Do you think security cameras cost a lot? You can't go wrong!

Introductory

Until a few years ago, if someone wanted to camera their home, possibly the garden, the gate entrance, it had to reckon with horrible costs. Indoors, Wi-Fi solutions were the same, but outside, it was not possible to get away with the costs of cabling. And the prices of cameras, that is, usable cameras, were in the skies. It was possible to get relatively cheap pieces, but they mostly had SD resolution. If we reached a little deeper into our pockets, a 720p solution might have come, but the really good quality 1080p resolution, i.e. FHD cameras, fell into the unaffordable category with a little exaggeration.

Fortunately, this situation has completely changed by now, and this is largely due to emerging Chinese manufacturers. Even before anyone thinks that Chinese in this case is synonymous with crap, I have to disappoint. The thing is, compared to the old prices, we get cameras for pennies, ones that are well suited for home use in all respects, capabilities and prices.

In this article, you got to know two cameras. One is a bloody indoor camera designed for those who don’t want to build a serious security system, they simply want to look at the apartment, a pet left at home, or just their child as he sleeps in the nursery sometimes. The second camera will already be a half-professional, outdoor security camera. It offers great image quality at a low cost, and in terms of both the materials used and the knowledge, it stands its ground not only at home, but even in a corporate environment.

Blitzwolf-SHC1 - rotatable FHD smart camera for the apartment

Blitzwolf is a relatively new company that has been operating since 2015. The company, which initially made phone accessories, has now ventured into quite a few areas, which is gratifying because the quality of their products stands out above the Chinese average, and in fact, I dare say that they will compete with even Xiaomi.

I bought their indoor camera for my part. Of course, knowledge was also important, but there is a wide choice of structures with similar capabilities, so in this case the name of the manufacturer and the exterior were the decisive factors in the choice.

Packaging, accessories

The camera comes in a white cardboard box of the usual quality from the manufacturer, on which we find little green coloring. The thick packaging is also a guarantee that the camera will arrive to us intact, but of course the web store also tries to pack it so that there is no problem.

Opening the box, we find the camera in the usual antistatic bag, next to it lies the box hiding the accessories. It includes a bracket with which we can mount the camera on a wall, they also add a dowel and a screw, which is an appreciative consideration. We get another USB charging cable, in fact, the charging head is not left out, through which the 5 volts the device receives. I also appreciated this, because nowadays I am more and more confronted with the fact that the manufacturers pack only one USB cable with noble simplicity, and then we decide where to get the voltage from our gadgets ourselves.

The camera is accompanied by a description of use and installation, which is written in English, but the explanatory illustrations are understandable and good.

External

As I wrote above, the look of the camera weighed a lot on the lat. Luckily in Blitzwolf, I didn’t have to be disappointed now either, the pictures of the product gave back to reality.

The body of the camera is made of matte white plastic with a pleasant touch. The base is gray and ribbed, and the part that hides the optics, light sensor and infrared LEDs is bright black. Opposite the optics, we find the speaker grille on the other side of the spherical head. The power / reset button and the USB connector are on the bottom gray, no other controls can be found. It’s also important to find a standard threaded mount on the base, the kind we’re used to on cameras, so we can mount the Blitzwolf’s camera on even a tripod if we feel like it.

One more thing left is the SD memory card slot. Of course, I made the mistake many times of imagining myself to be too smart to not have to read the instructions, so I searched for the location of the card for minutes, already thinking that I must have remembered it badly and not even using it for the Blitzwolf-SHC1 . And maybe they just hid the socket. The rotatable head of the camera should be pointed all the way up, in which case the socket will appear. Tricky!

Commissioning

This camera is designed for those who are not devoted to IT, cannot and do not want to deal with things like setting an IP address or similar nonsense.

To get started, we need to download a phone application, you can see pictures of it below. Once installed, adding a camera is so easy that even a child can do it. We need to enter the details of our wifi network, i.e. we need to select which network we are using and enter the username and password. After clicking the add camera option, a QR code will appear on the display. The phone with the code should be placed 10-15 centimeters in front of the switched on camera, it will recognize the code, read the necessary data from it and the connection is ready, the camera has been added to the viewable devices, we can see the picture, we can start using it .

We have the option of choosing a more complex and different path. When adding the camera, you can also select the smartconfig option in the upper right corner by clicking otherwise, which will eventually get you to where you can connect with the easiest connection without a QR code. The AP Mode is slightly different from this, because in this case the camera works as a wifi AP, so it creates a mini private wifi network. Of course, there will be no internet for this. From the wifi networks, you can select the camera on your phone, connect directly to it and control it.

