The Perfect Home Security Cams – Ubiquiti UniFi
A lot of home security cameras generally all have one big problem, “the cloud”. Since most options store all the footage the cameras capture to their “cloud platform”, which you generally have to pay a monthly fee to, that means that the companies have direct access to whatever your cameras see – like Ring for example.
Ubiquiti decided that, that just wasn’t for them and so their UniFi Protect series lets you store everything locally, and have total control over everything the cameras see, do, and save.
Now, that does come at a price premium, for the three cameras, Power-Over-Ethernet switch, and Cloud Key 2 Plus I have here, it’s nearly £800. But, if you add up how much someone like Google charges for their Next Aware subscription – a cool £240 a year for 30 day history, and that is PER CAMERA. If you wanted 3 cameras, with just 10 day history, you are paying £500+ per year. Suddenly £800 doesn’t seem so bad eh?
So what do you get for your money? Well, I went with a few different options from their G3 line. The standard G3, a 1080p, PoE powered, weather resistant camera that can be mounted externally, or internally with a wall or pole mount.
I also got the G3 Flex, also 1080p, also PoE with an ethernet port in the bottom and also can be mounted outside, although not quite as hardily built as the standard G3. Also has a bit more adjustment both side to side and vertically.
And finally I also got the G3 Micro, a tiny little camera with it’s own rather nice stand, ball mount for adjustability and either a power brick or PoE with an adapter to power it. This one connects via WiFi, compared to the other two over ethernet, although has been just as reliable in my experience.
You also need a cloud key to manage it all. You can get the standard cloud key, and have it store the footage elsewhere, but the one I have, the plus, is great. It’s got a 2.5” HDD bay with a swappable drive, and comes pre-populated with a 1TB drive. Which I’ve found to be plenty for me at the moment.
You will also need a PoE switch, in this case it’s their 8 port gigabit managed switch, which also has 2 gigabit SPF+ ports for good measure. All of this is pretty easy to set up. You plug everything in, let the cloud key power up, go to the IP address the screen lists – or use bluetooth and the UniFi app on your phone – and run through the setup. You do have to “adopt” the switch, then each camera one by one, but it’s a pretty simple process.
Once you’ve got it setup, I think you’ll love it. The UniFi Protect app is great, lets you see a constant live feed from all your cameras, and can scroll back through history to see events, motion and more. You can even set privacy zones so if you’ve got one like me inside, you can have it fully black out and not record sections where you’d rather not, well, be recorded.
The camera’s quality is pretty decent too. Daylight recording it’s really easy to make out people as they walk by, or vehicles if needed, and night time recording, thanks to their IR LEDs is impressively crisp too. I do have all of mine currently inside, looking through windows, which does mean the IR LEDs don’t always work well, but you can turn them off too so it’s not too bad.
The long and short of this is that these are a brilliant solution. Everything is stored locally, so there is 0 chance of anyone snooping through your footage, but you can still access your cameras from anywhere through the app which is great.
While the up-front fee is high, if you were planning on getting a Nest, Netgear or any other IP camera, consider these first, since you might end up saving a lot of money in the long run.
Cloud Key Gen2 Plus: https://techteamgb.co.uk/cloudkey2plus
Switch 8: https://techteamgb.co.uk/switch8
G3: https://techteamgb.co.uk/unifig3
G3 Flex: https://techteamgb.co.uk/unifig3flex
G3 Micro: https://techteamgb.co.uk/unifig3micro
Products shown provided by: Ubiquiti
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