Two years ago, I reviewed seven of the most popular security camera systems on the market and concluded that UniFi Protect was the most user friendly option available with downsides of high cost and poor camera compatibility.
But since then, UniFi has made some big changes including the release of their more affordable G5 lineup of cameras and just last week UniFi announced probably their biggest change ever, which is the ability to add ONVIF compliant third party cameras into UniFi Protect without any additional licenses or fees.
So, it’s time to revisit that review and in this video, I’ll be testing every UniFi camera and covering some of Protect’s best and important features to help you figure out if a UniFi camera system is right for you or your business.
To start, let’s take a quick look at every camera that UniFi currently sells, and try to make some sense of their kind of confusing naming system.
G3, G4, G5, and AI Camera Lines
First, are the oldest and cheapest cameras, the G3 lineup. The only ones still for sale are the $79 G3 Flex and $79 G3 Instant, and while the low price tag might be tempting, you probably shouldn’t buy either of these because the G3 lineup doesn’t have smart detections, so you won’t be able to use person and vehicle detection, which is one of Protect’s best features.
After that are the G4 cameras, which are also a bit older, but are part of UniFi’s more premium lineup and they have the price tags to match. The G4 cameras do have Smart Person, Vehicle, and Animal detection and are generally well built with mostly metal construction.
Then you’ve got the newer G5 cameras, which as I said before are designed to be a more affordable entry point into UniFi Protect and like the G4 cameras, the G5 lineup also has smart Person, Vehicle, and Animal detections, but the build quality is cheaper with mostly plastic construction, so it will be interesting to see how they perform when compared to the older, more expensive G4 lineup.
And last are the cameras with the AI distinction, which also come with a premium price tag and the same high quality metal construction of the G4 line, but they also have UniFi’s advanced smart detections which adds facial recognition and license plate reading in addition to the standard person, vehicle and animal detection. And they’re also black, so that’s cool.
But a more meaningful way to categorize these cameras is probably by their weather resistance and placement recommendations, so I’ve broken them into three groups which are outdoor exposed, outdoor covered, and indoor only.
Outdoor Exposed Cameras – Day
Starting with outdoor exposed daytime image quality, I held up a sign at 10, 25, and 50 feet to judge stationary image quality, and did a running test at 25 feet from the camera to judge motion handling abilities.
At 10 feet, all of the cameras did a passible job, but the top performers were the G4 Bullet, G4 Pro, G5 Pro, and the $2500 AI DSLR was unsurprisingly the best.
At 25 feet, the differences were much more pronounced with the lower cost G4 Instant and G5 PTZ producing pretty grainy images, while the G5 Bullet did surprisingly well and made it into the top four along with the G4 PTZ, G5 Pro, and AI DSLR.
At 50 feet, I wasn’t particularly impressed by any of the images except for the AI DSLR, but the top performers again were the G5 Bullet, G5 Pro, G4 PTZ, and AI DSLR.
And during the 25 feet running test, you can really see the difference in image processing on the G5 cameras versus the AI cameras and I put the AI Pro in fourth, the G5 Bullet in third, AI DSLR in second, and the G5 Pro in first, but you can see that the G5 lineup did a better job resolving the text, while the AI lineup did a better job preserving detail in my face.
So unsurprisingly the best performer during the day was the AI DSLR, but the G5 Pro was also a major standout which is surprising since it’s the most affordable of the 4K Pro lineup, and the G5 Bullet also performed very well during the day considering it’s $129 price tag. We’ll talk about why later.
Outdoor Exposed Cameras – Night
I repeated those same tests at night with both IR and color night vision. Starting with color night vision with just my carriage lights on, at 10 feet, I thought that all the cameras were surprisingly bad and the only ones that produced decent images were the AI Pro and AI DSLR, and the rest of the cameras were so lackluster that the cheapest camera, the $99 wireless G4 Instant, made it into the top four.
At 25 feet, image noise was still a big problem and with this amount of light I was expecting the huge four thirds sensor of the AI DSLR to be incredible, but it was just okay, though it did wildly outperform even the rest of the top four, which were the G4 PTZ, G5 Pro, and AI Pro.
And at 50 feet they were all pretty bad again, but the G5 Turret snuck into the top four along with the G5 Pro, G4 PTZ, and AI DSLR.
Last as expected based on the previous two tests, the running test was a bit of a mess and aside from identifying the color of my clothes, none of the cameras captured any meaningful detail in the sign or my face, which again, was disappointing to me given the size of the sensor on the AI DSLR, but it still finished first with the G4 PTZ in second, G5 Pro in third and the G5 Turret coming in fourth.
It’s also worth noting that the G5 Pro and AI Pro have an option to add what UniFi calls a Vision Enhancer to help with color night vision, but Vision Enhancer is just a fancy word for LED spotlight, and while it does help a little with color night vision, it’s not magic and it’s no different than adding an extra motion sensing security light to your space.
So, for color night vision, the top performer at every distance was the AI DSLR and while the G4 PTZ, AI Pro, and G5 Pro rounded out the top four, the AI DSLR was the only one I’d seriously consider using in color night vision mode.
Thankfully the IR performance of these cameras was a bit better, and at 10 feet, all the cameras captured meaningful detail, but the unusual top performers were the G5 PTZ, G5 Bullet, G4 Instant, and G5 Pro.
At 25 feet, the only camera that captured any facial detail was the G4 Pro but the rest of the top four got rounded out by the G5 Pro, G4 Bullet, and G5 Bullet.
At 50 feet, pretty much the same amount of information could be gathered by each camera, but the G4 Pro, G5 Pro, G5 PTZ, and G4 Bullet seemed slightly better than the rest.