Once connected, you can go deeper in the menu. A very tiny part of this has remained Chinese (I don’t even understand why), but it’s 90 percent English, so we can set up basically everything from motion detection to voice communication. It’s worth “flipping through” everything nicely, because that’s how we’ll be able to take full advantage of the capabilities.

abilities

This camera is specifically designed for mobile use, so we will not be able to use it as part of more serious networks. On the other hand, it can be integrated into the ecosystem of the Blitzwolf smart home, and can even be controlled by voice instructions. Of course, this requires other components in the system, but about that a little later.

The camera itself is a so-called PAN / TILT solution, meaning it can be rotated 355 degrees and the head can be tilted 110 degrees. The latter value is further enhanced by 80 degrees due to the wide-angle optics, so essentially the full 180 degrees can be seen during tilting. In practice, this rotatability means that not a single inch of the room is left out of the field of view available.

I’ve already written about resolution, it’s Full HD, i.e. 1920 x 1080 pixels, in my opinion it’s enough for everything. If we don't want to pay attention to the lives of ants, we would buy a completely redundant 4K camera indoors or indoors. The signal stream is compressed into an h.264 container, and we also get dynamic noise reduction capability to improve the picture.

There are also night and day modes, you can switch from the app to when to switch from one to another. With built-in infrared LEDs, it provides 8-10 meters in complete darkness. Of course, the Blitzwolf camera also knows the various common wifi encryptions, so we can also use WEP / WPA / and WPA2 encryption. The supported network protocols are DHCP, TCP / IP and WPS, but with these we will not have to deal with as I wrote the setup does not require knowledge of these.

Among the security functions there is motion detection, the sensitivity of which can be adjusted in three levels. We can also schedule when this period will work and when it will not. When there is movement, an alarm is received and recording starts. This can also happen on the memory card or in the cloud, but for the latter we need to buy a subscription and storage space. Not a big amount, if security is important, we’re fine with it, because the camera can be taken away with the card by the burglar, and we stay there without recording. Of course, there is also a way to take a photo or start recording via your phone, in which case the events are recorded in the phone's storage.

One more thing was left out, the two-way voice connection. With the built-in speaker and microphone, you can communicate with the person in front of the camera, but you can also push the dog not to eat the carpet.

I mentioned above that the camera can also be controlled by voice. To do this, you must have one of the Alexa, Google Assistant Rokid, or Tmall Genie systems. If they are, then not only will the voice command work, but thanks to the IFTTT function, we can also set up different connections, that is, we can do, say, assign a lamp to turn on for motion detection.

Phone App

I have written quite a lot above about what we can find in the phone program. The point is that the software has worked very well, which is important because we can control not only our camera, but also our other Blitzwolf smart home devices with Wi-Fi, Zigbee and Bluetooth. The interface is transparent, easy to set up, though it will require minimal English or at least one Google translate. You can find pictures above!

You can buy the camera here:

Blitzwolf-SHC1 - rotatable FHD smart camera for the apartment

(Select EU Priority Line shipping method for duty and VAT free shipping)

Alfawise outdoor IP camera

I have long needed a good outdoor camera because I was struggling with an old SD resolution that I could only use under Internet Explorer because the “warranty” of the browser plugin that could be installed on it had expired.

The Alfawise camera is a great choice for those who want to keep their home safe. It has advanced networking features, but it also comes with a great phone app, making it a good choice for those who are building a professional system and for those who just want to look at the camera on their phone sometimes.

Packaging and accessories

The camera comes in a simple box, which also shows that it is made for people who know what and how to make the most of it. In other words, the use rather than the shelf-friendly packaging was the primary priority here.

We are equipped with accessories. This camera also comes with the screw and dowel in the package, and we also get a watertight insulation under the sole, an antenna for wifi, a short UTP cable for commissioning and a power supply. As with the previous camera, I have to mention here that this is unfortunately not normal at all lately, so I give it a very big red dot because of it. Basically we get everything for commissioning, if we open the box the installation can start.

External

It looks bigger in the pictures at the store, but the truth is, we get a pretty small, so to speak, discreet camera for our money. The construction is robust and the use of materials is excellent. It is made of all metal, the screws can be tightened properly, the camera can be adjusted to the right angle very easily.

The memory card is placed under the cover that can be attached with the screw at the bottom, so it is protected from water, and it is not easy to access. As you can see in the pictures, the antenna is on the back. In front, under the dark cover are the infrared LEDs and the light sensor, and of course the lens is here.

