Every Ubiquiti UniFi Camera + ONVIF Support in Protect 5.0!

[@DPCTechnology]

Hats off man, that was a ton of info in 17 minutes! I agree with it all but would give the nod to the AI Pro for future proofing and AI detections. I can appriciate the time it takes to film one of these and as always, you nailed it!

[@ILruffian]

Thanks for taking the time to do this. Really appreciate it.

[@MrMadeinthe80s]

G3 instant use to be a steal. I wish I had gotten a few more of them before the price jump. Great little cameras for $39, not so much for $79.

[@BenWilliams]

100%! They were never in stock at $39 because it was priced correctly for what it was. At $79, it’s one of the worst values in the UniFi lineup now and was probably successful in pushing people to stop buying it and upgrade to the G4 Instant instead.

[@MrMadeinthe80s]

@@BenWilliams Pretty sure that was their whole purpose was pushing newer G4 sales.

[@jaymathu6553]

They used to be 29$

[@smody121]

"Honey, he's out there holding a sign running back and forth again"

[@lossless4129]

😂

[@hornetbad]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@weberzach]

A G4 instant has been on my concrete patio facing the door for 2 years. Snow, rain, blazing sun, and it still shows me when the dogs are ready to come inside.

[@scottalexander8856]

prob could have saved some coin for a dog or cat cam.. and just went with wyze or ring

[@weberzach]

Thats crazy, i never thought to be so thrifty, i appreciate your sound financial advice. Sometimes, i just buy tech to test and sometimes, a use case just develops. @scottalexander8856

[@Timichaud]

I have several G3 Flex mounted outdoor directly exposed to the rain and snow for more than 5 years and they are still working strong ! Even if Unifi told us that they cant be directly exposed. Very very good price/quality ratio at the thime of the purchase.

[@BillinSD]

This could have been 3 videos but you are a man of the people for packing it all on here. Excellent work

[@brianmckay1594]

I'm experimenting with the Protect Early Access on a couple of Reolink cameras. It's still very early days. I'd like to see Rob do a video on setting up and using Frigate. The latest update has made the UI much more user-friendly (after the cameras are set up at least).

[@RaffBuilding]

Frigate vs Blue Iris!

[@yayinternets]

Yeah, I’m curious to know if the notifications from the “AI” Reolinks will actually work with UniFi Protect.

[@thebigdoghimself]

There is no good way to get your cams onto a monitor. They offer a viewport that has an hdmi. However, it's terrible. I could not get it to properly display a reolink poe 3. And it is only capable of displaying a vojple 4k cameras before it runs out of resources. I couldn't watch the poe 3 and another 4k at the same time.

[@carloscueto7561]

@@yayinternets They don't. Unifi Protect's current implementation of ONVIF is only Profile S, which is just basic streaming. We need them to eventually support Profile T for all of those things to be possible. Maybe one day.

[@yayinternets]

That’s a bummer but not unexpected.

[@inderveerjohal7218]

Phenomenal video! Had to play it at 0.75x and did a lot of rewinding but so much information and definite has informed my choices for our upcoming renovation!

[@giovannislab1454]

Man I miss that the g3 instant was $29. I’m so glad I got 4 at the price. They were great for nursery cameras

[@LoveInYourMouth]

Agreed!

[@Pabula]

Man all your videos are so good, thanks a lot for sharing them with us.

[@Taylorc52]

Been using UniFi protect for years and have slowly added multiple sites (my second house, parents, etc) and man it is fantastic.

[@TekShinji]

Great video with great review, thank you so much for the comparisons on all the cameras and a easy way to digest and take in. It was a very good video. Well scripted well made, and the information was presented clearly and concisely thank you!

[@HuckFlynn]

Easily the most comprehensive, detailed, thorough, and insightful comparison around. Adding the analysis "adjustments" for FoV, value, etc. was pretty epic, providing the answers people were going to need before they got there themselves. "Huh, so I wonder which ... oh nevermind, he's already telling me!" Definitely interested to see how much they lean into ONVIF -- are they checking a box, or actually bringing functionality and growth?

