I recently installed a Tapo security cam for in the inside of my garage. Non cloud based, was under $30, local storage via an SD card, works with smart home setups. Not as high end as this, but has motion, can talk through it, etc. Got mine mostly for when I am away and to check on things.
Neat! I'd never heard of Tapo before, but after a quick bit of googling it appears to be TP-Link's name for their line of cameras. Looks like they are all mostly 2K resolution (substantially lower res than the ones in this video) but the pricing is obviously very attractive. If all you need is a single camera to cover an area like a garage, then the Onwote system is massive overkill. I wonder if you could add the video feed from one of these Tapo cameras to an Onwote system in the future though, if your needs change. After initial setup of the Onwote system, I added an Amcrest camera for my garage, and it integrated with the Onwote system with no problem at all. If the Tapo cameras provide an ONVIF feed, they should be capable of doing the same. Anyhow - thanks for watching!
It wasn't mentioned, but do these cameras tilt and pan? The housing appears to allow for this function, but your setup looks like they're fixed position only. Thanks in advance for your answer. The audio doesn't sound bad, but echoes.
Great question! These are not "PTZ" cameras capable of being aimed remotely. They are set up in their housing such that you aim them when you install them, and that's where they stay. However, the NVR itself does support PTZ functionality, if you get a camera with that feature, the NVR will allow you to aim it remotely. I'm glad you could understand the audio at the end there. It just really caught me off-guard, as my older cameras offered substantially better sound. Tradeoffs, right? Thanks for watching!
Stumbled onto your channel just looking for Onwote reviews. Excellent job Young Man! Your breakdown by category and your illustrations make it very easy to follow along. Your tech background and ability to explain it to the avg. DIY'er are invaluable. I do have one reservation. The running of the Cat 5e lines and location of the NVR. Tech, tips and planning considerations along with recommendations for 3rd party hardware. Maybe you have that when you installed your original system. Thanks for a great review.
Have you ever put an ssd in one of these systems? I’m planning on using one in the system I get. I assume it makes a difference even if it’s not worth the extra cost for most people
I never have, as the storage density of spinning drives is so much better. Regardless of cost, for me the most important part of storage in these things is how much footage can it store. I'd rather be able to have 4 full weeks of footage that may be a bit slower to access than to only have 1 week of footage that can be retrieved a little more quickly. Having said that: I'm not sure the disk drives are the bottleneck in a system like this. I'm pretty sure it's performance is bound by the video encode/decode system, so I'm not sure an SSD would actually make any difference in the first place. But technically, it should work ...
Cool product and review! Thanks for addressing network security. 22:03 Yes, but you like to tinker! 😃 Audio: like you're in a metal cave-lots of echo, reverb. With 20/20 hindsight, does the ONWOTE online user manual address many of the issues you experienced with which layer to affect some change? 4:18 Why add the black tape? What kind of information's there that needs protection from prying eyes?
The online use manual is better, but only covers the NVR itself. It’s 140 pages long, but does not go into the camera firmware or the desktop software. The specific question I needed help with was related to how to set up alerts for just 1 camera. Out of the box it alerts on them all through the mobile app….which you can imagine gets annoying pretty fast. The solution was that I had to set up the cloud account thing I mentioned in the video, which then unlocked per-camera options for alerts. The online manual does not cover this. As for the black tape: the serial numbers on the drives can be used for all sorts of things, and I preferred to keep them private. :-) Thanks for watching!
Caught your voice at the front door without any problem at all. Also, after looking at the alternatives, and trying a few of the big-box-stores (BestBuy and Lowes), I was appalled at the level of overhead they have on their stuff. Cameras that cost only a few dollars to produce and cost about 25 bucks if purchased in Asian countries, will set you back a couple of hundred in the USA! Atrocious quality along with misleading and downright false information is bundled with a horrible customer support. The image, sound, hardware and software are pure crap on most of the commonly available systems. Buffering forever and weird sounds galore. I am sick and tired of the shite they peddle to unaware consumers and will definitely try out this one after seeing your review. Thank you for a thorough, solid and honest review.
I hope you find these to be as good as I have... they have a few rough edges, but I tried to be as honest as possible in my review. They are above average, at a reasonable price point vs. the competition. Good luck!
How is the system holding up? I’m debating between onwote and reolink but still haven’t decided. Have you tried running blue iris or any other third party nvr system to see if that fixes all your “ecosystem” problems?
