Hi from a San Diego newbie. Amcrest 4MP cameras to NVR with WiFi?

[lilabner]

I'm looking at putting four Amcrest cameras on the corners of my house. Probably Amcrest IP4M-1026W models.I want to use WiFi to connect them to an Amcrest NV4108-HS. The last two digits might vary, depending on the HDD size, of course. So might the price.

I intend to use WiFi from each of the four cameras, to connect to the NVR. I will power the cameras, of course, by running a 110VAC line to each camera's adapter.

What puzzles me is: The camera is advertised as "wireless" (except for power of course), and has a WiFi antenna on it, but I don't see any WiFi antennas on the NVR. And the ad for the NVR says "No built-in WiFi". Yet I've seen ad pictures showing that NVR sold with Amcrest WiFi cameras.

See https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07J2 ... 57PC&psc=1

Does that NVR (NV4108-HS) ever come with WiFi, to connect to the cameras? What model number should I use, to get a WiFi-capable NVR with a 4TB HDD?

Does any other Amcrest NVR, come with WiFi to connect to its cameras?

Thanx all!

[longedge]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I can't give a specific answer and a better explanation may come from someone else with an Amcrest NVR but in general the connection between a WiFi camera and non WiFi NVR would be by way of a router. In other words, the cameras connect to the router by WiFi and the NVR is connected to the router by ethernet. The router handles communication between cameras and NVR.

My own NVR is not an Amcrest model and all cameras are connected to it by POE i.e. by ethernet cable (the most reliable option I believe). Because of the locations of cameras and construction type of my house, WiFi isn't entirely reliable and I avoid it when I can.

[Revo2Maxx]

Hello and Welcome to the Forum.

As Longedge said I would agree... I did a search and I didn't find any model with built in Wifi all listing I seen have NO built in Wifi...

So Here is my Take and why it might be setup this way.

The more Wifi you put in your area along with all other things from your neighbors can degrade your ability to use a good wifi signal all the time. SO I am going to guess when you see systems with Wifi cameras going to NVR without wifi it will be used over your Router and to try and keep loads of extra traffic from wifi devices.

For me however I would personally put in a Wifi Router that is running your Cameras only. I would setup your camera router to maybe DMZ.. This is after all the cameras are setup and running of course. However if you were wanting to make a camera connection then you would want it on the same as your main router. Or easy just to use Amcrest ap after changing over to the Wifi of the cameras. There are loads of Options. It is up to you how you want them set...

[lilabner]

Thanks for your replies longedge and Revo2Maxx, great info!

Running ethernet cable from each camera to a central point where the NVR is, is difficult in my house. Power exists near the cameras (mostly), so we are likely to run power only to the cameras but (try to) use WiFi to get the signal back to the NVR. A WiFi router sounds like the way to go all right.

Do WiFi range extenders do any good? They seem to be devices that receive the signal from the router, and retransmit it with higher power, correct? How does this help receive a signal from a faraway camera?

A 4MP camera puts out bits much faster than a 1080P, obviously. I've noticed that in some routers they can handle around 300 Mbits/sec at 2.4GHz, and roughly twice that for 5GHz. But all the 4MP WiFi cameras I've seen (an evening's search), use only 2.4GHz. Roughly how many Mbits/sec does a single 4MP camera transmit?

Most 4MP cameras seem to use H.265/H.264 compression. Does this cut the Mbits/sec generated by the sensor, down to, say, 1/2 the sensor's output? 1/4? 1/10? It varies with what the camera sees, of course. But can anybody guess at an "average" value, a ballpark figure, for a fairly quiet street (cul-de-sac) without a lot of traffic?

[longedge]

Any answers are going to be best guesses. The 2.4GHz band carries less data but doesn't drop off as quickly as 5GHz. They are both well up to the job but local conditions such as the number of WiFi networks in your area, how close they are, what the signal has got to travel through and so on mean the results range from perfect to unuseable.

I have limited experience of range extenders in the form of power line and repeaters both of which I found to be poor. I'm told that the newer mesh systems work well but that's when each transmitter is connected back via ethernet.

I'd go for the higher resolution myself, you can always limit bandwidth useage in the settings if necessary.

The H265 codec is more efficient i.e. produces smaller file sizes but it places more strain on hardware both at the encoding and decoding stages. Personally I stick with H264, it works for me.

[lilabner]

There might be an easier solution for my little "system" here.

Each of the four cameras will have a WiFi antenna, and will also have a 128GB SD card to record camera images.

Is there an App for a 64GB iPhone, that lets the phone access each camera over WiFi, and display its video (either saved or realtime) on the iPhone screen? Can the iPhone display all four cameras on its screen, in a (small) 2x2 grid?

And, is there a program or app for a desktop Windows 10 PC, that lets it do the same? Accessing the cameras over WiFi, and displaying the video, either saved or realtime? The desktop PC has WiFi, of course.

Maybe we won't need a router or NVR at all. Possible?

[Revo2Maxx]

Well yes Amcrest does have a iOS software and for droide Amcrest View Pro. Then for Web you can on older FW cameras use IE or Chrome View App and others as well but would require a Plugin... Newer FW can use Chrome without plugins. Then there is also Amcrest Surveillance Pro. While it does offer a PC-NVR your Computer would have to be online fulltime and does take a good portion of CPU and Ram unless you have a great Gaming PC but then you would need a new one for your games lol...

So for me I use MSD cards in my cameras as a Buffer and Connection loss. There is a box you can click in each camera to record to MSD if connection is lost... I personally wouldn't use the Card as only way to record. Either setup a FTP server or NAS if your not going to set up a NVR. If for some reason the MSD fails you still have backup or if Camera is broke off the mount and stolen there is still a back up of the theft.

There is also Blue Iris, However again you would have to have a PC online full time and takes a good PC to run it. A NVR to be honest is going to be the best way to go. Take less power then a PC to run 24/7...

[lilabner]

Well, we wouldn't need permanent records. Only in the (hopefully very unlikely) event that we get broken into or whatever, would we want to make a point of fetching records and saving them. Otherwise, the system would mostly be used for things like, if we hear a noise, we can check the outside grounds for the last 5-10 minutes and see if someone was there. So the need for a dedicated NVR (and its apparent connection complexities to a WiFi system) may be exaggerated. If each camera has an SD card that recorded that camera's view, that's probably all we'll need. Especially if we can rewind it, download pictures, view real time etc. when we need to.

Anybody have any idea how long it would take for a typical 4MP camera to fill up a 64GB SD card? Or, fill the SD card to the point where it starts overwriting the old video from days or weeks ago? With video from that camera only (not the other three cameras)? Wouldn't be a lot of traffic, it's a single-family house on a pretty quiet cul-de sac, no views of large crowds or groups of cars passing by, just an occasional neighbor usually.

[Revo2Maxx]

Yeah working from SD cards maybe well enough...

About an idea it would be kind of hard say. In real time at highest Frame rate and not to much of traffic was about 40min of 4k video on 64gb card.

So doing a Motion setup and getting Email alerts could be a good way to go and would get a good few days I would guess. Problem is you want to make sure it is in an area that wouldn't get much motion until it was Real Human motion. To be honest. If your looking for a good time frame and going to work with objects not to far away. If you didn't already buy the 4k cameras might want to think about maybe going 2k or even 1080P to get a good storage amount. Even then I can fill up 1tb HDD with 2 1080P at 30fps and High bit rate in 5 days on heavy traffic days. I also run my Cameras in question in color 24/7 high frame rate and bit rate.