DIY POE Camera & Storage or buy prebuilt package?

[KenZ71]

I am considering setting up some POE Cameras around the exterior of the home to keep an eye on things when out of town. Should I renew my geek status and build my own or just buy an package deal of cameras & storage appliance?

Already have a decent Unifi network with spare POE capacity and a NAS with a few TB of storage available. Also I am not wild about putting my stuff on a cloud so the DIY route is preffered. I would most likely port forward the camera feeds like my Jellyfin or maybe find a way to feed the cameras through Jellyfin - that would be cool!

Like my APs I prefer POE so they can all be powered by a UPS in case of a utility outage.

Having said above any comments or suggestions for hardware? Would not mind a couple of the cameras also having a flood light for some of the dark doorways / over garage door. That would get bonus points with the missus <-- always a good idea!!

 

[dosborne]

A DIY would likely be more flexible. Although, for the storage I'd go with a prebuilt option. What brand NAS do you have? Some, such as QNAP, have prebuilt camera / surveillance apps although the number of cameras may be limited unless you upgrade the licensing.

 

[KenZ71]

I've had a Proxmox VM Host & NAS for a few years.

Last night setup Zoneminder as a VM to manage the cameras & their data.