Apologies up front as this topic seems to receive lots of attention. With Cam v3 and Cam Plus Lite, I plan to use SD Card for local storage. Objective is to be informed about events happing (person, sound, etc.) especially when I’m not around. If I understand it right, I will be notified upon the event detection which will also serve as my queue to go review (via playback feature) the full event on the card assuming the event lasted longer than 12 seconds. I understand the down side of local storage vs Cam Plus, but wouldn’t this scenario get me close to what I’m looking to do? Last, I’m struggling with understanding why continuous monitoring might be better than event only if I’m only interested in events. Opinions please!
I can only tell you what I do. I have a couple dozen cameras at home. All of them are on CamPlus unlimited, and all of them have 64GB uSD cards that are set to continuous recording. I have events set to record on the cloud, but have ZERO notifications enabled to my phone (I don’t need hundreds of notifications every day).
I will use the cloud events to find when something happened, but generally view anything more than a few seconds of recorded video from the uSD card.
I would not even consider setting the uSD card recording to anything except continuous. The detection will miss stuff that you might actually want / need. For example, a couple years ago there was a fight on the sidewalk across the street. If I was setting detection zones, that would be excluded so it did not trigger every time a car drove down the street or someone walked their dog on that sidewalk. As it turns out, it was helpful to be able to pull up that recording.
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I have 12 cams on Cam Plus. I have some set to various combinations of Person, Vehicle, Pet, and Package motion event. None are set to Sound Event. I have AI motion notifications set to send me a push notification if any of these occur (although I learned today there is a limitation to that too…will share in next fix-it Friday). I then tap the notification and I am immediately taken to the app to view that clip. It will be there in the cloud for 14 days. I also have SD cards in every Cam set to record continuous. If I want to view the playback from the card, say to see before or after the clip, I can push the playback button in the clip to be taken to the exact time on the SD card when the event was recorded.
However there are considerable differences between CamPlus and CamPlus Lite. You still get Cloud Stored Event clips and notifications, however in Lite: clips will NOT be full length but will be 12 seconds. Clips will not record continuously…there is a 5 minute time out cooldown period electronically imposed between clips and therefore also notifications. And, you ONLY get Person Detection AI, not pet, package or vehicle. Additionally, I think there is a difference for sound events as well but I can’t confirm as I do not use it.
Hope this helps.
Thank you for the replies, much appreciated. Assume I have the camera set for motion (especially for when not home), wouldn’t the event be captured (12 sec due to Cam + Lite) but it would also be captured on the SD card (event setting), and I would be advised due to notification setting. I normally don’t have the cameras on when I’m home, this only when I’m away from the house. I’m sure this is a “me” thing but I’m struggling to understand what I would be missing with regards to having the ability to see the event.
I recommend continuous recording. Say there is an event outside your house and the camera detects it and records it but::: if the action continues and moves out side of the camera detection range you will may not see the start or the entire story of the action. With continuous recording the action may not be in the detection range to set off the cam but if it is the the field of view of the cam it will be recorded
Yes. On Lite, you would get the person notification on your phone and there would be a 12 second clip video on the events. With an SD card inserted and set to record continuously, 24\7 video would be there to view. Set to record on motion, videos would be on the SD for you to view, but only the video triggered by any motion within the detection zone until the motion stopped. Like Antonius, I also recommend continuous.
The one single factor that made me choose plus was the 5 minute time out between videos. If anything happens in this 5 minutes, and a lot can, no notification and no cloud clip. I wouldn’t know about it unless I looked at the whole days video on the SD.
Yet another great point, thank you. It just seems like loads of wasteful video, but in the end if continuous monitoring is enabled the video will be there when you needed it most.
It would seem that for the most comprehensive coverage and capability, go with both Plus and SD cards set to monitor continuously. While some might believe this to be overkill or expensive, if it needs to be used then after the fact it would be well worth it. I know… I was trying to find a shortcut with the same end result but it’s not apples to apples! Thanks again!
Yes. With cams can now take 64GB, 128GB and larger, with some drawbacks when it comes to load time and formatting, but w\ a 32MGB on HD, the highest quality, I can get about 3.5 to 4 days on a card before it starts to write over old video. Set the quality to SD and you can double it. Double the size of the card and you can double that. Just be sure to buy a quality card designed for continuous record on a security cam. You will find discussions on that in the forum. Most users recommend something marked toward ‘extreme high endourance’. Especially if you have them outdoors. Otherwise, like me, you will find yourself replacing them within a year.
Here is a comparison of the cam plus offerings and the features:
