In the process of building a new home and our AV guy is recommending Hikvision security cameras. A quick google search returns a lot of confusion on whether theyre secure. Does anyone have any experience with them? Would you be comfortable with them on the exterior of your home? If not, what brands are good alternatives?

Thanks!

How technical are you? Do you like to tinker and play with technology or are you a "let me just write a check" kind of person?

If you like to tinker, I'd check out Rob's videos on security cameras. Lots of options and good information.

If you're more of a "write the check" option, Unifi are a really easy to setup and maintain, but they do come with a premium.

As far as Hikvision, I haven't heard anything terrible about them. The big thing is to make sure your cameras (regardless of model) are completely fire walled from the internet and can only communicate with your NVR. That way, you can use things like VPN to connect to your cameras when you're not home and makes them much more secure.

There has not been a 'smoking gun' found with Hikvision, but they are part owned by the Chinese government. So, that opens up a lot of possibilities for China to do with the Hikvision software. That is why the U.S government got rid of them.

As far as cameras go, they are very good quality for a good price. As previously stated, there are things you can do to keep them from calling home, but that's potentially more upkeep and monitoring needed on your part.

You won't have to worry about the ChiComs trying to blackmail you with videos of your girlfriend stopping over while your wife is out shopping but I don't think I would want to use them to monitor workers assembling nukes at the PanTex facility outside Amarillo.

Boat Shoes said:

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In the process of building a new home and our AV guy is recommending Hikvision security cameras. A quick google search returns a lot of confusion on whether theyre secure. Does anyone have any experience with them? Would you be comfortable with them on the exterior of your home? If not, what brands are good alternatives?

Thanks!

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They aren't secure, but your cameras should be available on the open internet anyway. You really should have them on a segmented network with access through Zerotier or VPN. As long as you do that, you don't have to worry about them phoning home or having a backdoor.

Loryta cams from Andy are generally a good value. They all have US firmware and he provides good support on the ip cam forum. They still shouldn't be accessible on the open internet and have the same security concerns as Hikvision.

https://www.amazon.com/sp?ie=UTF8&seller=A329YQ83EBQGJF&isAmazonFulfilled=1

Thanks for the feedback guys!