I have only one complaint about the exterior, more precisely about the features, the counterpart of the UTP connector gland is not included in the package. True, this is the standard size, so you can buy one, but it would have been better if we got this too. The point is, if you want the UTP connector to be waterproof, take care of it! Next to the UTP socket, there is a reset button at the end of the cable, which can be closed with a rubber cap, and there is also a connector for the power supply. I put the whole bundle in an anhydrous junction box, so for me the dewatering is solved.

abilities

As I wrote above, this is already a regular, say semi-professional camera. And semi-professionalism is not a negative indicator, so it doesn’t take anything away from the abilities, it rather adds extra things to them. Understand this by accessing the camera on a computer in the usual way, based on the IP address from a browser, and here you can set everything you need for professional use. In addition, we also get the telephone application, through which we can use it, which is essentially simple, similar to the camera presented for the first time, of course without the movement functions.

It supports a lot of network protocols, I won't explain them separately, if anyone has any questions about them, do so in the comments, I'll help! So the different protocols are: DDNS, DHCP, DNS, FTP, HTTP, IP, LAN, P2P, PPPOE, RTSP, SMTP, TCP, UDP. It supports the n standard from Wi-Fi networks, so the data transfer rate is sufficient to transmit a full HD image, i.e. 1920 x 1080 pixels.

Of course, there is also a night mode with the help of 18 infrared LEDs with a visibility of 15 meters. You can also adjust the image quality, you can fine-tune the brightness, contrast, and hue.

Of course, there are also normal security functions, so we also get motion detection and various alarm modes. You can upload the image video to an FTP server automatically or send the images to yourself via email.

This camera also has two-way voice communication, meaning it also has a microphone and a speaker, so we can tell the burglar to run though, because the police are on their way.

There’s one thing I definitely need to highlight among my capabilities, and that’s exactly what makes an Alfawise camera good for professional solutions as well. And this is nothing but the ONVIF function. ONVIF is a standardized driver through which the camera can be connected to all kinds of recording devices without having to search for a manufacturer-specific driver or without the particular recording device knowing our camera.

There are many ONVIF solutions. There are recording units made for separate security cameras, there are various PC software, some of which are free and very professional for a fee (I recommend the one called iSpy for your attention), but we can even use NAS, i.e. network storage. I have a Synology NAS, which is the foundation of my home file server, network media server, and security system. Up to two cameras are free to use, above that we have to buy a license, which is not cheap, but a lifetime investment.

Computer interface

The camera is connected to the router with a cable in the usual way, then we search the network by IP address. After entering the IP address in the browser, we already get an interface through which we have to first download the software, which is needed to appear in the browser, then we can click on the PC view link, which loads the software. Don't forget to set the language to English in the upper right corner!

Of course, you can watch the live image through the interface, and you can make the settings on the settings tab. If you want to use it via a wifi connection, set up your wireless connection now so that you don't have to deal with it outside, mounted on the wall!

I'm not going to detail the settings here either, anyone who has seen an IP camera up close will know everything, who doesn't, feel free to ask, I'll be happy to help!

Phone App

I love it! Seriously, the interface is sparse friendly, we can customize the camera settings to a great depth, but there are also solutions for more unskilled users that allow them to use the camera.

As with the indoor camera, a QR code wizard is available to set up the camera by scanning a simple code, making it easy to use from then on. We can access everything, but really everything, from adjusting motion detection to adjusting the image, so there’s simply nothing to connect with. I’m also enclosing some pictures of this to see what it’s all about!

You can buy an alfawise outdoor camera here:

Alfawise CA-R21A-R wifi outdoor security camera

(For duty and VAT free shipping, choose the Priority Line shipping method!)

Summary.

I wanted to present two cameras in an article to show an alternative for both outdoor and indoor use. While writing the article, I realized that this would be not enough for a full presentation, because both solutions have such a wide range of knowledge, they can be fine-tuned to such a depth that one article per camera would have been enough to present the software in as much detail as possible. let this writing be done. For this reason, I once again urge everyone to ask if they have any questions in the comments, I will answer them all. Luckily, because of my profession, I need to be in the picture on the subject, especially the more professional part, so you can count on me!

As for the cameras, I think I’ve described the more important things. I don’t recommend them because they look good, but because I use them myself and I’m completely happy with them. Very good pieces, compared to the goods are low. True, they need to be ordered from abroad, but in return we can save a lot of money for a slightly longer delivery time. This is especially true for an outdoor camera, because a family house cannot be properly camcordered around with a device, so if someone built the protection of their home on it, they would save even more on several pieces.