We have 3 blink cameras, all used outside, that work well.

I've been planning to set up something like this for my grandmother, but Covid19 postponed it. I was planning to do smart home door and motion sensors with one camera I can talk through. I got a Wyze cam that can pan and do two way audio, and then a SmartThings hub with door sensors and motion sensors. Next I will find a way to make IFTTT notify me if there's no motion or doors opening after a set amount of time, and then check on her with the Wyze cam if I need to. That's the plan at least.

Edit: We also got her an Apple watch with fall detection that will notify the whole family if it detects a fall.

I have Wyze cams set up in an office suite I lease for my job. They work great. I have Arlo cameras at the house and they also work great, but they are about 10x the cost of the Wyze cameras.

fooz said:

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Save yourself some money and get a bunch of Wyze cams. I have 4 of the regular ones and 1 of the swivel ones. They work great. Can turn on notifications for movement, sounds, etc... And of course you can watch in real-time.

https://wyze.com/

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I do like the Wyze stuff. They tend to be as secure as I care for and their app runs really well. The notifications are spot on too.

AGSPORTSFAN07 said:

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fooz said:

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Save yourself some money and get a bunch of Wyze cams. I have 4 of the regular ones and 1 of the swivel ones. They work great. Can turn on notifications for movement, sounds, etc... And of course you can watch in real-time.

https://wyze.com/

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I do like the Wyze stuff. They tend to be as secure as I care for and their app runs really well. The notifications are spot on too.

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They just released a fully wireless outdoor cam. Can't wait for it to get here and try it out. Supposed to have good battery life.

With Arlo, you can only have 5 cameras on your account for free. If you go to 6, you have to pay for a subscription.

It looks like Waze gets you 14 days for free. Does anyone know if this is unlimited in terms of the number of cameras you can have?

tfunk02 said:

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Edit: We also got her an Apple watch with fall detection that will notify the whole family if it detects a fall.

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This was going to be my recommendation as well.

We use wyse cams in my 89 yo mother's house. They had great motion detector then apple bought the company they licensed their software from and cancelled their license. It's ok now and we actually don't use it much we have a couple of the ptz ones not sure they are necessary in most cases. Have a couple down low, under bed point out and in kitchen so in on the floor and can't be seen we have a view. Have cordless phones on floor if bathroom and a few places so can crawl and call 911without standing. Also have a Google home in rooms and can do "hey Google call help" that calls all the kids. Unfortunately Google won't call 911.

UmustBKidding said:

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We use wyse cams in my 89 yo mother's house. They had great motion detector then apple bought the company they licensed their software from and cancelled their license. It's ok now and we actually don't use it much we have a couple of the ptz ones not sure they are necessary in most cases. Have a couple down low, under bed point out and in kitchen so in on the floor and can't be seen we have a view. Have cordless phones on floor if bathroom and a few places so can crawl and call 911without standing. Also have a Google home in rooms and can do "hey Google call help" that calls all the kids. Unfortunately Google won't call 911.

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They started using their own AI, motion detection works fine. I have it set to only notify me when it thinks it detects a person so I don't get pinged every time a car drives down the street.

JJMt said:

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His internet provides probably 25-50 mbytes of speed in terms of bandwidth.

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...trying...so...hard...not...to...soapbox...

First, internet bandwidth is generally measured in "bits", not "bytes". 8 bits to a byte. Very common mistake but drives me insane and is made by people who actually sell the stuff.

And to be more helpful, upload speed is what is most important, not download speeds, so make sure you know that amount. A 4MP camera at H.264 uses almost 1Megabyte or 8 Megabits per second. If he has 25 Mbps upload speed, you would be choking that pretty hard at 3 cameras.

This will be helpful: https://www.cctvcalculator.net/en/calculations/bandwidth-calculator/

DallasTeleAg said:

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JJMt said:

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His internet provides probably 25-50 mbytes of speed in terms of bandwidth.

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...trying...so...hard...not...to...soapbox...

First, internet bandwidth is generally measured in "bits", not "bytes". 8 bits to a byte. Very common mistake but drives me insane and is made by people who actually sell the stuff.

And to be more helpful, upload speed is what is most important, not download speeds, so make sure you know that amount. A 4MP camera at H.264 uses almost 1Megabyte or 8 Megabits per second. If he has 25 Mbps upload speed, you would be choking that pretty hard at 3 cameras.

This will be helpful: https://www.cctvcalculator.net/en/calculations/bandwidth-calculator/

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I run all my cams off ~5Mbps up.