Uber Noob question

KerryL

KerryL

n3wb
Jul 27, 2017
2
1
I regretfully had a Vivint system installed last month and although I like certain aspects, it's clumsy, unreliable and expensive. Fortunately the sales rep gave me a month to evaluate and cancel, so I've decided to go the DIY route with a local NVR and home automation via smartthings or something similar. The vivint setup had 3 outdoor cams, one indoor cam, a doorbell cam, had all the alarm sensors and was connected to a Nest thermostat and a Schlage Zwave lock set.

I'm looking for a system to replicate most of that and had perused amazon for turn key POE NVR systems by LaView and a few others. Looking for recommendations for something that doesn't require cloud storage and can stream to an IOS app.

Thank you all so much in advance. I have done some lurking of the forums but some of the acronyms used are foreign to me and I'm running out of time to cancel the vivint contract, otherwise I'd search more of the forums.
 
Check out the Dahua brand. They've been pulling ahead in popularity this past year or so, as they make great stuff. You'll find both cameras and NVRs. You do typically need to know a little about what you are doing when putting together a Dahua system as they don't just come in a big box with all you need. Something you will notice is that almost none of their cameras have wifi built in. This is because wifi is terrible for security cameras. Don't use it even if you have it, and things will work better.

If you are more PC savvy you might try Blue Iris instead of a hardware NVR. Blue Iris is like a software NVR that runs on Windows. It is a lot more flexible in what it can do, compared to a hardware NVR, but it also can be pretty difficult to learn due to the sheer number of features.

Neither a Dahua NVR or Blue Iris require cloud storage, and both can stream to IOS apps.
 
I don't typically run a computer 24/7 so a hardware NVR might be better. Also the only desktop I have would need expansion if I went that route.
 
Welcome Kerry to the forum,

I've made some notes to share which should be helpful to give you a quicker start to processing info on the forums here
Looking for some advice and direction!

Have fun setting things up
 
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