Security Camera Suggestions

Greetings everyone,

Our HOA of 53 members has asked the board to explore installing a security camera to capture images of cars entering and leaving our HOA. It's the only way in and the only way out.

There's power at the probable location.

We'd like to find an all-in-one package that would include the camera, data plan and an app to review the data as required.

Does such an animal exist?

Failing that and we had to pull together the components ourselves, I'd be interested to hear what you experienced/learned as your traveled down this road.

FYI: I installed two Dahua cameras over POE that are managed through BlueIris. Love the cameras and if I was a whole lot smarter with a whole lot more patience, I'm sure I'd have a greater appreciation for BI.

So it goes.

At any rate, we'd like a camera that really captures crisp night images under limited lighting using a data plan that doesn't bust the bank. Wouldn't we all! Lots say they take great night pics but fall short in reality.

Anything you can share would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Jeff take

Jeff,
I am not going to give you any vendor information because I think it is against the site rules.

I will just tell you what I think you will need based on what we have used in the past. You will need 4 cameras. Two in each direction with a license plate capture camera and a regular high-quality camera that catches the vehicle color and make and model. You will also need housing for the NVR and the switch that holds all the data.

In my Ca. community we had the same one way in and out and it was very effective at helping get bad guys with the help of owners that also had personal cameras. If you do not have an idea of what you are looking for you will spin your wheels. You also need to set your rules as to who sees the images and only when a police report is filed. If not, you will have people checking on a cheating spouse or checking on kids doing kid stuff.

We have a state of the art security system in our community. We have cameras that show license plates and entry/exit. The cameras are the same brand you have installed and we have true night vision. Night pictures are as clear as day pictures. The cameras are managed through the security management platform that is provided by the same company as manufactured your cameras. I can get on it remotely on my phone or laptop and pull video from any of our gates in real time or historical data. All storage is in the cloud.

It might be worth your time and money to get a security company in and do the install and training on the system.

Thanks everyone for your replies and sorry for the rookie error.

Jeff

Our HOA is in Phoenix, AZ and we have 4 gates, 2 manned and 2 unmanned, supporting 2,866 homes. We currently have NVRs at each gate with 3 LPRs and 4 Domed cameras. We have one PTZ at each of the manned gates.
We are looking to upgrade our 12 existing LPRs to provide better low-light and nighttime video capture. Before making a decision, we are also exploring a change in the existing system architecture and moving to a centralized VMS. Our initial thought is to have centralized video storage with RAID6 and UPS backup. We have not ruled out a cloud solution. Video retention for us will be limited to 20 days maximum.
Would like to know which LPRs you are using and what you consider the useful life to be. Also, with multiple gates, do you use individual NVRs or PoE switches?
Thank you. Steve