Unifi Protect: Converting my driveway cameras

[@WillSmidlein]

Your gate has a faster uplink than my home office 😅

[@TheNippoo]

If I was rich, this is exactly the type of guy I'd want to be

[@tedev]

man you spend so much money on your hobby to learn things and you always try to have the best product / solution possible. i will say it again... i am jealous of you but i am glad that you are enjoying your toys. UniFi Protect actually is amazing. At first i didn't like it because of their pricing, but with the new models... they are a lot more attractive

[@DozIT]

I've always found the pricing reasonable compared to Wisenet and Axis, maybe a bit steep compared to Hikvision, but not needing to use a Hikvision NVR is worth at least a 20% premium :)

[@JulesLoesch]

Love the setup! I just added a 10G switch in my attic to run some APs and my shed also has 10G fiber, not needed but love 10G!

[@dzmo-official]

Wow this video is really cool. Never really see a lot of people breaking down this stuff. It’s amazing how powerful this consumer technology has.

[@gsawnv]

Gorgeous property

[@JasonsLabVideos]

I saw fiber and was happy :). The nice thing about that fiber you dropped is you can split it and use BIDI and have 2 switches if you needed to too !

[@jeffsponaugle6339]

That and there is a 12 pair SM in that same conduit all the way to the house, so plenty of bandwidth!

[@JasonsLabVideos]

@@jeffsponaugle6339 Do you fusion splice or Mechanical ?

[@marcveranda6972]

You have a great setup! I have 16 of the 2k dome cameras outside my house and 4 inside in the hallways including some pointed at the entry doors. Started with AVTECH and ONVIF cameras then updated to the UniFi Protect NVR changing all the cameras. My next update will be 2 of the AI 4K cameras on the dual entry driveway.

[@jeffsponaugle6339]

Very cool! I just migrated to Protect 5.0 so I can connect non UbI cameras, and that went well. Video about that coming out asap.

[@hazzaskates]

Really like your videos and setup. Thanks for uploading and providing us with your ideas

[@chrisleslie1988]

It looks like you have phillips hue as well? in your driveway. do you have a night update of landscape lights. also great unifi video...debating gettting the udm pro max and selling udm se

[@dannyreddy]

What do you do for a living?

[@DPCTechnology]

Killer setup. The AIPro does much better at LPR when there is a lot of light, the frame rate is higher the more light there is which helps with motion blur. Also the pro version of the Theta is REALY good at LPR, i havent mounted one outside but the one in our reception room catches most plates that psrk in the parking lot. again, more light is better.. If you were ever going to install the gate controler and have LPR control Access, the AIDSLR would be worth the investement, it is spectactular at LPR and the lighting u already have installed would be enough for near 100 detection. Obviously, ur demark is on the wrong side of the gate so it might not be an ideal setup... Loved the video (and all ur others)!

[@jeffsponaugle6339]

Interesting! I'll have to look at the Pro version of the theta. It does seem the AIPro does good with lots of light, which is not surprising given the frame rate. Some of the really good high end LPRs use very nice optics and high frame rates. Good ideas!

[@DPCTechnology]

@@jeffsponaugle6339 yeah obviously the AIDSLR is using a $1400 f1.2 lens and that lets it kill the frame rate.. the theta pro lens is just a sleeper, not sure why it's so good, but it is..

[@shm5547]

10:40 there's a 'custom' setting for night mode - maybe install a big IR LED floodlight, then set the LPR camera to night mode with the IR cut filter off, and that will work better, even during the day?

[@DPCTechnology]

@@shm5547 the only issue with flooding IR is the reflective nature of of LPs make it blow out the image. The G4PTZ Industrial is a good example, crazy strong IR, but blows out LPs..

[@shm5547]

@@DPCTechnology yep, that can be an issue, but if you physically offset the IR illuminator from the camera, you lessen the effect of blow out from the reflective coating of LPs (as the reflective material shoots light back mainly in the direction of the illumination source). I never use the built-in IR illumination on cameras for this reason, but also because the warm IR light seems to attract spiders and moths etc. which you don't really want around your camera lens!