[@russellharrison619]

I will say one of the HUGE things that didn't get mention is the fact that the mulitplay back ONLY works if its a local connection to the NVR system. Great Video for sure I think the new updates have a huge impact on what people will looking at for NVR systems.

[@JoeChristopoulos]

Thank you for the G5 Bullet and G5 Turret FOV comparison! Finally decided on the turret after seeing this anddddd it's out of stock..

[@MrTjnielsen81]

You made an interesting point about the Cloud Key + Unifi wireless cameras as an alternative to Ring and similar packages. I'd love to see a comparison of the major competitors in that market - it's a huge segment that's very popular. Eufy, Ring, Reolink's new wireless hub package and your Unifi package concept would be a great comparison that would interest a lot of people.

[@harriska]

Fantastic comparison and a stunning R1S too!

[@TimZaman]

i don't comment often/ever, but best review i have seen on unifi/this topic. truly excellent!

[@myridesbetter]

I remember when G3 instant was 29 dollars, I bought 5 at that time, have had a few outdoors covered and they work great still :)

[@mattiusg]

I thought this was going to be a sponsored post for a minute, then your full tests kicked in. Well done as always

[@jimallen8238]

Unifi is clearly banking on the value of their ecosystem instead of optimizing for image quality. In fact, they seem comfortable selling bottom-tier cameras because they know they have vendor lock-in with their switches, NVR, and routers. I don’t expect feature parity for ONVIF cameras anytime soon. They need to increase the installed base of their proprietary cameras first. That builds dependency.

[@UnexpectedMaker]

Super in-depth coverage and easy to understand conclusions! How many hours did you spend collating all of that data? How did you not go insane? ;)

[@TheHookUp]

You know how easy it is to sink time into things you are genuinely curious about.

[@geekmike]

Confirming my love for the G5pro here. I found that using the AI Pro for the initial driveway access point has given me great license plate and person detections, having the G5pros everywhere else that's exposed to elements outside. g5 bullets for areas with less traffic or have less identification needs.

[@Sartre_Existentialist]

This was a very informative video. I have been planning a full home network with wifi and security camera setup. I'm very disappointed that Ubiquity cameras are not better. If your going to essentially lock your customers out of the full functionality of a competitors camera, then build a camera that actually competes.

[@moe85moe85]

Great video thanks for all the work behind this! its like Project Farm for security cameras

[@Mynerds]

Incredible deep dive as always. Thanks for your hard work! For someone with only non Ubiquiti cameras and who has a UDMP, do you think Ubiquiti Protect will ever be able to fully replace BlueIris?

[@TheHookUp]

Ever? Who knows. It will not replace your blue iris system right now though. However, if you have a few critical cameras there's no reason not to throw a HDD in your UDMP to record 24/7 backup high resolution footage of your cameras.

[@jamieseamans2796]

If Ubiquiti is smart they will realize if they capture the Blue Iris market it represents a massive revenue stream.

[@GerardoLiraSolis]

excellent review as always my friend

[@lsav1085]

As always: thanks for making the hook up

[@Polkster13]

The AI-360 does not do the Facial Recognition nor the License Plate detections like the other AI cameras do. Also, more and more cameras from Ubiquiti are, and will be in the future, in both black and white versions, especially the G5 lineup.

[@TheHookUp]

I’ll have to double check, but I’m pretty sure AI 360 does facial recognition. Not plate detection though.

[@basscheutjens6612]

@@TheHookUp I have a AI360, but I don't have a single face recognition event and I can't select it as a smart detection. So I'm pretty sure the AI360 doesn't support it, but I love to be proven wrong

[@CrinosAD]

Muff... I have just ordered (arriving today) two G5 Turrets to swap out a G3 Bullet and G3 Flex.... Hopefully the G5 Turrets are better than their older G3 models :)

[@FrankGraffagnino]

hope you were safe in the storm... thanks for the video! great info

[@TheHookUp]

All good! We are thankfully on pretty high ground, lots of damage around us.

