SO MUCH CHOICE AND PRICE VARIATION
If you search the Internet for a home cctv camera, you will find hundreds of different brands, models and price variations.
How do you choose one? It’s so difficult to pass up a low priced camera!
LISTEN TO THE CCTV EXPERTS AND INSTALLERS
With more than 30 years of experience with cctv cameras I am able to help you with this decision, what’s more we will use other reputable sources to help you as well.
SPOTBOT
The first source we turn to is SPOTBOT. Spotbot provides an AI hardware device that transforms a CCTV Camera sysem into an intruder detection system. While applying their device to various types of cameras, they have gained experienced as to which are good cameras and which are not – basically those that work well with their system and those that don’t.
SPOTBOT recommend two main brands to work with HIKVISION and DAHUA.
if you type this question into google, you will see many brands recommended as being the best cctv camera for the home. Can 100 different cameras be the best?
ASMAG
Asmag.com is an online security publication that has become an authority when it comes to ranking cctv system manufacturers – globally. A&S produced their first top 50 ranking in 2003, and have been the go to authority on ranking cctv manufacturers over the past 19 years.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how A&S feel about SPOTBOT’s recommendation?
Although this is the 2020 chart, Hikvision has dominated this chart for years. So there we have another reputable authority highlighting the same two manufacturers that SPOTBOT recommends.
GENSIX TECHNOLOGY
I have personally seen this chart change over the years. New players come and go. Around 2004 we as a company chose to work with the Dahua Brand.
I watched the Dahua brand rise up the charts each year, and they have occupied the No.2 spot for some time. Additionally the company was recommended to me by a long time Chinese associate, and I built up quite a relationship with the people over at Dahua.
While I have nothing against Hikvision – it’s an excellent product for residential customers, we lean towards the Dahua product. Initially this was because Dahua was an early adopter of H.264 video compression, when most manufacturers where still using mpeg.
We imported this product and distributed it across South Africa, at a time when the general consumer was very hesitant to adopt a heavily Chinese branded product. Sure, at times it was a hard sell – given the reputation of Chinese products at the time.
But we have watched the brand grow – globally and locally. Market share in South Africa mirrors the global distribution. Hikvision and Dahua are the leading brands in South Africa at the moment.
We should at this stage confidently be able to declare that the best CCTV camera for the home in South Africa would be made by Hikvision or Dahua.
CCTV CAMERA PRICE IN SOUTH AFRICA – HIKVISION VS DAHUA
An interesting comparison would be that of the price of these CCTV cameras in South Africa. Hikvision versus a Dahua camera? For this comparison let’s just choose a similar camera from each brand, and do a shopping comparison on Google.
There you have it – Not really any significant difference in the price of a similar camera.
How would these cameras differ in terms of warranty and support?
WARRANTY AND SUPPORT – HIKVISION AND DAHUA
Dahua just recently upgraded their warranty to 5 years, for project based products. Generally their products are warranted for 36 Months though.
Hikvision also offers a standard 3 year warranty, with additional levels of support for certain product series – this extends up to 5 years as well since 1 January 2020. The hikvision 5 year warranty covers their Turbo HD recorders and most IP products.
It would appear as though Hikvision has more favourable warranty terms.
Both companies have representative offices in South Africa, and offer consumer help lines on local telephone and whats app numbers.
It’s worth noting, that many online vendors won’t offer you the manufacturers warranty. You can find 6 month and 12 month limited warranties on these vendors sites. Often this is because these vendors are not sourcing the product through official channels – hence the manufacturer doesn’t recognise, nor support them.
Often these vendors are sourcing cameras from Asian markets, that are designed for those markets. The firmware is not always compatible with what is supported in the South African market.
At Gensix Technology we work directly with Dahua and Hikvision and the locally approved distributors. We are able to offer the full warranty and the on-site service of those warranties.
WON’T CHEAP CCTV CAMERAS FROM OTHER BRANDS BE JUST AS GOOD?
Does brand reputation really matter when it comes to home CCTV cameras?
CCTV PRIVACY
One of the most serious problems with cheap brand cameras that are thrown together in Chinese chop shops, is the matter of privacy. Small manufacturers do not invest in the technology required to secure CCTV camera systems. These systems can be easily hacked and taken over by malicious actors. When cheap cloud solutions are offered by these manufacturers, your entire home network could be compromised when the system opens up insecure communication routes to the outside world.
CCTV CAMERA QUALITY
Many cheap cameras are only intended for internal use. Even if these cameras look the same as those from Dahua and Hikvision – which are IP rated for outdoors, and equipped with surge protection. Just by looking at the camera you wouldn’t know that it has not undergone rigorous testing to ensure outdoor usability. These cameras are going to be compromised by dust, moisture and surges from lightning. The vendors and the manufacturers simply label them as outdoor cameras because they look the same as the Dahua and Hikvision outdoor cameras.
CCTV RESEARCH AND SECURITY
Cheaper CCTV cameras often connect back to recorders that are manufactured by one or two chop shops back in China. Thousands of these machines are simply labelled with many different names –
many contain the word “see” in their branding. Leading manufacturers invest a lot of R&D in the compression and recording capability of their recorders. You will have noticed that I mentioned H.264 compression earlier in this article. The cheaper branded recorders, don’t maximise image quality and recording capacity. Additionally many of these re branded units are seriously insecure.
Do some google research on xmeye made products labelled under many different names and logo’s.
CCTV IMAGE QUALITY
Many cheap cameras are not actually HD. All the manufacturer has to do is to use a Chip that calculates to a million pixels when you multiply the H x V dimensions of the chip. Now the manufacturer can claim he has manufactured a mega-pixel or HD camera. In reality, when we apply these cameras images to a resolution chart, the same pixel camera from different manufacturers, can display vast differences in their resolving capability. This refers to the cameras ability to actually resolve lines and fine detail. Leading manufacturers have invested vast amounts in research and development, to ensure the most efficient translation of the number of pixels on the chip, into usable quality images.
CCTV CAMERA INSTALLATION
Often cheap cameras are purchased from online sites and vendors. You will be expected to install these yourself. Leading manufacturers have invested a lot into making the installation procedures and methods quite user friendly. Their products are also usually well documented, and interface well with their off-site cloud based extensions. Not so with all the cheaper cameras. There may often be vague instructions and documentation, the products may not actually work or interface as one would imagine, and the extensions may be third party or very buggy.
THE BEST CCTV CAMERAS FROM HIKVISION AND DAHUA
In this article I have tried to address the issue of the best home security camera for South Africa. Clearly Hikvision and Dahua are two global, and well reputed manufacturers that lead the world in consumer CCTV products. There are many pitfalls that could be experienced with lesser unknown brands, and even when buying leading brands from online vendors.
While Hikvision and Dahua may be the leading brands, we would still want to break this down further by discussing how to choose an actual camera model that might work best at your home.
Look our for the next article – “How to select a camera for your home security system”
