After a my 1st home burglary and a recent huge spike of them in my area, I'm looking for a complete kit.
I work in the tech industry and put together my own desktop PCs but I'm NOT interested in putting together and babysitting yet another PC nor a new hobby (e.g. buying cameras from Hikvision, Dahua, etc. from random resellers on Amazon, Alibaba, etc.) I'd especially hate to run into support/warranty issues w/them.
I'm not also not the right guy to go around drilling holes and installing cameras myself. Will need to hire an installer/contractor.
My only current experience is w/2 Dropcam Pros (obviously unsuitable for outdoor use) and their web UI + iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android phone apps.
Pre-reqs I can think of:
- DVR storage
- weatherproof cameras w/720p res or better preferred
- reliable motion detection w/o too many false alarms and the ability to exclude certain zones
- decent software that can highlight where in a timeline there's been activity detected.
- decent track record of manufacturer's support to fix bugs and fix security holes/bugs
- reliable hardware
- ability to copy stills (JPGs?) and movie files off (USB flash/hard drive, SD card or microSD card, network are all ok)
- motion alerts on my mobile device (iOS preferred)
- ability to view video remotely from mobile device
- ability to fast forward thru video/create or view a time lapse video
Don't need PTZ cameras.
I'd REALLY hate to spend a whole ton of $ on hardware and a contractor to install it all to only have stuff crap out or for the system to turn out to be a piece of crap that's flaky, is buggy, has unreliable motion detection or too many false detections, etc.
I'd also hate it if the system has horrible security holes that are never patched because the vendor decided to abandon it and move onto the next product.
I'm not on a really tight budget (no, don't think I want to spend Axis-level pricing, seeing the price of the DVRs). I figure the max I'd be willing to spend on hardware is between $1K and $1.5K. I think I'd need 6 cameras and would be great if the NVR/DVR had room for 8 cameras or more. I'll pay whatever it takes to have a reputable installer do the work. Not sure where I should look for that though...
I've seen a bunch of brands at retail and online like Avertx, Zmodo, Night Owl, Lorex, Samsung, Swann, Q-See, etc.
I've been too busy to do much research but I'm leaning towards Swann and something that's 720p or above. I'd rather have more cameras that are 720p than fewer but are 1080p. It's not because Swann strikes me as a must buy but it seems like nobody's residential/retail systems are that great but Swann's been in business for a long time and the founder's last name is the brand (http://swann.com/downloads/product/Swann%20Corporate%20Profile.pdf).
Yeah yeah, some people hate Swann and the like (http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=188243#p188243) and some haters have never even seen the systems they hate... but it's funny how those companies seem to apparently buy from vendors like Hikvision, Dahua...
Thoughts on models and/or brands that meet best meet my criteria? For me, I'm wary of companies that are relatively new (e.. Avertx) and Chinese integrators (e.g. Zmodo).
Should I go for systems that use PoE so there's only 1 wire to run per camera?
