Smart outdoor security cameras in SA?

quick question,

With regards to the POE switches one should consider getting for the RLC-410 IP cameras, the spec sheet said that each cameras power consumption is <10W, if I'm looking for a 8 camera system does that mean I need to budget for a POE switch that can deliver at a minimum 80W or will i get by with say for example a Tenda Switch that provides a total power draw of 58W to the device?

Would it be better to get one POE switch to power all IP cameras or should one get more than one as a redundancy?

I think its always better to over-provision if you can - the one I got is 96w. I only got 1 and that has its pros and cons - if something breaks troubleshooting is lightly easier as is power backup etc. Depending on the structure of your network and home it might not be practical to have just 1
 
Have you looked at this again? I started with the Hook Up video guide, but then started moving over to the new method described in the AITool guide, where you flag Blue Iris. I need to set up the camera again in BI but I am still trying to get Deepstack working. There are a lot of things to figure out.

I have BI set up to save the images from when it detects motion. Then AITool processes this image and passes it to DS. But now when it starts uploading to DS it looks like the DS server is hanging. It cannot complete the upload and times out. From the quick googling I did it could be that DS takes a longer time to initialize, or I don't have the correct Visual C++ installed. Will have to dig some more. But if I can get the image into DS it should analyse it and send the flag to BI to record it. Can also then add flags to go to HA.
Nah, I've not had the desire to mess more with it. I'm hoping someone with more patience gets it going and just gives us a shortcut :)

quick question,

With regards to the POE switches one should consider getting for the RLC-410 IP cameras, the spec sheet said that each cameras power consumption is <10W, if I'm looking for a 8 camera system does that mean I need to budget for a POE switch that can deliver at a minimum 80W or will i get by with say for example a Tenda Switch that provides a total power draw of 58W to the device?

Would it be better to get one POE switch to power all IP cameras or should one get more than one as a redundancy?
The 8 PoE Scoop switches comes with a 96W PSU which is perfect for the 10W requirement of the RL410 cameras. As others have suggested, it might be a good idea to not run ALL your cameras on the same switch though. In my case, I have a switch each in the western, eastern and southern part of the house. It makes for a lot less wiring and doesn't get me where I have all my eggs in one basket./
 
Thanks! But things have moved on since then. That's the issue; those are outdated now. And the original developer of the AI plugin isn't working on it anymore, someone else took it over so the howto's are irrelevant. Eish
Might be of some help?
 
Might be of some help?
Thanks, will test it out.

I still have 1 camera set up with the old method, and it is continuously recording the SD footage at 640*480p. These video files are 2,7GB per hour, which seems excessive? Is the only way to get the file sizes down going to be encoding them before recording? Only the 4K Reolink's support x265. At this rate, with 6 camera's it will be almost 400GB a day. Am I missing a setting? The clip quality is definitely SD though.
 
On the Hook Up video he says SD recordings for 9 camera's will last more than 30 days on a 4TB drive. That is just over 600MB an hour.
 
Might be of some help?
Did it with this method now, finally got it working. I think the Hook Up method will also work. Finally figured out why the images didn't upload to the Deepstack server. I found an old comment saying it ran out of memory, and I am running it through my HA VM, which I only gave 1GB ram to start testing. Bumped it to 2 GB and now it is working. Camera is recording on movement when confirmed by DQ. Now I need to figure out MQTT to get an alert to HA or I need to set up the Telegram alert.
 
Tried the Telegram notification, but the AITool gives an error saying an SSL connection cannot be made to Telegram to upload the image. Seems like something needs to be added to the code of AITool, but I don't see anything in the thread about this. But I think I will set up the MQTT into HA anyway so that I have more control over what happens with the notification.
 
Tried the Telegram notification, but the AITool gives an error saying an SSL connection cannot be made to Telegram to upload the image. Seems like something needs to be added to the code of AITool, but I don't see anything in the thread about this. But I think I will set up the MQTT into HA anyway so that I have more control over what happens with the notification.
What sort of automations are you looking to trigger once you get an AI match for e.g. person / car ? Am keen to get some types of templates for these things once i setup my HA, BI and AI detection.
 