[@vitalybik]

бля мужик, завидую тебе доброй завистью. и дом пушка, и лаба пушка. Надеюсь, я на пенсии также буду играться

[@doctor567]

Your content is awesome, thanks for putting it out there. I'm a car guy/IT guy/Ham Radio guy and I appreciate your particular combination of hobbies. It's refreshing to see people making a youtube video just to engage with others, and not to bank subscribers and advertisers. I had been wondering about the Unifi camera system, and hadn't found a demonstration of an installation anywhere near this comprehensive.

[@Stealthoneill]

Can you set notifications to only notify if it isn't one of your vehicles, not just any and all vehicles?

[@bentheguru4986]

Fark me, no one ever mentioned the dual stream dependency for detection on Blue Oriface.... Cheers Jeff. Some things to consider, Theta's are indoor-only. No audio, no IR. All your cameras except the theta need to be readjusted, skew is off. The AI Pro needs more zoom. Defult settings have some issues as "Default" on each is different. The quality setting is best put to auto and it will save a lot of data. Turn IR ilume off on the Pro, they work better in starlight or full colour mode.

[@jeffsponaugle6339]

Yea, I made the theta outdoor-ish by putting it in a tube and I have a glass cover for it now.. it is not perfect but should be sealed. I just upped the zoom on the AI Pro, and I have a second AI pro to install midpoint, so I'll make sure that is zoomed as well. Indeed that helped the plate detection. Thanks for the tips! I'll try out the IR illium turned off as it is pretty dark there.. will be interesting to see the low light performance.

[@bentheguru4986]

@@jeffsponaugle6339 The G4 and G5 Pro's starlight performance is scary. Their use with other cameras in the area shining their light allows for the Pro's to run passive and not easy to detect them running.

[@YTForcedMeToHaveAHandle]

I live in a rural area as well and would like a similar setup, but that equipment would be stolen in short order if I mounted it that low and far from the house.

[@HarryL2020]

10gig for a gate is kinda funny honestly 😂

[@user-rz8yw7bz3w]

Did you wire everything by yourself or did you had to get electricians?

[@rubbermoetroken]

Haha great, we have a dreammachine setup here as well. The AI360 camera is dissapointing in terms of resolution and the night IR completely blinds the camera (it is actually focussing on the anti tampering cover). Other than that, Unify means business, very easy to setup, maintain etc.

After seeing your server room tour, you should wait and continue your overkill way for the upcoming NVR Pro Max or whatever that Ubiquiti teased in their EFG release video!

[@jeffsponaugle6339]

yes!

[@stoneobscurity]

i rely on go2rtc+frigate+coralTPU and various IP cameras. the object detection works great and frigate is way more customizable with motion/object masking, zones, etc.

[@josem1804]

You can adjust the detection zone. Select the camera , go to recording mode - scroll down to Advanced - Smart Detection Zones.

[@scoopzuk]

Great video and nice to know the old wireless option for the gate worked through some trees. I've just picked up some nanobeam 5AC II to try and do similar. @3:29 could you have just coupled the two fibres together rather than putting them into a powered switch or is the switch there for future expansion?

[@jeffsponaugle6339]

On the fiber - Yea it would be no problem to just link the fiber together, but I wanted some extra bandwidth in the garage as there are some other extra fibers that term there. Those nanobeams work really well!

[@huskyman20435]

Genuine question, if you have so many cameras out there, arent you afraid of someone breaking in to that box and stealing the gear? And if that wereto happen, I assume a bad actor can not do significant harm from there right?

[@jerome9050]

Interesting vidéo. Is the Ai Theta outdoor rated ? No problem about rain or other elements ?

[@jeffsponaugle6339]

No it is not. I made mine outdoor usable by putting it into a tube with a sealed cover, so it should work.. but it is certainly not as robust as a real outdoor rating.

