Anyone could help out on a security camera system. What are some features you recommend in case i want to integrate with sharptools. looking for an 8 camera system. 6 are going outside and two inside. facial recognition, two way audio, 1080p, night vision. debating POE, wireless or direct wire
For SharpTools dashboard integration, the main thing is making sure that the camera system offers a supported output format - either MJPEG streams or image snapshots. (Reference help article)
If the camera system doesn’t offer a compatible format, a common approach is to use Blue Iris to translate the stream to a compatible format. (Some people also use TinyCam Pro which is fine as a starter solution or for a camera here or there, but wouldn’t be recommended for a large scale setup)
In fact, many people choose to forgo purchasing a bundled security system that includes a physical NVR in favor of buying quality IP cameras and using Blue Iris as a dedicated NVR.
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For example, in my previous home I originally purchased a bunch of Reolink cameras and their dedicated NVR. The cameras were great, but I found the Reolink NVR to be lacking in features - especially refinements around motion detection and integration with other systems. I ended up keeping the cameras, returning the NVR, and setting up a basic Blue Iris instance.
This also let me consolidate the Reolink 4MP cameras that I had outside along with the variety of cameras that I had inside my house all into one security/recording solution.
Do you have a dedicated PC running BlueIris 24/7 or are there options to run it (NAS, mini PC to NAS)?
Since Blue Iris is Windows only, I picked up an HP EliteDesk 800 G1 Mini several years back on ebay for ~$230 to use as a dedicated Blue Iris machine. It’s something like 2" tall by 6" square footprint, so pretty small and low power… the key thing is that Blue Iris supports hardware decoding on supported Intel CPUs which means it is really efficient with video even on pretty cheap hardware.
I had it record events to the built-in hard drive. I planned on having it back them up to the NAS, but found that the local hard drive was enough for my needs and I could always flag events that I wanted to keep or manually move them to the NAS.
Most NAS systems have some sort of NVR solution as well - QNAP and Synology each have their ‘Surveillance Station’ solutions - some people swear by these solutions, but I wasn’t very impressed.
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