junction boxes, drip loops, coax seal / silicone stretch tape, di-electric gel, silicone caulking, .. )

Also a lot depends on the environment.

Indoors I have seen cameras last over 10 years .. outdoors exposed to temperature and moister extremes .. that really reduces the life expectancy.

 

[tigerwillow1]

I have 10 cameras hanging on trees and fence posts fully exposed to the rain, snow, and temp extremes. No junction boxes, just common sense in the connections. The cameras are so far reliable. I do get a moisture-related failure in a connector about once every 2 years, which so far has been fixable. Years ago I was running a bunch of chinese market cameras. One model had a 100% failure rate after a couple of years while the others were all reliable. There are are some old forum posts about one of Andy's models having a bad reliability record, but I don't remember which model. I ran a couple of IPC-HDW4231EMP-ASE for a few years with no reliability issues. They're now retired, replaced by 5442s.

 

[f1restarter]

My first ip cam was a Hikvision ds-2cd3332 that I mounted outdoors in the beginning of 2014. I live close to the sea so there is a lot of wind, rain/snow and salt in the air. Had to clean the lens every couple of weeks...Even used an indoor rated cat 5 cable. I thought it had failed earlier this year so I replaced it with a 5442, but it turned out to be switch related so that camera still lives on, now got its life prolonged inside my garage. Will have a 10 year anniversary in a few months

 

[JohnKol]

A lot depends on how well they were installed to be protected from the elements

All of my cameras are under eaves, so there is no direct exposure to sun or rain; one of the failing cameras is actually installed in the garage, so even more favorable conditions.

But I would argue that the environment should not be a factor: if a device is to be used in harsh conditions, it should be built to handle these harsh conditions; think of all the car electronics that have to content not only with environments much more extreme than the ones the cameras find themselves in, but also shocks and vibrations.

 

[mat200]

All of my cameras are under eaves, so there is no direct exposure to sun or rain; one of the failing cameras is actually installed in the garage, so even more favorable conditions.

But I would argue that the environment should not be a factor: if a device is to be used in harsh conditions, it should be built to handle these harsh conditions; think of all the car electronics that have to content not only with environments much more extreme than the ones the cameras find themselves in, but also shocks and vibrations.

yes, i would be nice if electronics were more durable

having numerous examples of failed car electronics .. I can say if my car was garaged all the time, the electronics would last longer than exposed in outdoor parking spots ..

 

[fenderman]

All of my cameras are under eaves, so there is no direct exposure to sun or rain; one of the failing cameras is actually installed in the garage, so even more favorable conditions.

But I would argue that the environment should not be a factor: if a device is to be used in harsh conditions, it should be built to handle these harsh conditions; think of all the car electronics that have to content not only with environments much more extreme than the ones the cameras find themselves in, but also shocks and vibrations.

The camera may be rated for those conditions however there can be many reasons for failures..for example water gets into the ethernet connections that have not been properly wrapped, or a power surge. There is no way to know what caused your failures without a forensic exam...
I too have many dahua and hik cameras in service for 10 years...failures are rare. You could have a bad batch, a model with a poor design or the above mentioned issues. Out of hundreds installed only a few actually failed, some had water entry after years...most were replaced with better cams..
You have such a small sample size that you cannot come to any conclusion.....

 

[samplenhold]

I have three IPC-HDBW4231FP-AS that have been installed since Dec 2018. No issues. Maybe they are about to go caput!

When you say they died, what exactly do you mean? Describe the issues. No video to your recorder? Have you tried a hard reset? Can the cams be accessed through a browser? Can they be pinged? Do the IR lights come on? Is there activity on the POE switch port? Have you tried unmounting them and bringing them inside and use a good, molded, short cable? How are the Ethernet connections? Are they corroded?

 

[Mike A.]

I've only had one Dahau 2231 cam die and that was recently after many years of use. Not sure why in that case. Powered it off to do something at my switch and it never came back. My oldest, a little SD29204 PTZ I've just tortured. It's intended as an indoor cam but has been outside unprotected all its life through all kinds of weather. I feel sorry for it. lol Never expected it to last as it has. A piece of the black paint around the front glass started flaking off inside and got in front of the lens this year. Took it apart and touched it up and put it back out. Still good.

Had several Hikvision cams of a particular series all have issues with the IR filter failing after a few years. A few other oddballs that gave it up, but most continued to run even though crappy and quirky. Overall very few have really failed. Most all have been replaced with something better before.

 

[JohnKol]

You have such a small sample size that you cannot come to any conclusion.....

I know, that's why I posted the question to the community. Although the 20% failure rate that I'm seeing is consistent with what Andy considers as the lifetime of these cameras, I found it hard to believe that the quality is so low for a product that seems well constructed.

