Home alarm plus CCTV

[Legacywr]

After a recent incident, I'm in the market for a home alarm, and CCTV.

This has probably been done to death on here, so I apologies.

Would it be best to get them as a combined item?

Would it be best to get them from a company that monitors them? Obviously that then relies on a subscription, which if you don't stick with, you just end up with the unuesable equipment.

Thanks in advance.

[davek_964]

My understanding was that - even for monitored alarms - several areas (2?) need to trigger before they will call anybody out.

We have (cheap) outside CCTV cameras and some indoor ones. The indoor ones point through the windows - but can be controlled remotely, and hence if the alarm goes off - I can view the outside of the house (with the outside cameras) and reposition the inside cameras so that I can see if anyody is in the house. Not sure "monitored" would give me more than that.

For alarms, we went through a local company I'd used on my previous house who fitted Texecom. I don't think it's the best in the business to say the least, and I think perhaps the Amazon Ring one would have been just as good. But it seems to do its job.

[Legacywr]

Thanks for your reply.

So monitored systems aren’t really worth it?

I guess most systems can be set to alert your phone when they’re triggered?

[SmithCorona]

Monitored requires two triggers/zones before a response. Monitored with seperate panic alarm only requires the panic to be activated. The one time mine was used the police response was amazing.

[m3jappa]

The general consensus from my research is ajax alarms are very good. Apparently very easy to set up and will link to various cctv systems.

I am currently setting up hikvision with a view to joining to the ajax system.

I plan to have external pir sensors as well to alert me to someone outside.

I doubt i will bother with any monitoring (im not sure ajax does). Would the police actually turn up? would they do anything?

[Legacywr]

I’ve had a quote, how does this sound, 3 bed house, 2 cameras.

I guess the camera part seems expensive, but it does include the hard drive recorder.

The cost for the house alarm is £948.97
The CCTV £1464.24
App set up £93.60
The Garage alarm £618.02

[Jamescrs]

Legacywr said:

I’ve had a quote, how does this sound, 3 bed house, 2 cameras.

I guess the camera part seems expensive, but it does include the hard drive recorder.

The cost for the house alarm is £948.97
The CCTV £1464.24
App set up £93.60
The Garage alarm £618.02

Sounds very expensive to me.

I fitted a ring alarm system myself and have four cameras around my house which all links in together, if the alarm activates all the cameras start recording.

I have cloud storage and all managed through an app.

Think I pay £80 per year subscription but the whole system was easy enough to fit and install

[SmithCorona]

Legacywr said:

I’ve had a quote.

Are the cameras POE then? If they are routing the cabling nicely and making good that's acceptable I think, as it's a pain in the arse.

[Legacywr]

SmithCorona said:

Are the cameras POE then? If they are routing the cabling nicely and making good that's acceptable I think, as it's a pain in the arse.

Yes, up through the loft etc.

[OldGermanHeaps]

Price is mental for 2 cameras.
For example.
For 3k hikvision colorvu turbo hd with a 6 channel hybrid recorder with ai analytics, 2 tb hard drive and a wifi booster we would take between 450 to 600 plus vat

For absolute top of the range 4k ip colorvu ds2387g2lsu/sl cameras, a deepinmind nvr and a 3tb hard drive and a wifi booster we would charge 885 to 1035 plus vat
No setup or ongoing costs.
At those prices we are earning a decent living and easily able to provide ongoing support so christ knows where those figures came from.

Edited by OldGermanHeaps on Friday 19th April 18:56

[Legacywr]

Where are you?

[OldGermanHeaps]

Glasgow.

[Legacywr]

I’ve had another quote…

This is for 2 x 4k cameras with SD cards.

The alarm would cover my garage too, which is detached from the house.

Intruder Alarm £1500 ex Vat £1800 inc. Vat
CCTV £833.33 ex Vat £1000 inc. Vat

[Steve Campbell]

Just an FYI from me. As part of our alarm system installation we also have a set of lights around the outside of the house with PIR detectors. This is controlled from a box next to the alarm. When triggered, you can have it beep very loudly. It can be heard outside. We also have some cameras.
Not had trouble with house break ins but had a few scrotes sniffing around the cars. They have zero issues with the cameras or lights TBH as they just mask up / hoodies etc. As soon as the lights / beeper sound they move away quickly as they know we are alerted to their presence.
Just something to consider.

[hellorent]

Steve Campbell said:

Just an FYI from me. As part of our alarm system installation we also have a set of lights around the outside of the house with PIR detectors. This is controlled from a box next to the alarm. When triggered, you can have it beep very loudly. It can be heard outside. We also have some cameras.
Not had trouble with house break ins but had a few scrotes sniffing around the cars. They have zero issues with the cameras or lights TBH as they just mask up / hoodies etc. As soon as the lights / beeper sound they move away quickly as they know we are alerted to their presence.
Just something to consider.

Whats the name of the box/unit that makes the beeping sound, Please

[Whistle]

My guess would be GJD

[SmithCorona]

Legacywr said:

I’ve had another quote…

This is for 2 x 4k cameras with SD cards.

POE or WiFi and battery? If the latter, that's a pain in the arse.

[OldGermanHeaps]

Sd cards dont last long if recording 24/7 they wear out.

[Steve Campbell]

hellorent said:

Whats the name of the box/unit that makes the beeping sound, Please

Whistle is correct GJD. Here a picture of the control box though this one was installed years ago. Would definitely have again if starting afresh and if this one stops working we will replace straight away.

[BrokenSkunk]

It won't help the OP, but I knocked up my own alarm system because I couldn't see anything sensible on the market that did what I wanted:
* Self monitored, using text messages to alert me (and keyholders) when triggered.
* Continuous text message updates of sensor activity when triggered.
* Self healing. If a single sensor (or tamper contact) causes the alarm to trigger, and it's still giving issues 20 minutes later when the siren times out, the the alarm re-arms ignoring that sensor.
* Wired, not wireless sensors.
* RFID keyfob arming and disarming. Not the most secure, but good enough for a domestic alarm.

The whole thing runs on a couple of Raspberry Pi cards. Took me about 2 days to design and build, and about another 2 to install. I've since invested considerable time working around bugs in the RPIs crappy software implementation of I2C...

Hmmn, I guess my adivce is: Go do a degree (or equivalent) in electronics and build your own. It's not difficult.