[@lossless4129]

Yesssss! He’s backkkkkkkk

[@MichaelMacco]

Absolute fantastic video. Tons of effort and tremendous information. Thank you. I've been pondering a Synology NAS and saw they had a video solution. I currently have G1 Devices at my office with a Google subscription. But I also have a Unifi system so that's how I found this video. Question is, if I'm going to buy a Synology NAS anyway, what do you think about the Synology camera system vs the Unifi camera system?

[@tomlee44]

Great video. Nice Rivian!

[@123Osaka456]

Even with PoE, the g4 pro doorbell was the biggest letdown to me considering the hardware and price point. Gonna have to go with Reolink's 3:4 PoE doorbell for the value. Hope the protect Onvif adoption process gets smoother in future updates.

[@mobilechaosyt]

Been looking at the Cloud Gateway Max, wifi access points, and 10g network switch for an upgrade to my network. Since the Cloud Gateway Max includes the NVR, adding the cameras and Poe switches wouldn’t be an issue except for the price compared to alternatives. It is good to know that I should be satisfied with the G5 lineup as long as I choose the placement and camera version wisely. I might even consider having one AI pro just for license plate detection.

[@alldecentnamestaken]

I saw you had an NCD800 hooked up to UI Protect. How is that working? That's pretty much my favorite camera at the moment. Very useful for seeing a large area outdoors.

[@TheHookUp]

It works. In the live view it is squished into a 16:9 tile, but it records fine.

[@shubinternet]

For my part, I wouldn’t use the G4 Instant camera outside. I’d only use it inside. But, it is nice to know that it is rated for outdoor use.

[@TheHookUp]

It seemed to work pretty well outside.

[@dfgdfg_]

So much work 👏👏👏

[@rjbbobut]

I’m going to be setting up a Unifi system for my under-construction house. This was really helpful. I’m a bit disappointed in the quality of the G4 Doorbell in your review. Is there a better alternative? I’m looking for POE and no subscription.

[@EsotericArctos]

Onvif is still in early days and there are some compatibility issues still. Also it can only do 24/7 recording at this stage, no motion detection or smart detection. I believe Onvif is added as a stepping stone, to allow a gradual migration to the Unifi Protect cameras. Considering the G5 bullet is a 2K camera, I think it does a pretty decent job. The G5 Pro, which is 4K is pretty well the same quality as the AI Pro, but the AI Pro has a lot better AI detections. The G5 Pro and AI Pro have the same sensor. The Vision Enhancer a has both extended IR and White light, so it has advantages over just a spotlight. The DSLR was a little disappointing in your tests. I have seen other tests that show it much better, so not sure what was happening there. The issues with Reolink cameras comes donw to Reolink firmware, as most Reolink issues are. These are cheap cameras running very outdated mediaserver in the firmware, regardless of getting new firmware. If you want cheap, they are good. If you want compatible or reliable, I would always avoid Reolink. They get their cameras out to youtubers so they get noise about them, but they are not and never have been good cameras.

[@EastyUK]

Nice vid, thanks! rlc-810a didn’t give the adopt option for some reason on my udm max, but when I open protect app it found new device and let me add it with the cameras login. This wouldn’t work until I went into the camera via ip and added a new user with psswd. Worked great once I did that.

[@ystebadvonschlegel3295]

I am using Synology to manage my 3rd party cameras - would be very interested to buy a unfi system but sounds like it’s not there yet for the cameras I have from a features standpoint. Please keep us updated.

[@FunctionalGarage]

Could you please do a video on tp link vigi surveillance system ? I am really interested in their 4k 8 mp cameras and their nvr and also if there is compatibility between their cameras and some nvrs from other brands. I would highly appreciate it :) !

[@nzznvm]

I always wonder, if you prep the body well are you able to spray paint the bullet cameras? I would prefer to spray them red similar to my red brick.

