Who Offers NVRs With Embedded PoE Switches?
For low cost and multi site deployments, where ease of setup is key, I am a big fan of NVRs that have embedded PoE switches.
Basically, it is the IP equivalent of a DVR, instead of connecting the coax cable / BNC to the DVR, you plug in a network cable from the camera directly into the NVR.
This is what it looks like, with the PoE ports for cameras on the left and the network port for general Internet connectivity to the right.
I'd like to make a list of who offers them. I'll start with a few:
- Q-See (see the unit we tested)
- Razberi (Razberi M16 NVR Examined)
- FLIR / Digimerge DNR200
Please add others you know, especially if they support embeddable PoE switch for 12 cameras or more (as this is rarer).
Btw, I know some of you don't like these units - whether because of hardware risk (what if the switch dies) or the software bundled. If you want to discuss that, let's start a separate discussion.
Avtech 4 and 8 ch NVR has PoE switch.
The Vivotek NVR with PoE is possibly the worst device I have ever encountered personally, and I've been in this industry for a long time. We flailed away trying to get that thing to work, dumping hours of time fruitlessly. I recall that it would just mysteriously overwrite its own settings, over and over. Each time we thought we had a breakthrough it would revert again. We lost a lot of good men out there.
The worst part is that when I returned it I forgot to pull out our 1TB hard drive (we provided our own). I didn't even bother to try to get it back.
Oddly, I otherwise like Vivotek and think they have some good products. That NVR was just something completely other.
We have our first RAZMPRO coming in on Monday. It's got an 8-port integrated PoE. I'll post a message after I have some initial observations.
Ditto on the NVR. Pity, that issue just turned me completely off Vivotek.
Thomas, Richard, thanks for the feedback!
Since its an old unit, with firmware not updated in more than 3 years and only supports 4 PoE inputs for 9 channels, let's cross this one off.
BTW - the RAZMPRO was awesome. It worked totally as advertised. The fan is pretty loud, but otherwise I'm impressed. Our install team is raving about how easy it was to set up.
Dahua has an NVR with 16 port POE built in. So anyone who gets Dahua NVR's should be able to provide you with them. They are nice solid machines, i haven't had any problems with any of them and everyone loves the easy to use GUI. Hope this helps!
Speco also offers non ONVIF compliant NVRs with built in PoE switches, but... blah.
Speco is ok at best from what we have seen out there in the field. the Dahua NVR's have been working flawlessly.
Never played with Hikvision but heard they are solid as well and have good price points similar to Dahua
I've only installed on of the HIK Vision NVR's with built in POE. The 7604 4 channel. Worked pretty good. It's been installed for about 4 months now I think and I haven't received a call from the customer. I've checked in on them every month or so just to see.
Makes it all a bit easier, that's for sure, though I don't know if I would use them for anymore than 8 channel.
Dedicated Micros has the NVR MEDIA SERVER, with a 16 port PoE switch. I thought Axis had one, but maybe it was a mobile application I'm remembering and has since been discontinued.
John,
With complete disclosure, I can state FLIR, who I work for, does offer the entry level DNR204 and DNR208 Series NVR/POE. We also offer the DNR308 and DNR316 Series NVR/POE (only 8 POE ports). Coming soon will be 16 Internal POE Ports, but in the mean time we sell an 8 port POE switch with a separate uplink to solve the extra POE requirements.
A separate discussion could be "Why are they popular" and "Where do they apply." I can hear the crowds yelling "it fits the trunk slammer perfectly." Maybe so. I had a conversation with an IT Director recently who saw the value in these for his 100+ locations. Is that a trunk slammer sale?
Having the POE built in, which is usually powered by a separate supply than the NVR itself, reduces the amount of cabling required and simplifies the connectivity. I would suggest anyone installing these purchase an Extech CT-100 cable tester also (another self promotion as FLIR owns Extech). Cat5e cable seems to run about 70% or so of the cost of a Siamese RG59/18-2 cable. It's also easier to pull from my experience....and I ran a lot of RG59u in my life.
