4-5 residential cameras, 3 outdoor, want CVR - what do I buy?

[mmhines]

I already have two Arlo Pro 2 cameras with base station, and they work well, but I want to add cameras indoors and I want CVR (locally) for all cameras. I'm not finding too many wired solutions for (anything) outdoor cameras. Willing to buy all new, but struggling to find a setup that looks like it will work. Help!

[jguerdat]

CVR requires AC power since the cameras are constantly streaming. SInce the original wireless cameras never had AC power capability, they're automatically ruled out. For indoors, I would consider Q cameras first and then Pro series cameras.

Something to ponder is your upload speed since all cameras would be simultaneously streaming all the time. I would suggest multiplying the number of cameras by 1.5 to 2 Mbps and then add more overhead so you can do other things such as streaming or just normal surfing. You may need to invoke QoS (quality of service) on your router to make sure everything works well.

BTW, what did you mean by "CVR (locally)"? CVR is never local - it's cloud-based.

[mmhines]

Pretty sure my Pro2 cameras have AC capability? Is there a way to power them over a long wire run? Is there an Arlo outdoor camera that runs over PoE? I'm not seeing one, but maybe I'm missing something?

Will the Arlo system not allow me to record constantly to a local device? It'll let me hook up a local storage device - can I not use that for continuous recording?

Router and Internet connection will support well more than I'm looking to do. Really hoping to not upload recordings - prefer to store locally.

[jguerdat]

The Pro 2 cameras do have AC power capability - guess I hadn't had enough coffee this morning when I first replied.

Power over a long run is chancy due to the voltage loss over the length of the run and the gauge of the wires. It would be a better idea to provide AC power to the chargers so the cable between the cable and camera remains relatively short. The re are long USB cables but they may not work properly as well as not having the weather sealing needed.

There's onlu one PoE Arlo camera, the Q Plus, which is for indoors. If you're clever and resourceful, you might be able to somehow make it work with a Pro 2 camera but you'd need circuitry to avoid  camera damage at the very least.

The local storage is for detected recordings, not CVR. Besides, if you figured on 15MB/minute of recording capacity per camera, you can see where even large drives would fairly quickly be consumed, depending on how many cameras are streaming. I think I remember getting close to 2GB for ~ an hour's worth of recording years ago when I tried recording on a Q camera.

The only local storage is going to be when motion or audio is detected and recorded for the times set in your modes and rules.

[mmhines]

Cool, thank you for the feedback. Sounds like Arlo isn't the solution for what I want to do, unfortunately. Anyone looking for a good price on a 2-camera Pro2 system? 😉