[@TheHookUp]

Shouldn’t be any issue painting as long as you cover the lens well.

[@YanivNahum-zg8uh]

Amazing review ,Thank u for this .

[@BlackbeardedPirate]

Excellent review! Still shocked about the quality per dollar, even though their recorders are pretty neat and the software keeps getting better. Now the couple of 100 dollar question, Unifi ecosystem or Reolink?

[@TheHookUp]

I think if budget is a concern, UniFi is probably still out of the question.

[@blindside995]

Impressive video. Super helpful

[@trevsweb]

frigate's new update is great too and still free :)

[@igielv]

Hi, can you just clarify are you talking about G5 Turret or G5 Turret Ultra? Thank you very much for amazingly useful review.

[@TheHookUp]

I don't think there is a G5 Turret, just G5 Turret Ultra.

[@timothymcgregor2255]

What about the other way around? Do Unifi cameras work on 3rd party recorders?

[@ClintNicholas]

Perfect timing

[@Madistaja69]

Hey there @TheHookUp ! I love your security camera reviews. I wanted to ask how's your relationship with TP-Link. Recently I came across new models in VIGI InSight series. S385 and S485 are 8MP and on the paper they look like a solid competition for Reolink 4K models, unfortunately there's little to none reviews and sample videos on the web. Would be awesome if you could get a chance to check them out. I also hope that TP-Link will release a 8MP PTZ camera in the style of VIGI C540V it's fast zoom and focus is really something. I think that C540V is available in the US also.

[@TheHookUp]

TP-Link really only sells their wireless/wifi cameras in the US. I've asked them a number of times at CES about their PoE cameras which they always have a large display of, and they always say those are international market cameras.

[@revealingfacts4all]

AWESOME!!!! I have Unifi Dream Machine and was always wondering if I should invest in the protect vs Frigate. I run Frigate with a google coral TPU and capture video to a synology NAS and it works OK but there is too much manual trial and error with the sub-streams. I use all Axis cameras and the mobile frigate app is pretty bad as is the web UI on a mobile device.

[@margusveer]

Supper work !

[@micahkitchen6190]

When do you think that ONVIF will move out of early access? I am super excited about this. We have a bunch of HikVision cameras but we have recently switched to a Ubiquity Network ecosystem. We are wanting to switch our DVR to NVR and replace all of our analog cameras to IP. I want to move us to Unifi Protect and will get Unifi cameras to replace the analog, but we can't justify replacing all the HIK Vision IP cameras that we have already bought, so this integration will be super helpful if we can get it working..

[@TheHookUp]

It's not in early access, it's in general release. The difference is that it still has the "labs" distinction which basically means it's a work in progress. As I said, it's going to be a while before you can replace something like blue iris with UniFi Protect, and it might never get to that point. I'd personally like to just see them add ONVIF motion events in the timeline.

[@micahkitchen6190]

@@TheHookUp Gotcha. We had to enable Early Access to get it to work on our end. Which I had to add them via Advanced Adoption, but we got it up and running in Protect. It is working fine so far. However, the app is a little laggy. Pulling it up on desktop has been fine, its just on my phone app where it lags. It would be nice to add ONVIF motion events in the timeline for sure. Hopefully they will get on that soon. Regardless, it is saving us a bunch of money not having to replace 12 HIKvision cameras to switch ecosystems. We are still planning on buying 16-20 cameras to replace analog.

[@monkeyaround2066]

I kept thinking that I sped up the video because you spoke so fast... Ha ha, good for you.

[@ChristianBlueChimp]

Earlier today I was thinking "which camera to buy in my ubiquiti setup?" And here comes the answer very conveniently :D

[@Vamanos46]

When did unifi availability issues change ? I always had considered their products unattainable.

