New to forum, looking for help on next steps

[circutz]

Hello all,

This forum seems to be great and quite helpful. I recently had some rebranded dahua cameras installed by a local company here. I choose to go with them specifically because they installed dahua cams, and that's where most of my research led me to believe these cams are the best. Also I needed a professional install as I didn't have the time or expertise to do it.

We ended up getting:
2x - HNC31349H (I believe the dahua model is IPC-HDW3449H-AS-PV)
4x - HDW2431TP
NVR - 4108-8P-4KS2

The two active deterrence cams are by front and rear entry, and then the other 4 covers the sides of the house and two blind spots.

So far the cameras have been pretty good, however the dmss app leaves much to be desired. I see a lot of talk on here about blue Iris, but I'm not sure if it's the right move for me. While I considered myself quite techy in my younger days, a lot of what I've read/seen appears to be a bit over my comfort level.

My main reason for wanting to upgrade though would be a more user friendly app. For example, I have wyze camera used for inside the house, and a nest doorbell (which I plan to change to something better soon). I find both of their apps have a better user experience. I understand that dahua won't put as much money into their app as some of these other companies, but for me I find the app ruins a lot of the experience for me.

For example, on dmss when I go to playback for a camera, even when fully zoomed into the time chart, I find it extremely glitchy when trying to navigate to a specific time. I scroll with my finger until I see the time I want, and when I let go it jumps all over the place. And it often takes way too long to get to the spot I want. This maybe due to my phone, I'm not sure if others have this issue. But on the wyze app when I do the same, I don't have that problem at all. And the jump forward/backward 30s option on the wyze app is a nice feature that I really miss when using the dmss app.

I use an android, and my wife a new iPhone. For the most part the notifications (or alarm messages) come through to my phone, but often not to hers. And we both have the exact same settings selected. I find that strange and just un reliable.

Also the dmss app will often "lose" connection to my cameras and I have to constantly restart the app in order to see my cameras. Am I isolated with this issues? Or have others experienced it?

And lastly I don't like how often things can only be changed when directly hooked up to the NVR. For example my tripwire perimeters needed to be changed, and I couldn't just do it from the app. This was an issue for me because I was away from my home for an extended time and didn't have the luxury of just plugging into the NVR and making the changes I wanted to.

Would switching to a blue Iris set up with my cameras fix my issues? Or would it be worth it? Also, with plans to change my doorbell to a better one (but likely not a dahua one based on my research), I don't think what I choose will work with dmss. So this might be another good reason to go with BI?

Thanks in advance

 

[mat200]

Hello all,

This forum seems to be great and quite helpful. I recently had some rebranded dahua cameras installed by a local company here. I choose to go with them specifically because they installed dahua cams, and that's where most of my research led me to believe these cams are the best. Also I needed a professional install as I didn't have the time or expertise to do it.

We ended up getting:
2x - HNC31349H (I believe the dahua model is IPC-HDW3449H-AS-PV)
4x - HDW2431TP
NVR - 4108-8P-4KS2

The two active deterrence cams are by front and rear entry, and then the other 4 covers the sides of the house and two blind spots.

So far the cameras have been pretty good, however the dmss app leaves much to be desired. I see a lot of talk on here about blue Iris, but I'm not sure if it's the right move for me. While I considered myself quite techy in my younger days, a lot of what I've read/seen appears to be a bit over my comfort level.

My main reason for wanting to upgrade though would be a more user friendly app. For example, I have wyze camera used for inside the house, and a nest doorbell (which I plan to change to something better soon). I find both of their apps have a better user experience. I understand that dahua won't put as much money into their app as some of these other companies, but for me I find the app ruins a lot of the experience for me.

For example, on dmss when I go to playback for a camera, even when fully zoomed into the time chart, I find it extremely glitchy when trying to navigate to a specific time. I scroll with my finger until I see the time I want, and when I let go it jumps all over the place. And it often takes way too long to get to the spot I want. This maybe due to my phone, I'm not sure if others have this issue. But on the wyze app when I do the same, I don't have that problem at all. And the jump forward/backward 30s option on the wyze app is a nice feature that I really miss when using the dmss app.

I use an android, and my wife a new iPhone. For the most part the notifications (or alarm messages) come through to my phone, but often not to hers. And we both have the exact same settings selected. I find that strange and just un reliable.

Also the dmss app will often "lose" connection to my cameras and I have to constantly restart the app in order to see my cameras. Am I isolated with this issues? Or have others experienced it?

And lastly I don't like how often things can only be changed when directly hooked up to the NVR. For example my tripwire perimeters needed to be changed, and I couldn't just do it from the app. This was an issue for me because I was away from my home for an extended time and didn't have the luxury of just plugging into the NVR and making the changes I wanted to.

Would switching to a blue Iris set up with my cameras fix my issues? Or would it be worth it? Also, with plans to change my doorbell to a better one (but likely not a dahua one based on my research), I don't think what I choose will work with dmss. So this might be another good reason to go with BI?

Thanks in advance

For the Android Mobile devices you may want to try TinyCam ..

