Current Hubitat household using ring exterior cameras/doorbells and security which we pay currently $10 a month, including the monitored security. That price will increase soon, in a year or so, making me think about future strategy for this setup, but sig other prefers keeping a monitored service. Also, Have Alexa’s scattered around the interior of the home. Use Alexa/ring apps to integrate into my hub.
I also have a unifi system setup with Wi-Fi and can use the unifi protect once I buy the needed hard drives for storage. Unifi has had supply chain issues in the past that seems to lately been getting better.
Curious on thoughts from those that have had Ring in the past and switched over to unifi protect cameras/doorbells. Thoughts?
Ease of use to use for less technical significant others (ie vpn in to view footage).
I have both Ring and Unifi Protect cams. I use Ring for a few indoor cameras but all of my outdoor cams are Unifi G4/G5 bullet or dome cameras.
You don't have to VPN in to view any footage on either, both have apps you can use in or out of the house.
Overall the Unifi cameras are way better than the Ring cameras. Video and audio is superior on Unfi along with build quality. And since the Unfi cams use POE they are much easier to install.
There is a Unifi integration for HomeKit that is unsupported, same for Ring. As far as Hubitat there's an unofficial ring integration but there's no video with that, the cams are basically just motion sensors. There's no Unifi integration for Hubitat other than the network gear.
Another thing to take into account is all video for Unifi is stored locally, only you can get to it, and you control how long it is stored for. With Ring you rely on storing recordings in the cloud and we all know "the cloud" is just other people's computers.
Another option is Camect (www.camect.com) Which has direct integration into Hubitat with @brianwilson 's driver. It is more versatile in terms of amount of cameras available to be used. I mean you can get a Foscam 4k camera with night vision or 70 bux and use it with this system. Everything is 100% local
Honestly, main reason I’m looking to move to unifi protect cameras is less reliance on The cloud and internal hosting. I am a Hubitat user. Protect monitored is only thing really holding us back.
Also, getting creeped out lately when ring shows ads for stuff we talked about without the command word….
I have been using Unifi Protect for 2 years now and it works great. I have 1 G4 doorbell, 6 G3 flex and 2 G3 Instants. All cameras are 1080 (except for the doorbell) and have a great picture . I use to have a ring doorbell but I didn't like paying to see the cloud video. All Protect recordings are local and there is no monthly charges. I have a poe switch that powers the G3 flex cameras and my access points.
2 years in and I have had no issues with these cameras. I use a homebridge Unifi protect plugin and can see all the cameras on Apple's Home app. Unifi has a great phone app that you can use with your cameras. The only problem you may have is getting the cameras due to supply chain issues. I would suggest that you sign up for instant alerts on the Unifi website to get informed when new equipment is in stock. I would suggest you order very quickly when notified. Stock goes fast.
Similar situation here. I have had a mix of Ring (doorbell + outdoor cam) and Wyze cameras for a few years now. I have grown weary of Ring's subscription model.
I recently upgraded to a UDM SE router for the house, and thus now have access to UniFi Protect. It took 2-3 months of checking the UniFi store every day at ~7:10am EST, but I finally was able to purchase a G4 Doorbell Pro about a week ago to replace my old Ring v2. So far, I am really liking the UniFi Protect system, as I prefer it recording continuously to a local 8TB WD Purple drive with no cloud storage subscriptions required.
I have also configured the HomeBridge plugin for UniFi Protect. Wow! It is an amazing integration, and it works with HomeKit secure video. I really like Apple's HomeKit notifications as well. Motion, Automobile, Person, and Animal detection are handled within HomeKit, and are presented in a very easy to use format.
I also have the UniFi Protect app installed on my phone. It works well, however I feel the HomeKit video camera integration is really nice. Probably easier for other family members as well, as there is nothing to install on their phones.
I have a few other UniFi Protect cameras that I need to install outside as well. I have a G5 Bullet, and G5 Flex, and a G4 Instant. The first two are PoE and will thus require some work to pull some Cat5/6 cabling. The G4 Instant is Wi-Fi and is thus easier to install in some situations.
For me, the journey to UniFi Protect has really just begun. I am liking what I have found so far. I also understand that there is a very good UniFi Protect integration for Home Assistant. I have not experimented with that yet, though...
Monitoring is the reason I have Ring inside. I also have a Ring Alarm that would get triggered should someone break in. Should someone break in I can then look for the footage on my Unifi cams, locally with no one listening in lol. Also nothing gets missed with Unifi because it's constantly recording vs Ring and motion based recording.
Yea, really close to pushing the purchase button on the g4 pro doorbell since it was available this morning.
But that $300 and needing to buy protect hard drives for my udmp, then needing to pull wire and buy 3 mor exterior cameras stopped me…. Planning ahead!
Protect monitored is only thing really holding us back.
