Best Low Cost Minidome

You want 'standard resolution' or 'standard definition' (i.e., SD)?

Dependability is a tough one to judge.

Obviously, companies like Dahua, ACTi, Hikvision, Vivotek etc. tend to be the lowest cost.

You have the Axis M30s which are low cost for Axis ($200-$300 range) but are much more expensive than the Asian equivalents which tend to be closer to $150.

The other thing that makes me nervous is your 'multi stream' requirement. While most list that as a spec, how well and whether it works would be a serious risk for many of these super low cost cameras.

The Axis M30 are what is being considered for the project now

In the past we worked with ACTI, but they suffered about 5% out of box failures, and also if they fell offline required manual intervention to get them back up. Haven't used them since so don't know if that has improved

Seems someone would step up to challenge here - mini domes make up a very large segment of the vertical

Companies are trying to step up. Every budget provider now has a super low cost HD minidome. What's tricky, as you indicate above, is validating reliability and support issues.

Dahua and Hikvision have the best low cost minidomes if you want to stay uder $200. For commercial applications, I would say the Dahua is better due to its low profile and no on-board IR as well as a SD card slot. They both have a limitation though in which there is limited positioning features, but if you ceiling mount them, you should have no issues with them.

The Pansonic WV-SF135 is $350 - $400 online. Am I missing something?

Presumably, OP is ok with Axis M30 except for the price?

Sony DH110 and CH110 are pretty good price and performance (thought they tend to be a little "noisy" in low night). The Samsung SND-5010 is a pretty nice little camera, too.

How about the Vivotek FD8136? I used their FD8133 and FD8134s and they worked fairly well. I can find them online as low as about $225.

I agree the Sony cameras are pretty good and the low light performance is to be expexcted.

I'm not aware of any out of the box failures and they stayed up. The only time they went out they booted back up and reconnected to the VMS with no problem (exacq).

The FD8133 does not support PoE but the other models models do. Tech support was not the greatest. Overall they produce a good image but like any low cost dome they lack low light performance.

John

in a small install there would be no sense in taking on risk at $20 / $50 per camera.

However in a competitive shootout, with thousands of cameras going to the winner, the multiples may justify some risk for the integrator. Performance is always the first factor, but total roll out cost is a very close second

In most "pilot" or ""shootouts" an end user will bring in several integrators to compete, all may have differents cams, encoders or VMS. Most times these test are smaller than the actual system to be rolled out. They also may test only the core functionality of the products. Remembering also that these end users have no real knowledge of the products other than what the SI tells them.

So in a lab enviornment they put 4 cameras in, they all work for the 2-3 weeks of the test and the picture quality is comparable the next measurable becomes price. Vendor A proposes the more expensive and dependable camera while vendor B goes $20 cheaper. The rollout calls for 2,000 cameras the first year. That $40K becomes the difference between winning and losing if both products pass muster in the lab. The end user may only learn after a substantial portion of the rollouut is completed that the cheaper cam doesn't auto re-boot, or the VMS is lacking features they wish they had thought about. But by then the product has been deployed and it is very hard to change course

Anyone use the ACTI D51 mini domes before? They are super cheap ($150ish) and that price is tough to ignore

I've used the Lilin LD2222, not had any failures a good image and a good price.

When you say low cost, also factor in ease of focus and installation. Some of the mini domes can require multiple people to focus or a mobile device connected to network to focus the camera as there are rarely a service/focus port under the dome cover. Make sure to factor this item into the installs. Axis mini dome M series are cool, quality and low cost.