Honestly, I think at this time it is hard to get a perfect setup .. so I like a couple of webcams outside to augment my core PoE system for remote mobile checking to see who dropped by .. and when I need to see detail is when I go to my core PoE system

I'll let the folks who use Blue Iris and mobile devices chime in .. ( I am more of a desktop user )

 

[circutz]

For the Android Mobile devices you may want to try TinyCam

Thanks for your reply. I hadn't read much on tiny cam. I assume it doesn't work on apple devices? Or is it just not as good on them?

 

[mat200]

Thanks for your reply. I hadn't read much on tiny cam. I assume it doesn't work on apple devices? Or is it just not as good on them?

Tiny Cam is an Android app .. not iOS .. so you may have to look for an iOS 3rd party app ..

 

[circutz]

Tiny Cam is an Android app .. not iOS .. so you may have to look for an iOS 3rd party app ..

Thank you for the advice.

Hoping someone else might be able to chime in regarding if blue Iris would fix my current issues/gripes with dmss

 

[justthefacts]

Blue iris is free to try for 15 days,the only thing I can tell you is try it ! I no longer need my android app because I have blue iris emailing me the alerts with video's attached !

 

[circutz]

Blue iris is free to try for 15 days,the only thing I can tell you is try it ! I no longer need my android app because I have blue iris emailing me the alerts with video's attached !

I want to try it for sure, I just don't have a PC set up to test it with at the moment. I feel like an intuitive app is necessary thought (for me at least). I want to be able to see live video streams. I want to be able to use two way talk (which interesting enough isn't working for me on dmss either).

 

[justthefacts]

I want to try it for sure, I just don't have a PC set up to test it with at the moment. I feel like an intuitive app is necessary thought (for me at least). I want to be able to see live video streams. I want to be able to use two way talk (which interesting enough isn't working for me on dmss either).

When your ready we can talk about it further !

 

[samplenhold]

I have had BI at the house since 2018. I use the BI app on the iPhone when away from home and not at a PC. When we travel in our motorcoach, I use a laptop to connect back to my home and view my cams via BI's UI3 interface. While the BI iPhone app is good, it is not great. But I never have had an issue trying to look at alert videos on it.

I recently installed a couple of Wyze cams at my motorcoach in the storage yard after it was burglarized. I totally disagree with you on the Wyze app. Very flaky trying to view motion alerts. For several weeks I did not subscribe to the cloud feature. Was hoping to just write to the SD Card and view from there. Well that really does not seem to work every time. Yes, I can see the snapshot, but rarely can find any video on the SD card via the app. Though I have not tried to remove the card and view it on a PC. That would really defeat the remote purpose of the cams.

Yesterday I decided to subscribe to the CamPlus cloud feature hoping that will give me access to video of motion alerts. So far, no alerts to test it with.

 

[circutz]

I have had BI at the house since 2018. I use the BI app on the iPhone when away from home and not at a PC. When we travel in our motorcoach, I use a laptop to connect back to my home and view my cams via BI's UI3 interface. While the BI iPhone app is good, it is not great. But I never have had an issue trying to look at alert videos on it.

I recently installed a couple of Wyze cams at my motorcoach in the storage yard after it was burglarized. I totally disagree with you on the Wyze app. Very flaky trying to view motion alerts. For several weeks I did not subscribe to the cloud feature. Was hoping to just write to the SD Card and view from there. Well that really does not seem to work every time. Yes, I can see the snapshot, but rarely can find any video on the SD card via the app. Though I have not tried to remove the card and view it on a PC. That would really defeat the remote purpose of the cams.

Yesterday I decided to subscribe to the CamPlus cloud feature hoping that will give me access to video of motion alerts. So far, no alerts to test it with.

Interesting, it has worked quite well for me. I have SD cards in all of my v2 wyze cams and no issues viewing them or navigating the app. Other than poor ai for person and motion detection, it's pretty good for me. However I have one v3 cam that for some reason won't accept any SD cards in it. So that one irritates me.

I don't pay for the subscription service though, didn't seem worth it to me.

 

[samplenhold]

I have a V3 inside and two Battery Cam Pros outside. Sometimes I can get the video off of the V3, but can never get it off of the Battery Cam Pro ones. Here is an example:

Got alert that his no good was coming out of the coach. Here is the alert in the app.


Click on playback and get the following screen. States No video available at this time. It is set to the correct date and time. Trying to scroll up or down gives nothing.


From the setting you can see it is supposed to record to the MicroSD card. And the card status shows it is there with plenty of space.



The other thing I do not like is that the alert image has no time stamp on the image. Yet there is one on the live view.

 

[circutz]

Yeah that's so strange to me. I've never had any of those issues. When I get an alert, it comes in quite quickly. It gives a timestamp for the alert and the video.

Might be worth reaching out to their customer service. I know there's an issue with my v3 why it won't read SD cards (ones that I know work as I've tested them in other cams). But I just can't be bothered with it, so that's why I've never bothered to contact Wyze.

 

[justthefacts]

Have you tried SmartPSS instead of dmss ?

 

[circutz]

Have you tried SmartPSS instead of dmss ?

Yes, more so to play around when I'm on my home network and check out some of the options I don't have access to on dmss. But use dmss more often I find. I still can't figure out why I can't use the two way talk feature. It says it's working, but nothing comes out from the cameras speakers.