 

[JohnKol]

When you say they died, what exactly do you mean?

The failure mechanism has been the same for both cameras: they slowly go offline for longer and longer periods; initially they are offline 10% of the time, and as the weeks go by the offline periods get longer, until they are 100% offline. Even then though, the power supply is still working, and presumably the camera is still recording (I checked this when the camera was 90% of the time offline), but there is no way to communicate with the camera anymore (neither Smart PSS nor browser, and there is no response to ping). I have tried hard resets, cleaning the connectors, taking the camera apart and cleaning the boards... no change.

 

[danmc13]

I was just going to create my own thread when I saw this. I purchased multiple IPC-T2431T-AS cameras from the ipcamtalk store just last year and I have had 2 fail in the past 3 weeks. One I would put it down to bad luck, but two in such a short space of time?

There's no sign of water ingress, checked the cables, poe ports on switch, no corrosion, hard reset, nada, just completely dead and unresponsive.

 

[StevenFromTexas]

My oldest two camera, out of fifteen operating at this time, are approaching four years old. I have yet to have a camera croak. I think a lot of problems are caused by power fluctuations and it's important to use a UPS if possible for an NVR, monitors, computers, etc.

 

[danmc13]

My oldest two camera, out of fifteen operating at this time, are approaching four years old. I have yet to have a camera croak. I think a lot of problems are caused by power fluctuations and it's important to use a UPS if possible for an NVR, monitors, computers, etc.

I'd agree that would be a likely suspect, but both cameras were connected to different switches. I bought a few cameras over the space of a year for myself and a neighbour. He had one fail, and then a week or so later so did I. He has other cameras running off the same switch that are still working and I do too.

 

[JohnKol]

I think a lot of problems are caused by power fluctuations and it's important to use a UPS if possible for an NVR, monitors, computers, etc.

I don't see how a computer or NVR UPS would prevent the cameras themselves from dying. Maybe a UPS on the cameras would help, but the cameras are not plugged directly into outlets, they're powered by POE switches, so if a power surge is strong enough to kill a camera, then it would kill the POE switch first.

 

[fenderman]

I was just going to create my own thread when I saw this. I purchased multiple IPC-T2431T-AS cameras from the ipcamtalk store just last year and I have had 2 fail in the past 3 weeks. One I would put it down to bad luck, but two in such a short space of time?

There's no sign of water ingress, checked the cables, poe ports on switch, no corrosion, hard reset, nada, just completely dead and unresponsive.

2 failing in a three week time frame points to a likely surge that may have damaged components..

 

[fenderman]

I don't see how a computer or NVR UPS would prevent the cameras themselves from dying. Maybe a UPS on the cameras would help, but the cameras are not plugged directly into outlets, they're powered by POE switches, so if a power surge is strong enough to kill a camera, then it would kill the POE switch first.

This is not correct. The switch may be have been able to withstand the surge for various reasons including having components that are less sensitive to the excess power.

 

[JohnKol]

This is not correct. The switch may be have been able to withstand the surge for various reasons including having components that are less sensitive to the excess power.

You're missing the point, the POE switch is not a pass-through device, it actively powers the camera, so there is no physical way for the switch to pass the surge to the devices downstream.

Besides, why would a $50 POE switch have more robust components than a $200 camera?

 

[fenderman]

You're missing the point, the POE switch is not a pass-through device, it actively powers the camera, so there is no physical way for the switch to pass the surge to the devices downstream.

Besides, why would a $50 POE switch have more robust components than a $200 camera?

There sure is. Search the forum - lots of threads on cameras blowing after a surge. When a power surge hits the switch it can easily destroy anything attached to it, even a pc. There is a direct metal connection between the devices. Excess current from the surge is going to flow through those connections, it doesnt need the switch to tell it to do so. If this wasnt the case - why would you need ethernet surge protection at all? Search the net to see what happens to pc's/routers etc after a power surge coming via ethernet.
Did you have a quality surge protector for both the power and the ethernet?

The components of a switch are different than those of a camera, the price is irrelevant. Some components naturally are more susceptible to damage. The camera also costs more because the components themselves are more expensive the price comparison is a red herring. My 20 dollar toaster is immune to surges while my 800 laptop is not.

Your 18 percent failure rate is abnormal but also not accurate because of your small sample size. I have hundreds of cams installed mostly hik and dahua but many other brands as well and no failures other than a few water ingress clouding up the cams after many years. I do not have that particular model you have. 5 years out of a sub 200 camera is more than acceptable, tough I have many in service for longer. Again, without examining the device no one can tell you why it failed. The reason why you dont find many complaints about the cameras dying after 5 years is because they don't with few exceptions.

If you are not happy with dahua there are 50 other brands to choose from but you simply dont have a sample size large enough and cameras spread in various locations to come to any conclusions.