[@TheHookUp]

G5 series has been better

[@LoveInYourMouth]

FYI the g3 flex has better audio than the g5 flex IMO

[@zodiacfml]

nice review but watching this i realized the prices and features way behind vs smartphone hardware. Android smartphone makers should enter the IP camera market and reuse smartphone parts to make better IP cameras.

[@TheHookUp]

Security cameras and smartphones have very different environmental and hardware requirements.

[@zodiacfml]

​@@TheHookUp Yes because ip camera makers still use conventional digital camera hardware like the digital stills camera industry (in fairness, only smartphone brands reuse phone hardwre due as an ip camera due to large volumes). Samsung NX1 was and still is the best evidence for reusing smartphone hardware for best effect but sadly Samsung feels the camera industry is too small for them and abandoned it shortly.

[@NatesRandomVideo]

I’ll stick with Reolink and Frigate and my wallet. lol 😂

[@111ch1a1d111]

There's no per-camera license, and HDD's are cheap. Seems like installing twice as many cameras that cost half as much each seems like the way to go if you don't mind adding extra cables or switches.

[@ufomism]

Well that was disappointing, thought at least the AI Pro would do well with the better sensor but guess not. Going to go with empiretech (dahua) T54IR and T58IR instead but will look into Ubiquiti nvr if they add motion detection

[@nickpeterson2042]

How well does the unify protect nvr work with reolink cameras which aren’t quite onvif?

[@lensherm]

As of now, it doesn't work well with Reolink cameras at all, but I suspect it's a matter of time for the bugs to be ironed out.

[@TheHookUp]

As mentioned in the video, they add but do not function super well.

[@allanmindellrealty7470]

Thanks!

[@mikemacb7rs4]

Does Unifi cameras (not system) support ONVIF? I like running my cameras to a nvr and to a video monitor. I want to add the Unifi camera to a 3rd party NVR

[@TheHookUp]

No.

[@mikltgraff]

Here to see if Reolink makes the list 😅

[@darylzero3139]

Honestly all the unifi camera's looked bad. sure 5ft was good, but past that, the image was not good. The night vision was horrible!. I wouldn't get any unifi camera for outdoor protection. I really wanted to use these for businesses, but other than something for indoor that would be less than 10ft away, I won't use unifi camera's yet.

[@TheHookUp]

It’s definitely a “whole package” situation. Considering only image quality they definitely don’t make sense, but combined with protect the feature set definitely has a target customer.

[@Jupiter0ne]

One thing that is a bit confusing (not just from this video, but others too), is the issue of the cameras being on the same vlan as Protect. Is that just a requirement for auto-detection, and maybe can be added manually some other way for those of us with cameras on their own vlan? Or is this a hard requirement, period?

[@TheHookUp]

ONVIF cameras need to be on the same VLAN, protect cameras do not.

[@Jupiter0ne]

That's a shame. I have a Reolink system now but it is on its own vlan, different from my UDM-SE.

[@narnol02]

Lookingnto have the Theta 360 pro to watch a room. Thoughts on that vs the AI360?¿

[@TheHookUp]

Theta 360 is great if you're willing/able to do the extra steps to install it.

[@narnol02]

@@TheHookUp that I don't mind. Just wondered about quality compared to the AI 360. Using it to monitor a classroom in case something where to happen it could be reviewed.

[@TheJoaolyraaraujo]

Amazing

[@Sartre_Existentialist]

So the UniFi system can accept any other manufacturers POE cameras?

[@TheHookUp]

It can accept ONVIF cameras, but it will not do anything other than record them 24/7.

[@Sartre_Existentialist]

@TheHookUp ok, Its really disappointing that Ubiquity doesn't put more R&D into their cameras. Nothing you showed in the video made me get motivated to open my wallet. However, I do like all their network equipment and it's the system I want.

[@JackReacheround]

@@Sartre_Existentialist they're going to release a box that makes and ONVIF cameras have smart detections and makes the G4 and G5 non AI cameras smarter, too.

