Without getting into too many revealing details, my wife and I have a handful of Ring cameras that we are looking to replace, especially with the bullshit they’ve been trying to pull lately. They are used often, indoor and outdoor.
Last year, I tried rolling my own replacement with a standalone Frigate machine and the HA integration, but that ended up falling flat on it’s face. I am not looking to troubleshoot that setup - that ship has sailed. Moving on.
Enter Unifi Protect. I’m already familiar with Unifi, my network has been running fantastically on the OG trash can UDM since it came out, plus a U7 Lite AP for extra coverage in our tall-ish 3-story duplex. The place is wired with Cat5, but since we rent, some areas will have to be handled with wifi-only units - the G4 instant looks suitable for this.
Questions:
- Ring has a very “wife-friendly” interface. How does the Unifi Protect UI fare in comparison?
- I’m looking at the NVR Instant to handle about 6x FHD cameras. Would a 1TB WD Purple be suitable for that?
- Motion detection - How is Unifi Protect with this compared to Ring? Better, worse, or equivalent? How flexible is it?
- (less important) I’m reasonably certain I can set up a doorbell replacement via HA, zigbee button, and a G4 Instant. No Cat5 to the front door unfortunately, just the usual pair of wires to the wall-mounted ringer inside. POE is not an option here. Viable? Or should I do something else?
No, but I’m in the UK, so the lowest temp this doorbell has ever experienced here is around -8°C. Depending on where in the world you are, that might not even register as “cold”. Also, I’ve wired it with the official 16V power supply included in the box and the “chime adapter” dongle thingy, which turned out to be really important for it to function properly.