Having the ability to add cameras using the subscribers LAN is a bonus when cabling a large building and the IT department has already provided a decent back-bone. At that point the IT guy is usually involved and can manage addressing and routing for the less technical installers.
Let's face it, even an average 720 or 1080p image in decent lighting looks far superior on the customers HD flat panel monitor which is now cheap. So cheap that it is driving this change. When television was SD, Security could be SD, now that television is HD for almost all, Security has to be as well, even in the least demanding environments.
Fear kept many from embracing IP technology and these kits or packages remove most of the fear. Many of them are so simple they almost set themselves up. Cable the cameras, plug in the cameras and unit and watch the images appear. Just like an SD DVR but clearer. Less fear. Techs only need to walk through the easy setup sheets to make it accessible to the end user via a remote device such as Android / iPhone / PC and Mac. Those requirements are there even in a DVR these days.
One of the limitations of these low cost NVR solutions is still the bandwidth available throughout the unit. How many images per second and at what frame rate will be confusing to some or not clearly defined just like when DVR's first appeared. Which cameras are they compatible with will be another. Do the units share the network between the cameras and the NVR or are they separate? Does the unit Auto-Address the cameras?
In one of those separate discussions I will outline how an IT manager for 100+ locations found value in these systems for those who think it's only going to be popular for homeowners and "Stop and Rob's."
Greg
Greg,
Is the DNR308 any way related to the D3308? i.e. is it the nvr version of the dvr?
In any event this recent thread appears unanswered:
I'm currently testing a Flir Summit D3308 DVR. It is buggy and tech support is being useless.
Dahua as mentioned above has a complete line. We distribute it locally here as a seperate business from our integration side, customers and installers both seem to really like the units, but 80% of sales are for homes, remaining 20% for small businesses. To me these products are aimed at bridging the gap from Analog to IP on the Q-See, Swann type deals, not sure if we'll see much of this on the enterprise level but would be interesting to see if Genetc, Avigilon & Exacq decide to start manufacturing integrated POE appliances.
I have not checked out any of the "new", self contained POE NVR's yet but I was conserned about the limitation of the number of cameras. The units I have taken a quick look at seem to have a total 5MP capacity. About four 1.3MP cameras. When I get a server it's kind of easy to get decent horsepower so that I know will give me a fudge factor of many times over 100%+ using a varity of cameras be they 2MP to a 10MP fisheye.
I have changed my thoughts about using analog cameras, power baluns and CAT5 to the point that some of the small self contained POS systems might work in some of my applications.
Back to my point, are these NVRs w/POE set for a certian number of MP. If I buy an eight camera IP system that should handle 2MP cameras per channel can I then reason that I can put two 5MP and three 2MP cameras on there?
Hi Steven,
Like any NVR appliance, it depends on the specific model. Ultimately, the limits on resolution come from limits on throughput / processing.
I think what you are seeing is more of a function of a lot of these units being positioned at the low end. There's does not seem to be any technology restriction on why an NVR with an embedded PoE switch would have to be limited to a specific resolution.
But any NVR that sells for $200, $300, $400 is going to have processing limitations, simply to get to that price point. By contrast, a more costly unit like the Razberi Pro series likely has no issues (see their performance tests).
The EverFocus NVR8304D is an 8 port plug and play NVR with the POE switch detached. There is also a 8304E with the POE switch embedded.
Wanchai, I am confused, looking at it:
First, how is this different than someone just buying a switch separately? How can you call it detached, when it seems to be a just a regular switch sitting on top? What am I missing here?
The FW of the switch works together with the NVR to automatically assign IP address to the cameras based on which port (1~8) it is plugged into and shows up in the NVR's camera list similar to our DVRs. It has an uplink that goes to the NVR so the switch is "detached." The plug and play feature will not work if you use a third party switch.