[@Sartre_Existentialist]

@JackReacheround Oh good know! I'll keep an eye out

[@yourneighborhood]

15:03 I think the cheapest option is the cloud gateway max. $200

[@TheHookUp]

Cloud key is cheaper, $249 with a 1tb hdd, gateway max is $279 for 512GB. The $199 is without a hdd.

[@yourneighborhood]

@@TheHookUp yeah good point. But the real cheapest way would be to download the OS and install it on a used PC laying around or throw the image in a virtualized setting like a proxmox server or VM box.

[@TheHookUp]

@@yourneighborhood To my knowledge you can only run protect on UniFi hardware. You can spin up a network controller virtualized, but you can't install protect.

[@djheckler92]

What cameras do you use at your house?

[@TheHookUp]

A combination of Hikvision (Annke), Axis, Reolink, and Dahua (EmpireTech and Amcrest).

[@djheckler92]

@@TheHookUp Thanks appreciate the reply

[@1981SPL]

dang, i cant get my Annke cameras to work on the protect site. getting the "unable to stream" issue...saying to change encoding settings but im struggling.

[@TheHookUp]

Change to h264 under the “stream” options in your camera web interface.

[@matthiaslange392]

​@@TheHookUplook a the annke website. they have c800 for 50€ now. but caution: these "improved" models are another revision - both are "c800" but the new one ist I91DL, the good one is I91BL. The new has plasic housing and i've read about lack of some important features. A shame that Annke recycled the "good name" of the c800! thumbs down annke!

[@TheHookUp]

That's not true. Annke sells hikvision cameras, but they aren't lower quality versions, Annke just handles importing and advertising while Hikvision is mostly installer/dealer oriented. The advantage of buying Annke over Hikvision is that many of the Hikvision cameras on Amazon and Ali are illegally imported Chinese region camera which have different firmware meant only for China.

[@djheckler92]

@@TheHookUp Ok thanks, that was I was told on ipcamtalk but I trust you on that. I will remove my comment as to not confuse anyone.

[@avnut5517]

YES! Thank you!

[@Carl-iw9sy]

Am I the only one constantly going back on the video so I don't miss any info? Sometimes I even slow down the playback speed 😬

[@themachobbit]

How does it fare with realtime lag?

[@TheHookUp]

Very little lag

[@laredotech]

Any ptz support with onvif?

[@corbco]

No, at least not yet. (Rob also mentions this in the video.)

[@TheHookUp]

No

[@x219c]

Don't a lot of the pro cameras have optical zoom?

[@TheHookUp]

3x as noted in the video.

[@damirca]

I don't understand why these youtube people keep reviewing reolink or unifi cameras when any mid level hikvision camera is a) much (much!) better is terms of video quality and b) much (much!) cheaper than unifi camers. Most of Relink & Unifi cameras has 1/2.8" or 1/2.5" sensor size, but you can get 1/1.8" sensor in hikvision cameras for very decent price. Looking at these youtube bros one could think that there are only two options: unifi or reolink. But in reality you can buy several hikvision cameras, orange pi 5 and install frigate and get a system that is 100500 times better and cheaper than reolink or unifi.

[@HowardDinah-h2q]

Ryder Tunnel

[@bentheguru4986]

Here isa the kick in the gonads: I sucked in a 4 year old HIK camera and it smashes ALL the UniFi cameras to the curb. Not even the G4/G5 Pro's come close to the cheap HIK/Dajua cameras. Oh, with the AI cameras, the AI360 is NOT AI, just a low-res fisheye. Does not do any AI features. The current implimentaion of ONVIF on the UNVR's, sticking with dedicated NVR platform is advised as there are no options for adjusting the third-party cameras and their respective streams. Many cameras come on in low-res stream and the UniFi platform can't negotiate the quality modes of the player, definately sucks balls on the Viewport.

[@marciodoo]

KUDOS ❤

[@bentheman68]

my man system Unifi is on 192.168.1 but my cameras i put on 192.168.3. but Unifi Protect doesn't see these cameras, do you know why ?

