Greetings from the UK... noob questions on good nighttime cameras

[DwainPipe]

Hello everyone,

Excellent forum that I'm so glad I found. I've read the Cliff Notes and had a good look in the wiki, and hope I've got the basics covered. I'm at the start of my project and already know that planning and research before spending my money is going to be the key to success.

I'm having some building work done at the moment with the opportunity to have a lot of floors up and walls /ceilings replasted, so the right time to get the cabling in and the cameras up.

So far, I've got my router with a NAS that has a camera recording/controlling app, so I think adding a Active PoE Switch, some cat6 cabling and 2 cameras will do me to start with.

My requirements are:

• Minimum 1080P (1920×1080) recording in real time (so 30fps at least)
• Good (actual great) night time recording (I've already got daytime covered via Canary cameras and subscription)
• The coverage area is the front of my house, which has 5 meters of garden space / driveway then a road with cars passing. There is a street lamp outside my house but I don't expect glare from it as it points directly downwards and I don't need to see that high in the sky (i.e. I want the cameras focus to be the 5 meters of garden space / driveway, not the road)
• 2 cameras to provide crossover coverage of the area

It's a basic setup but I think simple is the way to start, so I've come up with this:

The app on the NAS (a Synology DS218j with Surveillance Station App) has a list of 'tested, compatible cameras' Surveillance Station IP Camera Support List | Synology Inc.which seems to include all the Dahua and Hikvision cameras pretty much.

After much reading I'm thinking 2MP varifocus eyeball cameras like the IPC-HDW4231EM-ASE, but I've only come to that suggestion because of the build-in IR leds and zoom feature. I was orginially thinking 4K/8MP but then read about the not so good night vision. Again night time is all that I need.

So what is the best (not silly priced) night time camera please?

My only other question is about the Active PoE Switch... again any strong suggestions please?

Budget is not really too much of an issue, as this project is a drop in the ocean compared to the building works going on.

Many thanks in advance,

Craig
(DwainPipe)

 

[mat200]

Welcome Craig @DwainPipe

Remember to check out the various reviews, thanks to @pinko who has created a nice listing of them
Dahua Camera & PTZ Reviews

Note the 4xxx series typically has fixed lens, the 5xxx series varifocal lens.

For low light I like the Dahua starlight and starlight+ models. All of the Dahua OEM international model cameras that we have been reviewing should work well with your NAS imho.

Remember to add firewall rules to protect all of your IP security cameras and IoT devices from the internet and from probing attacks from your PCs and the like.
( see the VPN and security notes in the wiki for more info ... )

There is a nice list of PoE switches here.. iirc there's a link in the cliff notes, and perhaps even a wiki entry / link someplace to it.

imho BV-tech looks good as a brand for PoE switches in terms of regular value. I'm certain there's a number of good options available in the UK.

 

[DwainPipe]

Thank you for the info @Matt200. I'll do some more reading.