What sort of automations are you looking to trigger once you get an AI match for e.g. person / car ? Am keen to get some types of templates for these things once i setup my HA, BI and AI detection.
Firstly a notification on my phone. Then maybe a buzzer that can notify me at night, so that it acts as an alarm system. Can also turn on lights when it is triggered at night. This will depend on testing to determine the accuracy of the notifications though.
 
Struggling to connect reolink poe cameras.

I connected the camera to poe injector switch (
https://www.hdcabling.co.za/product/8-port-poe-injector-hub-12v-57v-fast-ethernet-100mb-s/ )
Poe injector switch to switch and switch to router.

PC connected to same switch.
Are you getting any errors? What software are you using to pick-up the camera? BlueIris or the Reolink app?

Edit: oh i had issues powering up my Reolink with a POE Injector - i had the single port one and tried different DC plugs with no luck - gave up in the end - but the camera worked flawlessly when connected directly to a POE switch
 
Thanks

Using windows reolink app.

Ok will take it off and try to setup directly.

Then buy a poe switch if still no luck with injector.
 
Are you getting any errors? What software are you using to pick-up the camera? BlueIris or the Reolink app?

Edit: oh i had issues powering up my Reolink with a POE Injector - i had the single port one and tried different DC plugs with no luck - gave up in the end - but the camera worked flawlessly when connected directly to a POE switch
No errors, device just doesnt appear on LAN.
 
Reolink are pretty specific about using 802.3af when using PoE. It's either that or you use the 12VDC jack. I got the impression on various threads that passive PoE injectors don't work, only active (using a 48V supply). It's for this reason I didn't even bother using passive PoE
 
No errors, device just doesnt appear on LAN.

Reolink are pretty specific about using 802.3af when using PoE. It's either that or you use the 12VDC jack. I got the impression on various threads that passive PoE injectors don't work, only active (using a 48V supply). It's for this reason I didn't even bother using passive PoE
Yes, I don't see any specification for the POE switch you linked. What power supply do you have it on? On that page they list a 12V and a 52V one, I don't know if the 52V one will work since it needs 48V. Does that injector have any lights that come on when you plug the cables in? I bought the Tenda POE switch from Scoop and that works, plug the cable in and there is a power LED on each plug that says it is connected, and a data LED that shows the camera is sending data. An AI switch would probably be better that can restart the camera if it doesn't send data, but Scoop was out of stock on those.
 
No errors, device just doesnt appear on LAN.
Tenda POE switch:

Scoop AI POE switch:

Still not sure why they have 2 uplink ports, but it is only R90 more than the Tenda so might be worth it. They have stock now.
 
Nah, I've not had the desire to mess more with it. I'm hoping someone with more patience gets it going and just gives us a shortcut :)

This was quite a learning experience, although frustrating at times. One of the problems is that there are so many ways to run the software, and each method is a bit different. But once you have the 3 elements running (BI, AITool and Deepstack) it is not that hard to link them together. I have 3 of my 6 cameras set up now, and the detection works well. On any movement BI saves a snapshot, and then the AITool and DS checks for your selected objects. If it is detected BI records the clip. I still need to set up MQTT to be able to run other alerts as well, but that is a whole new learning area for me. Will have a look over the weekend. I do see some clips that BI saved where no object was detected, so there is probably something set up wrong on one of the cameras. If Deepstack was made open source, or worked with Blue Iris to integrate that into BI that would be much simpler to set up.

Edit: I see in Blue Iris they have Smart Sentry AI integrated, but that is $50 a year.
 
Yes, I don't see any specification for the POE switch you linked. What power supply do you have it on? On that page they list a 12V and a 52V one, I don't know if the 52V one will work since it needs 48V. Does that injector have any lights that come on when you plug the cables in? I bought the Tenda POE switch from Scoop and that works, plug the cable in and there is a power LED on each plug that says it is connected, and a data LED that shows the camera is sending data. An AI switch would probably be better that can restart the camera if it doesn't send data, but Scoop was out of stock on those.
Has led lights to show power on but thats it.

I'll buy a poe switch.
 
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