I'm pretty happy with my Unifi doorbell from Ubiquiti. If you purchase a dream machine or cloud key storage device to go with it, you can record constantly for as much disk space that's provided. The downside is the price, while Ubiquiti doesn't have subscriptions on their products they tend to be on the higher end of costs. Expect to put down $500 minimum for the doorbell and storage.
this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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Home Automation
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Discussion about general home automation ideas and projects, home automation protocols like Z-wave, Zigbee, Matter, etc, and home automation software and hubs like HomeSeer, Home Assistant, OpenHAB, Homey.
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I have the same and came to suggest Ubiquiti. I have continuous footage of the last 90 days or so.
Am I able to use my own storage with the camera or do I need to buy the NVR?
You need something capable of running Unifi OS to manage the doorbell. A dream machine, cloud key or yes the NVR.
Looking at their site it looks like I can set up and host via anything.
You can set up the unifi network app on anything but not the DVR system. Your cheapest option is a Cloud Key.
It takes an sd card or a 2.5 inch SATA drive.
That's actually the route I ended up going. I'm actually loving the system as whole. May replace my other cameras with unifi products.
If I wanted to do that, I would not try to let the camera take care of the storage space. It is simply not it's job.
I would use some recording software for managing all these recordings, and I would give it some disk space on my NAS.
I've got network attached storage and an always online server I can use to house the recordings. I really just need a camera capable of continuous recording with supporting software.
I’m curious about the use case: why do you want continuous video?
I never wanted cameras because I can’t imagine being able to search or view continuous video: motion detection is a fantastic solution so you have a manageable number of events clearly defined.
My video doorbell does need a subscription so probably not want you want, but in addition to the motion events, you can configure it to save a snapshot at regular intervals. I used it to effectively high speed flipbook though the day, watching the clouds race by and the sun move across the sky … then turned it off
I don't live in a great neighborhood and had the chance to catch a crime on video if it recorded continuously. I have a full security set up around the house but nothing catches the whole street but the doorbell camera. It's cheaper for me to get one that does record continuously then to upgrade my NVR and get another camera.
I'm using a Hikvision DS-KV6113-WPE1 with indoor station with Frigate. The hardware has its quirks but it's mostly great
I'm using Dahua VTO2111D with Frigate. Cheap. Stable. With shitty mic, though.