[@TheHookUp]

When you plug in a camera do you get the message that it’s ready for adoption?

[@x219c]

@@bentheman68 is that a different network you’re using? You may need to create a route between the networks.

[@RedRyz3n]

At those price point, I’ll stick with my Reolink system. $300-400-500 a camera is just plain stupid.

[@JonsonMelissa-i6h]

Mose Center

[@rsp1983]

The AI 360 has been such a disappointing purchase for me. Aside from all of the (understandable) image quality issues you've pointed out, the interface for it in all Protect apps is just terrible. On the phone, if you're scrolling through footage looking for a specific piece of movement, or a piece of the image to change, it regularly jumps back to the warped image for a single frame. The web UI regularly forgets the dewarp setting, requiring you to re-enable it, then reposition the angle and zoom with slow keyboard controls or almost-unusable mouse controls. It's awful.

[@TheHookUp]

From my experience it seems to reset the warp settings with any update of the protect software. Try disabling auto updates and see if it remembers your settings better.

[@rsp1983]

@@TheHookUp Thanks, I'll see if I notice a difference with that. I actually learned about adding multiple views of the same camera from this video, so I did that immediately and was again disappointed to see that the views I set up in the web UI didn't persist to the iOS app -- I still see the two camera feeds at the same time, but they're both duplicates of the warped view with no way to change them. 🤷‍♂

[@garanceadrosehn9691]

It's disappointing to see that the video quality of the G4 Doorbell Pro seems to be so bad.

[@ThomasChristian-py6ex]

Not sure what was up with your doorbell camera, I've had G4 DB Pro for over 2 years and zooming in I don't get near that level of pixelation and loss of detail. Granted I can't count arm hairs or nose hairs but I can definitely make out facial and person details. I will say it's clear enough to see the whiskers on the cats that walk by our front door at 5-7 ft. I have a recessed front door and the sidewalk enters from the driveway so every approach is a straight shot toward the door and camera for about 15 ft. As for the other camera images that you showed, other than the AI models, I can attest that your images were efficient and representative. Love the approach, and appreciate the time and effort. Excellent work.

[@TheHookUp]

I don't understand the G4 Pro doorbell. It uses a 5MP sensor, but outputs video at 2MP. These results are consistent with the last time I tested a G4 Pro doorbell (which was the wireless version, the one in this current video was PoE): kzbin.info/www/bejne/bImmpmmCZd2harssi=lQfwt0yHKhn2LcIA&t=472

[@garanceadrosehn9691]

@@TheHookUp - Ah, yeah, I remember that video, but at the time I wasn't concerned because that was the wireless version and I knew I wanted a PoE version. (not that I've had the time to setup a smart doorbell yet...). Maybe the 5MP sensor is there just to help with all the smart-detection features?

[@TheHookUp]

@@garanceadrosehn9691 I just don't understand why they aren't outputting at 5mp, there should be plenty of bandwidth for that.

[@matthemattics]

@@TheHookUp I think something might be off with that G4 Doorbell Pro unit you tested. Like ​@ThomasChristian-py6ex, I've also had a G4 Doorbell Pro for about 2 years and my unit produces a significantly sharper image than what you showed in this video. I wonder if it could be down to the specific PoE adapter? Ubiquiti made two different adapters - one was black and came with a non-detachable cable (G4 Doorbell Pro PoE Adapter), and the other was white and the cable was sold separately (PoE Adapter for Protect WiFi Cameras, G4 Doorbell Pro PoE Adapter (7m)). Presumably, you've already played with the camera's encoding settings and tested the ethernet and usb cable runs, so short of the PoE adapter, I'm not really sure what else it could be. But something definitely seems off, my G4 Doorbell Pro is sharper than both my G4 Dome and my G4 Instant (which is also PoE).

[@pewtorye]

Reolink is much better.

[@hm00]

Does this guy have other social media accounts? Please share them

[@davidhite1868]

Uhhh, did you click more above?