[@ItIsAHumanNumber]

Nice video and setup. However (and I mean this in the nicest way possible) I would cable manage it a little bit better at the gate, the garage is perfect and the gate is "meh", does not compute haha. The camera on the front of the garage is pretty weird if you look at the angle. Maybe remove the Anke cam's? Also a tip: set it to continuous recording instead of event only. You have enough storage to do that with only 4 cams and can sometimes be pretty handy if something has happened. Do you plan on adding a IR blaster for the Theta? You could just get a simple one. Also; do you have an intercom for the gate? You could Unifi that by using a G4 Doorbell Pro and Unifi Access. Would be cool. Love your video's, keep up the good work. Would also would like to see a video on the cars! Great stuff!

[@jeffsponaugle6339]

Oh yea, that gate box needs some love! The Anke cams are indeed going to go away soon.. Good point on the continuous, especially with the storage vs # cams. I was just thinking about the G4 doorbell! I'll get one on order and give that a try!

[@johnyrokita]

Apparently Unifi Protect will receive Onvif support for third party cameras next month, so it might be a perfect time for a migration to it!

[@alexrosenberg_tube]

The problem is that all the open source motion detection is fully decoding every video frame and it does not need to. It needs only interpret the motion vectors in the compressed stream to determine if any motion has occurred. Fully-decoding the frame may then be necessary to get an ML model to identify people/animals/cars/license plates/etc., but again that's because nobody seems to have trained ML models to directly consume compressed macroblocks. They've also failed to train these models for other common things like moths and spiders that trigger unnecessary alerts.

[@pavian84]

10Gb to the gate -- richly 1Gb it should be enough but i like it 👍 fiber give You isolation. I love Ubiquity environment and Protection system. In PL they mount Dahua or other IP camer and terrible old recorder because everybody afraid ubiquity... unnecessarily ubiquity is easier to operate and more intuitive for less technician people.

[@kimiZZZumi]

seems like water and snow is not an issue for you

[@builditwithadam]

Have you considered Frigate? While it’s a much younger product, it’s a lot more polished with a ton of community love and open source.

[@spudmonk13]

+1 for frigate...then you could even roll your own model if you wanted to fine tune an existing model...theres more than enough compute there 🤣

[@Yellowcooln_]

Jeff, just wanted to give a heads up. if your plate is your call sign, anyone can look it up. as its in the video. Might want to censor it if possible. Love the videos!

[@BobDrenth]

Hey Jeff, might want to re-up this with correct audio levels while it's still fresh, seems super low.

[@jeffsponaugle6339]

Yea, I noticed that. I'll up it.

[@jasonkershaw3198]

Am I the only one who is kind of more interested in how you added the Unifi cameras to Blue Iris? I thought that Unifi cameras only worked with Unifi Protect. D you have a video on how you did it?

[@jeffsponaugle6339]

The older unifi camera had a standalone mode when you first set them up, and then they could to RTSP. On the newer ones you can enable RTSP, but you have to join them to a controller first to do that.

[@jasonkershaw3198]

@@jeffsponaugle6339 that’s good to know. I did not know that. Thank you.

[@TheYoutubes-f1s]

Two in one day!!!

[@kamiraa]

I didn't think AI Theta was outdoor rated ...

[@jeffsponaugle6339]

Indeed it is not.. I just made mine work outdoors by enclosing it. I am going to put an AI Pro front facing, but wanted to try out the theta first and see how it would do.

[@kamiraa]

@@jeffsponaugle6339 Thats cool! I'm all for testing, pretty cool it survived haha. The AI Pro is a damn good camera with that IR emitter. You might also want to checkout the G4 PTZ , I think all the detection is done on the NVR Pro, but that thing with the tracking is pretty nice and on a higher pole could cover all of your driveway with zooming in, panning, and tracking all vehicles or people.

[@harrisonhreszczuk8825]

AI Theta is not weatherproof

[@jeffsponaugle6339]

Indeed - But I made mine! That is why it is in a tube that I sealed, and the cable is glanded on both sides.

[@yourpcmd]

30+ cameras, what are you hiding?