So far I'm really happy with this system. The mobile app in particular is a much better experience for me than Reolink was - though setting it up did require a bit more tinkering. It's more reliable than Reolink now that it's set up, though. The cameras have all been perfect - they all still work, no issues there at all. The NVR has also been working perfectly. I have not tried any other 3rd party NVR systems - but I do suspect these cameras will integrate with them pretty easily. They appear to be pretty standard off-the-shelf cameras that provide a clean ONVIF feed. Good luck!
I don't have direct experience with Lorex, but I do with Reolink. In general, Reolink tries quite hard to lock you into their ecosystem. Their cameras may work ok with another NVR, but if you get a Reolink NVR and try to use cameras from another company, you're going to have a bad time. However, since Reolink has tighter control over their ecosystem, some things are a little simpler to set up - but that comes at a cost of flexibility. If you are happy with how they pre-set things, then it's easier. If you prefer to tinker with things, again, you'll have a bad time. I also found that with my Reolink system about half the time I'd try to remote view the cameras the system would not respond and/or I could not connect. With this Onwote system, there is a lot more flexibility/ability to tinker, it seems to be perfectly happy to integrate with cameras from other vendors, I happen to prefer the image quality (they have a slightly wider field of view than my Reolink 4K cameras did) and I've never had a problem connecting to them remotely. The only real down side for the Onwote system is that the documentation is... lackluster, and sometimes the alerts from the mobile app are not triggered like I expect. Overall, I prefer the Onwote system over Reolink.
Hi Daryl - That screwdriver is this little guy: amzn.to/3vhu4jy - I like it really well! I't small, has enough torque for most anything, fits standard bits (the ones it comes with are ... not great) and the battery lasts a long time. My only real gripe with it is that it's either on full power or off. There is no graduation of the power. Still, it works great, and I use it all the time for little jobs like this. Thanks for watching!
There are tons of reviews for these inexpensive cameras, but is anybody out there reviewing more expensive systems? Especially those that don't just show up free from the manufacturers/distributors?
@@AmplifyDIY As of today (6/7) the only one I can't find a good review on is "Alibi" ... the ones you buy through their dealers. Do you know anything about them?
🛒 Get this system here! amzn.to/4alfFSw
I recently installed a Tapo security cam for in the inside of my garage. Non cloud based, was under $30, local storage via an SD card, works with smart home setups. Not as high end as this, but has motion, can talk through it, etc. Got mine mostly for when I am away and to check on things.
Neat! I'd never heard of Tapo before, but after a quick bit of googling it appears to be TP-Link's name for their line of cameras. Looks like they are all mostly 2K resolution (substantially lower res than the ones in this video) but the pricing is obviously very attractive. If all you need is a single camera to cover an area like a garage, then the Onwote system is massive overkill. I wonder if you could add the video feed from one of these Tapo cameras to an Onwote system in the future though, if your needs change. After initial setup of the Onwote system, I added an Amcrest camera for my garage, and it integrated with the Onwote system with no problem at all. If the Tapo cameras provide an ONVIF feed, they should be capable of doing the same.
Anyhow - thanks for watching!
Great video! Thanks for thr detailed walkthrough.
It wasn't mentioned, but do these cameras tilt and pan? The housing appears to allow for this function, but your setup looks like they're fixed position only. Thanks in advance for your answer. The audio doesn't sound bad, but echoes.
Great question! These are not "PTZ" cameras capable of being aimed remotely. They are set up in their housing such that you aim them when you install them, and that's where they stay. However, the NVR itself does support PTZ functionality, if you get a camera with that feature, the NVR will allow you to aim it remotely.
I'm glad you could understand the audio at the end there. It just really caught me off-guard, as my older cameras offered substantially better sound. Tradeoffs, right?
Thanks for watching!
Stumbled onto your channel just looking for Onwote reviews. Excellent job Young Man! Your breakdown by category and your illustrations make it very easy to follow along. Your tech background and ability to explain it to the avg. DIY'er are invaluable. I do have one reservation. The running of the Cat 5e lines and location of the NVR. Tech, tips and planning considerations along with recommendations for 3rd party hardware. Maybe you have that when you installed your original system. Thanks for a great review.
Thanks RLamb! Running cat5 can be a daunting task, but when I ran mine the worst part was just all the crawling around in the attic. Good luck!
Have you ever put an ssd in one of these systems? I’m planning on using one in the system I get.
I assume it makes a difference even if it’s not worth the extra cost for most people
I never have, as the storage density of spinning drives is so much better. Regardless of cost, for me the most important part of storage in these things is how much footage can it store. I'd rather be able to have 4 full weeks of footage that may be a bit slower to access than to only have 1 week of footage that can be retrieved a little more quickly.