It has a brother where we "embedded" the switch in the NVR housing, that version has not arrived in our warehouses yet.
Geutebruck has their new Netporter line which supports up to 16 PoE channels.
John,
At Lanaccess (www.lanaccess.es), ONSAFE HM supports up to 16 IP cameras with a PoE integrated switch.
ONSAFE HM supports any ONVIF IP camera, and VAPIX from Axis cameras.
System powers the camera, detects the model, assigns an IP address and automatically configure available codecs. All cameras are configured with the same interface, so user doesn't need to access to each web camera interface.
Francesc
We deal with both Dahua and Hikvision POE NVR's. Dahua was one of the first to start doing this and still better than any other I have seen.
The only downside to POE NVR's, atleast the ones I have dealt with, is that you cannot access the cameras web interface when the camera is connected to the embedded POE switch without doing some jimmy rigging. The internal POE switch has its own private subnet which is inaccessible to the outside world and this gives the system its plug and play features. Basically the cameras IP addresses will be on a different subnet than the NVR's This is real nice for end users who have no clue on how to setup IP cameras as it gives them the option to plug in the camera to the NVR and you get video a few seconds later. Its a downside to installers who like to "tinker" with all of the configurable settings an IP camera would have to offer.
Also, its kind of funky when mixing brands of cameras with POE NVR's. For example, if you tried to hook up an Axis camera to a Dahua POE NVR, you would first have to find out what the funky subnet format is of the internal switch is and then set your IP camera to that funky subnet on a seperate switch or router, and then plug it in to the POE NVR. Not exactly intuitive, but doable.
I'd prefer to atleast have the option of the internal switch to be a typical dumb switch without its own private subnet so the cameras IP's and the NVR IP can be on the same subnet.
Well there's always a trade off between ease of use and granular control. The best way to make something idiot-proof (or at least idiot-resistant) is to lock down all possible settings to prevent someone from changing the subnet or whatever to an incorrect value, crashing the entire system. Take Apple products. One reason it "just works" is most of the settings are locked down out of the box, so the chance of two weird settings conflicting with each other is severly reduced.
John, Costar Video Systems has an embedded unit with POE switch. It is part of a new XDi product line. It supports 4, 8, 16, and 32 channels and has an 8 channel POE switch built in. They offer an 8 and 24 port POE switch to connect the remaining cameras.
CBC/Ganz has an embedded NVR. Like some of the other ones mentioned, they embed an 8-port POE switch and then include an external 8-Port POE switch for the rest of the cameras. I am told that this is done because of the heat generated by embedding a 16 port POE switch, but I'm not sure on that.
I normally sell Enterprise deployments, but I jumped on the Hikvision bandwagon. Up until 4/30/14, they offer a 30% discount on their value lin e NVRs and cameras. I can not keep up with the $1500 sale of a 4 channel NVR (built in POE) and 4 x 1 MP IP66 cameras (42% margin drop shipped). I must say, I am very impressed with the client and mobile app that comes with this. Axis and all the others in the market, beware. All the Enterprise integrators may consider these systems for low cost low camera count solutions (especially for process monitoring). The cool thing is that all of the products are 3+ year warranty and the cameras are supported by most VMS offerings (which makes the $300 4 channel, $500 8 channel, and $800 16 channel NVRs with embedded PoE ) potential throwaway or Ebay items for entry to enterprise deployments.
We have evaluated a few POE PSE devices to integrate into the servers we design and build.
Some of them behave like a switch and present a single IP to the system while others present an IP from each of the ports.
The POE power aspect has been the tricky one to validate, but we have weeded out those devices that simply could not maintain the power out to several 9W IR cams.
The other thing to bear in mind is that these devices may be POE ModeA or ModeB from the PSE side as allowed by the spec. The cameras themselves must allow both modes to be called POE compatible. Note that the M12 connected cameras are NOT POE compliant because they only have 4 of the 8 wires coming in.
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