Overview

In addition to a whole home WiFi network, a whole home audio system, a whole home video distribution system, and a lighting control system, I recommend that you invest in a physical home security system. A key component of your home security system is a comprehensive security camera system.

Until recently, we used a combination of our home security service’s exterior cameras supplemented with Nest interior cameras for video capture and storage. We had a number of issues with our legacy system including:

1. after we switched security service providers, our old home security accessories–including exterior WiFi security cameras–no longer worked,
2. replacing the exterior security cameras with Nest Cams was not an option because Nest Cams are USB powered and solely connect via WiFi, and
3. although Nest cameras are high quality, the Nest Aware cloud storage service doesn’t make financial sense as you add more cameras.

For our new system, we selected Ubiquiti’s Unifi Protect for our primary security cameras, complemented by Nest cameras and the Google Home Hub for specialized use cases, such as our front door bell. This article covers our family’s deployment of Ubiquiti’s Unifi Protect video security system, a new product that will eventually replace Ubiquiti’s legacy Unifi Video product line.

Planning Your Security Camera System

As you design your home security camera system, you should size your system (and factor both your initial hardware cost and ongoing storage and bandwidth service costs per camera). You should also consider how much video you need to capture and how long it must be saved. Finally, you should determine where your video storage must be located: in the cloud or in your home (i.e. local).

Sizing Your System

According to InterNACHI, statistically, these are the most likely locations where thieves will enter your home:

• 81% of burglars enter through the first floor.
• 34% of burglars enter through the front door.
• 23% enter through a first-floor window.
• 22% enter through the back door.
• 9% enter through the garage.1

Therefore, at a minimum, you should capture security video of each of your doors, including your front door, your back door, your patio doors and garage doors (as applicable). Additionally, you should consider security video coverage for your rear windows, which are the next most likely locations for entry into your home. Then, you should consider security video coverage for your rear windows, which are the next most likely locations for entry into your home.

Ideally, you want a 360 degree view of your home. For single family homes, that necessarily requires a minimum of four–likely more–exterior cameras. Moreover, you may wish to install interior cameras to complement your exterior security camera feeds. Depending on the size of your home, your costs can add up quickly in terms of camera hardware and, if you are using the cloud: bandwidth and storage.

What Is Captured: Select Events v. Everything

Some security camera systems only record registered events, such as motion detection or face detection. This can be efficient if storage space or bandwidth is limited. However, best practices recommend capturing all video and then automatically highlighting notable events without purging interim video.

Wireless v Wired Security Cameras

Consider a hypothetical home security system with nine cameras (e.g. a 3×3 live view). Assuming a 3Mbps maximum bit rate per camera (Unifi’s default), that equals up to 27Mbps total load, independent of any other use of your home network. If all security video must be transferred via your wireless LAN, this may preclude other high tonnage, low-latency use cases such as watching OTT video on your settop boxes or iPhone/iPad or multi-room audio, particularly if your home is surrounded by a number of neighboring WLANS,

Cloud v Local Video Storage

For most residential Internet plans, cloud storage is impractical for high bandwidth, multiple camera, continuous video capture. At a 3Mbps max bitrate, each security camera would consume up to a terabyte of data of upstream bandwidth each month.2 To be clear, this is a theoretical maximum. Your actual bit rate per camera will be lower due to the use of a motion-adaptive algorithm. So, that hypothetical nine camera home could consume up to 9TB of data per month. Even if you used a lower bitrate for your video such as 1.5Mbps, most residential consumers will find that a cloud-based multi-camera deployment quickly bumps up against either their ISP’s upstream bandwidth limitations and/or monthly data caps.3

Then, there is the cost of video storage in the cloud. For example, Nest charges $30/mo per camera for Nest Aware with 30 days of storage, with discounts up to 50% for incremental cameras.

Unifi Protect Hardware

To be up front, our selection of Unifi Protect was dictated by three factors:

1. we already had made a significant investment in Ubiquiti’s Unifi SDN including the Cloud Key 2 Plus and POE-enabled switches,
2. even with symmetrical gigabit Internet to our home, we desired to maintain local video camera storage, and
3. our previous security system’s cameras were POE, so we already had available Ethernet runs to the locations where we wanted to place our Unifi Protect cameras.

Thus, our incremental investment was the ~$79/camera cost of the Unifi G3 Flex and another $125 to upgrade our Cloud Key 2 Plus’ hard drive from the default 1TB model to a 5 TB model with 128MB SSD cache. This made the Cloud Key 2 Plus far more practical for long-term, multi-camera video storage. For additional physical security I recommend affixing the Cloud Key in the rackmount accessory.

All of Ubiquiti’s G2 and G3 cameras work with the Unifi Protect software. Ubiquiti’s Unifi G3 product line includes several different models including:

• the G3, an indoor/outdoor model with IR,
• the G3 Pro, which adds optical zoom,
• the G3 Micro, a small WiFi indoor camera, and
• the G3 Flex, a compact indoor/outdoor camera POE

The G3 and G3 Pro are officially rated as IP67 rated weatherproof. The G3 Flex is also intended for outdoor use but it is only waterproof if mounted vertically (with the lens on top, not upside down).