Having said that: I'm not sure the disk drives are the bottleneck in a system like this. I'm pretty sure it's performance is bound by the video encode/decode system, so I'm not sure an SSD would actually make any difference in the first place.
But technically, it should work ...
The audio sounds OK to me
Cool product and review! Thanks for addressing network security.
22:03 Yes, but you like to tinker! 😃
Audio: like you're in a metal cave-lots of echo, reverb.
With 20/20 hindsight, does the ONWOTE online user manual address many of the issues you experienced with which layer to affect some change?
4:18 Why add the black tape? What kind of information's there that needs protection from prying eyes?
The online use manual is better, but only covers the NVR itself. It’s 140 pages long, but does not go into the camera firmware or the desktop software. The specific question I needed help with was related to how to set up alerts for just 1 camera. Out of the box it alerts on them all through the mobile app….which you can imagine gets annoying pretty fast. The solution was that I had to set up the cloud account thing I mentioned in the video, which then unlocked per-camera options for alerts. The online manual does not cover this.
As for the black tape: the serial numbers on the drives can be used for all sorts of things, and I preferred to keep them private. :-)
Thanks for watching!
Caught your voice at the front door without any problem at all. Also, after looking at the alternatives, and trying a few of the big-box-stores (BestBuy and Lowes), I was appalled at the level of overhead they have on their stuff. Cameras that cost only a few dollars to produce and cost about 25 bucks if purchased in Asian countries, will set you back a couple of hundred in the USA! Atrocious quality along with misleading and downright false information is bundled with a horrible customer support.
The image, sound, hardware and software are pure crap on most of the commonly available systems. Buffering forever and weird sounds galore.
I am sick and tired of the shite they peddle to unaware consumers and will definitely try out this one after seeing your review.
Thank you for a thorough, solid and honest review.
I hope you find these to be as good as I have... they have a few rough edges, but I tried to be as honest as possible in my review. They are above average, at a reasonable price point vs. the competition. Good luck!
How is the system holding up? I’m debating between onwote and reolink but still haven’t decided. Have you tried running blue iris or any other third party nvr system to see if that fixes all your “ecosystem” problems?
So far I'm really happy with this system. The mobile app in particular is a much better experience for me than Reolink was - though setting it up did require a bit more tinkering. It's more reliable than Reolink now that it's set up, though.
The cameras have all been perfect - they all still work, no issues there at all. The NVR has also been working perfectly.
I have not tried any other 3rd party NVR systems - but I do suspect these cameras will integrate with them pretty easily. They appear to be pretty standard off-the-shelf cameras that provide a clean ONVIF feed.
Good luck!
Hello, great video. Can you tell me the difference between Lorex, Reolink or Onwote? Thanks
I don't have direct experience with Lorex, but I do with Reolink. In general, Reolink tries quite hard to lock you into their ecosystem. Their cameras may work ok with another NVR, but if you get a Reolink NVR and try to use cameras from another company, you're going to have a bad time.
However, since Reolink has tighter control over their ecosystem, some things are a little simpler to set up - but that comes at a cost of flexibility. If you are happy with how they pre-set things, then it's easier. If you prefer to tinker with things, again, you'll have a bad time. I also found that with my Reolink system about half the time I'd try to remote view the cameras the system would not respond and/or I could not connect.
With this Onwote system, there is a lot more flexibility/ability to tinker, it seems to be perfectly happy to integrate with cameras from other vendors, I happen to prefer the image quality (they have a slightly wider field of view than my Reolink 4K cameras did) and I've never had a problem connecting to them remotely.
The only real down side for the Onwote system is that the documentation is... lackluster, and sometimes the alerts from the mobile app are not triggered like I expect.
Overall, I prefer the Onwote system over Reolink.
Nice review, thank you for sharing ❤
Hi. Great video. Would you mind sharing what that small powered screwdriver is? Thank you!
Hi Daryl - That screwdriver is this little guy: amzn.to/3vhu4jy - I like it really well! I't small, has enough torque for most anything, fits standard bits (the ones it comes with are ... not great) and the battery lasts a long time. My only real gripe with it is that it's either on full power or off. There is no graduation of the power. Still, it works great, and I use it all the time for little jobs like this. Thanks for watching!
Thank you!
There are tons of reviews for these inexpensive cameras, but is anybody out there reviewing more expensive systems? Especially those that don't just show up free from the manufacturers/distributors?
Do you ave any specific system/manufacturer in mind?
@@AmplifyDIY As of today (6/7) the only one I can't find a good review on is "Alibi" ... the ones you buy through their dealers. Do you know anything about them?
😠 P r o m o S M