[@hm00]

@@davidhite1868 hhhh, no one is doing this anymore just kidding 😂

[@NatesRandomVideo]

@@davidhite1868you’re answering a bot. lol 😂

[@davidhite1868]

@@NatesRandomVideo how do you know?

[@MM-he2iq]

I really really hope they buff up the third party capabilities, but I very much think the bare bones-ness of the feature is intended. Especially considering how meh their cameras are. There’d be no reason to buy them otherwise

[@TheHookUp]

Fingers crossed

[@donfrankie]

A bit of critique is that it is not very use to average rankings. A scale of 1-100 would be better. Especially when you start adding in the cost. It would also be easier if you later reviewed other cameras. When you would have a comparable score. Compared to other cameras the Unifi lineup is not great, but the have a good eco system.

[@TheHookUp]

The rankings are all relative to the other cameras in the video, so it would not be useful to compare overall scores between videos.

[@mistamal]

Lol 99 dollars for entry level cam - my man don't say "only" when value pricing is not appropriate

[@TheHookUp]

It’s about getting into the ecosystem and it is unfortunately competitive with nest.

[@scottalexander8856]

UniFi cams are trash. for the fan bois only

[@brianadriaanse3058]

Finally

[@mi1stormilst]

You should rank these cameras based on their ability to make you look 50 years older or more like a criminal. Man these cameras are just bad at night and at distance.

[@TheHookUp]

Everyone looks like a criminal on security camera footage.

[@DerrickDevine]

The best unifi camera for me is to not get one. Investments in that entire ecosystem are costly and the juice isn't worth the squeeze...even for someone like me who is an IT engineer. I keep things simple and cost effective.

[@BenWilliams]

Just curious: what solution do you have that is both simple and cost effective? In my experience, simple comes with a price tag. I’m an IT Engineer as well and use UniFi for its simplicity and performance so that I can focus on other nerd projects that I want to work on. I’m fully capable of digging into the weeds to build out a solution but it’s not something I want to invest a ton of time into. All the other cheap solutions required a lot of work to get setup just right from my research. In this case, I was ok with the “apple tax” for a “it just works” solution. Not the most technically advanced system out there but very well built and has been fuss free for me so that I can nerd out on other projects.

[@iirmantass3]

@@BenWilliams I had 0 problems with Hikvision and Reolink, easy to install, easy to configure.

[@MrTjnielsen81]

@@BenWilliams If you're an IT guy and already have all the Unifi networking gear (Dream Machine etc) then going for a Unifi camera setup makes reasonable sense - it leverages the equipment you've already paid for. Although if you think that Unifi networking gear has "simplicity" then you're already well and truly beyond the average consumer. If you haven't already bought into the ecosystem, Unifi cameras and the ncessary NVR hardware are terrible value - from the performance seen in this video, most of the cameras are utter trash at night, including some of the really expensive ones. I've seen much better results from cameras that cost half the price. I will concede that the NVR interface is pretty sweet though - very well laid out and lots of convenient features.

[@BenWilliams]

@@MrTjnielsen81I 100% agree they aren’t the best and their prices are outrageous. But being in the IT space, I absolutely refuse to go the Blue Iris on Windows route. Windows != stability haha. Synology seems decent but adds up with licensing costs. I do already have a UDM Pro so it made it easy to step into Protect. My new plan (now that ONVIF is an option) is to actually only buy G5 turrets for wide angle detection and cover entry points and areas of interest with cheaper 4k cams. I can use the event detection timestamp on the UI cams to go look up the event on the 4k 3rd party cams since they don’t do detection (at least not yet). Protect is what keeps me in the ecosystem. Their camera prices are outrageous for what you get. I’m glad that I might be able to blend them with 3rd party cams to save some money but still use Protect because I think they have the best NVR solution by far when it comes to polish and ease of use. It does work really well though so to me it’s definitely the apple tax to just have something that does a majority of what I need even though there’s a other, better options for cheaper if you invest the time into it.