Hi all. I’ve been searching for a good security camera setup for outside of my BnB. I’m 2 hours away from the house and only visit once a month. The challenge I’ve had is cameras often go offline, sometimes boot themselves back up 1-2 days later or just stay offline until I go and manually reset things. Any recommendations for wireless ones that you’ve had a great outcome with?
I’ve tried Nest, didn’t like the functionality. I currently have Wyze, wireless and a wired, I like the cameras and functions but I’ve had 2 offline (1 wired and 1 wireless) for a week now. The 3rd works still. Thx!
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I like my Blink cameras from Amazon
RR
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What does that mean?
I have 4 Nest cams active 24/7 for 4 years now and have never had them ‘go offline’ by themselves for more than a few minutes. Sounds to me like you have either a bad choice of cameras or something is wrong with your power or internet.
FYI I have Wyze cams (v2) as well and they are never offline either. Perhaps it is your placement?
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I’ve used Blink wireless cameras for years. Got them on the advice of a salesman who gave me a crazy quote for a wired system. He knew we weren’t going to pay the asking price so he generously offered the alternative and they work great.
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My home is under 800 sq ft, my internet is 75 mb, and the router is in the middle of the home. It’s a manufactured home so no brick or mortar around. The cameras are no more than 50ft from the router all mounted under the eve. I don’t think it’s the placement or internet but I could be wrong. The house remains vacant unless rented but the cameras typically have gone offline when home is vacant so it’s not like the internet is being overloaded.
I checked updated firmware, reset everything back to factory and reset the cameras last weekend. 1 camera went offline in 1 day (wireless) 1 went offline in 3 days (wired). 1 wireless remains on as of right now.
I’m really not sure what else to do but I’m past return date. Still reading reviews on other systems.
Thank for your feedback
But why not Nest? What is your ‘functionality’ issue?
Any chance someone is messing with it when the home is vacant? If the only time it goes offline is when the house is not rented, that’s unlikely (but possible) to be just a coincidence.
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Mostly, my work computer would not support downloading the software to view cameras on my desktop or laptop. My work viewed that as a privacy violation and blocked it, preventing download. However, Wyze application works great with no issues on my work equipment. Also, I like having the external sd card for storage space, also Nest monthly fees to get everything I wanted as far as recording, I think was close to $10 a month per camera, on top of the already pricey cameras. I had them about 6 months ago so I don’t recall all but those were my main dislikes.
I don’t think so but you never know. The way I have them set up, 2 of the 3 I would be able to see someone approaching the cameras before they got to them and messed with them.
I may have misspoke too because they have gone offline while I’ve had guest there, but typically have come back after hours or the next day. I just usually care more about the cameras when my home is vacant. I’ve even had a guest unplug the base for me while they were staying (1 of the 3 were offline) but 2 came back online, the 1 didn’t. I had to go and power the camera down a few days later and it came back online after that.
I’m heading there this weekend so I’ll mess with them again. Just hoping for a better solution. I heard Eufy cameras were great but they are pricey. I may try the Blink as a few people on here suggested.
I use the Blink cameras from Amazon. To be honest, overall, I don’t like them. I don’t like that they only record when triggered. And, even though I have the settings set to record as long as there is motion, they never seem to do that, they only record for a set period of time.
However, for my situation, I am not planning on changing them for something else and would recommend them to others.
The pro: they are quick and easy and cheap to set up because they run on batteries and wifi. If you have a large property, put a few range expanders up so you have good wifi coverage and they work. You just have to attach them and aim them. done. Cons: as Ive mentioned they only record when triggered. Running on batteries, if they recorded 24/7 like the nest cameras, the batteries would last a month or even weeks instead of years.
If you are willing/able to run power (poe) to every camera location, the Nest are much better than the Blink in every possible way. If you have wired power, you can power a better camera and more functionality. Its just fact.
If you are remote and reliable camera coverage is critical to your operation, I would contact a security company and look into hard wired CCTV camera system. Expensive, but, you wont have any issues with them.
Note: to prevent any issues, I also have 2 wifi devices. 1 is for the guests and is in the guest suite so they can use a hard cable if they desire. The 2nd one is inaccessible to the guests and runs the cameras. There are also 3 range expanders. So, if the guest tries to disable the wifi, the cameras still work.
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I use Ring. They have doorbell and security cameras. I think they need to be wifi connected though, because videos are stored online. We previously had a wildlife camera, and the card would get full, or the battery would die, and we had to manually check it. The ring camera I just charge periodically.
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