All of these cameras have 1080p/30fps resolution. The G3 Flex’s video quality is excellent. There is no barrel distortion and relatively low latency in the live view. Eventually, I expect a 4K (2160p) version of the Flex because Ubiquiti’s recently introduced the 4K G4 Pro.

For now, the G3 Flex is the most cost efficient camera for residential deployments. You can deploy up to 20 cameras with the Cloud Key 2 Plus. However, 15 cameras is a more realistic limit because you will likely also use your Cloud Key as a Unifi SDN controller. There are no licensing or subscription fees.

The G3 Flex supports a number of indoor mounting options including desktop, wall mount, ceiling mount, and conduit mount, either upright or upside down. As noted earlier, waterproof outdoor deployments are limited to upright installations. The biggest issue you may have when outdoor mounting is the limited amount of downward vertical tilt (particularly if you wish to place the camera higher-up, out of easy reach). Additionally, you should be aware that lateral tilt is limited to 60 (not 180+) degrees.

I would strongly encourage Ubquiti to design a better outdoor bracket, with a metal mount, larger screws, and a modest offset from the outside wall. The existing back mount is rather fragile, with tiny screws. It fits almost flash against the wall. For this reason, it can be very difficult to hide your Ethernet cable without damaging the mount. For now, you may wish to use CAT5 cable because it is thinner than CAT6.

The G3 Flex is the only Unifi camera to support skins to camouflage the white camera. Unfortunately for our home, a stucco cover is not available at this time.

Unifi Protect Software

Unifi Protect’s software is a complete rewrite of Ubiquiti’s legacy Unifi Video software. Its feature set is still in (rapid) development as Ubiquiti endeavors to match Unifi Video’s features. Currently, Protect only runs on their Cloud Key 2 Plus hardware, not a dedicated PC. This may be an issue for commercial installations that need more than 15-20 cameras but it likely won’t impact residential deployments.

The primary ways that you view Unifi Protect streams are in the iPhone mobile app or a web browser. The mobile app presents an extremely fluid experience, including a home screen displaying all video camera feeds and a smooth way to rapidly scroll through both events and historical (time lapse) video. The web browser presents a number of templates (“views”) including 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 20, 25, and even 26 cameras simultaneously.

Privacy and security are selling points for Unifi Protect. No data is stored in the cloud. No data goes from an individual camera to the WAN. The only persistent connection maintained by the Cloud Key is to http://protect.ui.com, which serves as a broker for remote access. The only time significant data is consumed is during a remote streaming session to a mobile client.

I have found the Unifi Protect’s motion detection algorithm to be very accurate. It consistently recognizes people at doors/windows. But, it doesn’t trip for cars traveling along our street.

Unifi Protect’s biggest issue remains the stability of continuous (24×7) live streaming. As of v1.8.1, this is an issue for both web browser and, particularly, for RTSP streams. This has been reported extensively in their user forums so I would expect it to be resolved soon. Most residences don’t have security guard stations so this is less important for home deployments.

Configuration Recommendations

At this time, there are not a lot of configuration settings for administrators to tweak. I would expect this to change over time. Below are my current recommendations:

• Create separate user logins for each member of your family.
• Enable cloud access if you wish to use the mobile app, even on your home network.
• Enable automatic controller updates.
• Define alert rules as you prefer. For example, you may wish to get a push notification any time motion (i.e. a person) is detected at a particular door.
• Disable the Ubquiti watermark in your videos.
• The default video capture is 15fps. You may prefer a higher FPS, such as 24fps though that will result in lower video quality unless you also increase the max video bitrate. (Because Protect uses an adaptive bitrate, “video bit rate” setting actually refers to the max bit rate).

Additionally, in Unifi SDN controller, I recommend that you create a dedicated VLAN for your Protect cameras and assign each security camera to that VLAN. In addition to isolating your security camera’s network traffic from that of your home network, you also reduce the possibility of someone gaining access to your home network via an outside Ethernet cable plugged into your security camera.

My Feature Wishlist

• The web browser UI should default to live view, not a list of cameras. This would be similar to both the Protect mobile app and SDN’s home screen (which defaults to a dashboard, not device list).
• In both the browser and mobile app, there should be a dark mode similar to Unifi SDN’s interface.
• For the web browser, there should be a full screen, live view mode that eliminates all chrome.
• In the web browser, there should be a way (e.g. left/right arrows) to switch between cameras when zooming or in time lapse mode.
• An iPad app
  
• An Apple TV client with 2up, 4up and 9up layout, automatically inheriting the web browser layout preference
• Protect’s Apple Watch integration is limited to notifications (e.g. person detected at the front door) but there is no accompanying image (thumbnail of the captured video)
• Protect is not integrated with Apple’s HomeKit, Google Home or Nest.
  • Ideally, Unifi Protect would be integrated with Nest and events could be displayed on the Google Home Hub (e.g. when a person is spotted at a specific camera).

Updated on April 2nd, 2019