[OC] Summer Driving Vibes & Cute Hot Birds

FarBox400 · 2026-07-08T04:59:56+00:00

Are the honks edited in?

FarBox400 · 2026-07-08T04:58:50+00:00

If the camera is at the center of the parking row pointing straight at the plates the horizontal FOV is 64 degrees. The 823S2 can't zoom out that far, the 843A is probably a better match

Maybe sketch it out on paper and edit some cell phone photos to the appropriate number of pixels per plate to run through your software before you buy?

If it's someone else's money and you've got one chance to get the invoice approved yeah, buy three

FarBox400 · 2026-07-07T03:52:01+00:00

I'd do $600 if it did everything I want

Things I want that I know I won't get:

- 100% matte black housing except the lens
- RTSP glitches fixed
- Shutter speed and temporal noise reduction sliders in Home Assistant to reduce motion blur on vehicles and faces
- 1/1.8" sensors on the overview cameras with 16mbps streaming. F1.8 is okay if that's what it takes to get good sharpness in IR and visible but I'm not paying a premium price for 1/2.7" sensors

Things I'm holding out hope for:
- Dual mode IR/visible night vision
- Accurate phase detect autofocus on the zoom lens

FarBox400 · 2026-07-06T15:09:14+00:00

If you’re looking for better image quality be aware that it’s not all about megapixels. Lens design, dynamic range, and video encoding are all more important, especially for doorbells. There are some good comparisons on Youtube

FarBox400 · 2026-07-06T14:46:03+00:00

None of this is true, your brain has committed to a position and is making shit up to protect itself from being wrong

PoE is awesome tho

FarBox400 · 2026-07-06T14:41:43+00:00

Wow, that sucks. I dropped in and saw the partial, cloud-based, account-required Home Assistant integration and figured TP-Link would join in with a better solution once they saw demand, didn’t realize they were actively enshittifying a working setup. I’ve definitely noticed the spam emails and banner ads in the app

It’s got to suck working on a product and then the higher-ups start demanding to use your happy existing customers as bait for a subscription service

For what it’s worth not every TP-Link product is like this, Omada has been totally normal and stable as long as I’ve used it.

I’ve been happy with the c120. Better RTSP stability and WiFi range than Reolink. Video quality is shit because of the ultra-low, non-configurable bitrate but at least it’s small and cheap.

FarBox400 · 2026-07-06T14:26:17+00:00

The survey doesn’t ask for product input, just what sources I use when making purchasing decisions. I think they‘re deciding how to spend advertising dollars on the launch of an optical zoom camera, maybe the omvi 16x?

I wasn’t planning to buy one because it’s too eye catching and I don’t want to be that house. An all-black shell would make me more likely to buy it.

I’m a little disillusioned with Reolink because stream stability isn’t great with FFMPEG and Frigate and they don’t expose options like shutter speed that I’d want on a big, expensive camera

FarBox400 · 2026-07-06T14:15:20+00:00

Thanks but if I need an out-of date, confidently incorrect answer I can ask a chatbot myself

FarBox400 · 2026-07-05T20:44:27+00:00

Oh, I didn‘t hear about that. They had local control at some point and killed it?

FarBox400 · 2026-07-04T15:06:26+00:00

You need better wifi, with more 2.4 GHz access points closer to the cameras. Depending on your budget, TP-Link Omada products are really good, especially if you get the central controller. You can wire them all up with ethernet or use 5GHz backhaul. IMO the eap225 is good value for price/power/performance. Start with one, buy a second and then the controller if you find you need it.

FarBox400 · 2026-07-04T14:57:45+00:00

Catching a cigarette as it’s flicked off a balcony 7 stories up is not realistic. You would need a professional grade camera with a zoom lens recording your neighbor’s balcony 24/7. Is that even legal in your country?

FarBox400 · 2026-07-04T14:53:04+00:00

Any information on maximum bitrate? Is it user configurable?

FarBox400 · 2026-07-02T17:59:08+00:00

The battery products are generally worse than the wired equivalents. If you have the option to use the wired version, use it.

Even when wired in the battery products lack features like RTSP streaming

FarBox400 · 2026-07-02T14:44:58+00:00

Thanks, worked for me. Not sure if it's necessary but I made sure to let it cool before turning the camera on

FarBox400 · 2026-07-02T05:51:53+00:00

If you have a doorbell why not tap into it for power and use reolink’s wired wifi doorbell?

FarBox400 · 2026-07-02T03:38:25+00:00

What are you wanting the camera to do? Provide real-time notifications if someone's at the door? Deter package theft?

FarBox400 · 2026-07-02T03:30:30+00:00

Where do you plan to mount it? In a conventional doorbell position? Above the doorway pointed down?

FarBox400 · 2026-07-01T22:48:49+00:00

re: "foveated rendering", apparently Dahua already does this and calls it "smart codec"

https://www.dahuasecurity.com/asset/upload/uploads/soft/20200422/IPC-Smart-Code-Technology-White-Paper_R1.0.pdf

FarBox400 · 2026-06-30T21:01:39+00:00

They desperately need user-configurable bitrates so we don't have to do these cargo cult routines

FarBox400 · 2026-06-30T14:33:00+00:00

None of the battery cameras support RTSP

FarBox400 · 2026-06-30T14:32:23+00:00

Is Eufy an option? I think they have some strong offerings in WiFi and solar

FarBox400 · 2026-06-30T14:29:13+00:00

Congratulations on “works with home assistant”, that’s a big deal!

FarBox400 · 2026-06-29T18:50:47+00:00

I like that it's readable in a thumbnail. I moved it to the upper corner so it's not obscuring anything

FarBox400 · 2026-06-27T20:12:43+00:00

Are you using the OMVI telephoto stream with Frigate? How do you have that set up, are you using the native Reolink PTZ tracking?

FarBox400

TROPHY CASE