And during the 25 feet running test with Infrared night vision the best performers were the G4 Pro, G5 Pro, G4 PTZ, and AI Pro.
And that means for IR performance the G5 Pro and G4 Pro took the top two spots followed by the G5 PTZ, and very unexpectedly the G4 Instant had the 4th best IR night vision performance.
And you may have noticed that the AI DSLR wasn’t in that last set of tests at all, and that’s because it doesn’t have IR LEDs or an IR filter, so it can only use color night vision, which is pretty disappointing because it seriously limits its usefulness as a license plate camera, which I think would otherwise be its main application.
Outdoor Exposed Scores
For each camera, I combined the daytime score with the best of their two night scores to come up with their average overall ranking. With an average rank of 1.125, the $2500 AI DSLR easily came in first, followed by the $379 G5 Pro with a 2.25 average rank, then the $449 G4 Pro had a 3.875 average rank, and the $499 AI Pro was in fourth with an average ranking of exactly 4.
But we’re not quite done, because we need to talk about why the G5 Bullet performed so much better during the day than the G5 Turret, and it’s all about field of view and focal length. In a picture clarity test you should always expect a camera with a narrower field of view to outperform a wider field of view if the sensor size and resolution are the same, and here are the cameras arranged from widest to narrowest field of view where you can see the AI DSLR has just 52 degrees of horizontal field of view compared to the 110 degrees of the G5 Pro, G4 Pro, and AI Pro when zoomed all the way out, which makes their picture quality rankings much more impressive.
To try to normalize the numbers I divided the picture quality ranking by the camera’s horizontal field of view and multiplied by 100, making the G5 Pro the best camera when adjusted for field of view, with the AI DSLR in second, the G4 Pro in third, and the AI Pro in fourth.
And last, taking cost into consideration, I multiplied the adjusted ranking by the cameras price and divided by 100, which made the $99 G4 instant the highest value outdoor exposed camera, followed by the $379 G5 Pro, the $129 G5 Bullet, and $129 G5 Turret.
Outdoor Covered Cameras
The next lineup of cameras are the outdoor covered cameras that only have IPX4 weather proofing, which are the G3 Flex, G5 Flex, G5 Dome, G4 Doorbell Pro, and the AI 360 camera.
Starting with daytime tests at 7 feet, the G5 Flex and G5 Dome were basically indistinguishable from each other, the G3 Flex was slightly worse, but still decent, the AI 360 was expectedly worse given its full panoramic field of view, but the G4 Doorbell Pro was unexpectedly bad especially given the favorable angle of the shot.
At 15 feet, the results were exactly the same with the G5 Flex in first, the G5 Dome in second, the G3 Flex in third, the AI 360 in fourth, and the G4 Doorbell Pro in last place.
At night, using color night vision at 15 feet, the results were exactly the same again with the G5 Flex and G5 Dome producing nearly identical images, the G3 Flex was a step down from that, the AI 360 was in fourth, and the G4 Doorbell Pro was in last.
But at 7 feet for color night vision, the G4 Doorbell Pro did a little better and while the G5 Flex and G5 Dome were still in first and second, the G4 Doorbell Pro made its way into third, followed by the G3 Flex, and the AI 360 just didn’t have enough light to capture any facial detail.
Just like the outdoor exposed cameras, I thought the infrared performance of these cameras was a lot better than their color night vision. At 15 feet, everything was the same as normal with the G5 Flex in first, G5 Dome in second, G3 Flex in third, AI 360 in fourth, and the G4 Doorbell Pro capturing by far the least amount of detail.
But at 7 feet everything got flipped on its head and the G3 Flex actually had the best image, followed by the G4 Doorbell Pro, the AI 360, and the G5 Flex and G5 Dome were in fourth and fifth place, but I will say that they were still pretty decent captures.
Outdoor Covered Scores
And that means that for outdoor covered spaces, the G5 Flex had the best raw overall picture quality ranking, the best ranking after adjusting for field of view, and also the best value when considering its $129 price tag. But the AI 360 was also very interesting allowing for a complete panoramic image or several dewarped images, and a cool feature of UniFi protect is the ability to add the AI 360 camera to the live view multiple times and then zoom in on a different area in each feed which UniFi protect will then remember and automatically pull up each time you load your dashboard.
Indoor Cameras
The last group of cameras to test are the ones that are only rated for indoor usage, which are the $79 G3 Instant, $129 G5 Dome Ultra, and the $329 AI Theta line of cameras that use a PoE camera receiver and processing unit coupled with different lenses that are meant to be flush mounted. I have the Wide-Angle Pro, Tele Pro, and 360 Pro lenses for testing.
I ran these through the same tests as the outdoor covered cameras testing at both 7 feet and 15 feet, and there was nothing surprising about the outcome with the zoomed in 4K image of the AI Theta Tele Pro lens in first, the AI Theta Wide-Angle Pro in second, the G5 Dome Ultra in third, the AI Theta 360 Pro in fourth, and the G3 Instant in last place for picture quality.
But unfortunately, like the AI DSLR, the Theta lenses don’t have infrared filters, so with the lights off they are basically worthless while the G5 Dome Ultra came in first outperforming the G3 Instant in each of the lights off tests.
However, considering all the cameras that I tested for this review, I don’t think any of these indoor cameras are specifically worth buying over their outdoor counterparts. For instance, the G3 Instant is $20 less than the G4 Instant, but with worse image quality and without smart detections, so you should definitely just get the G4 Instant instead.
The G5 Dome Ultra is compact and has a vandal proof dome, but it’s got a huge ethernet pigtail that can’t be routed out the side so you’re going to need to drill a pretty large hole in your mounting location just to run your wires.
And speaking of drilling large holes, the flush mounting system of the AI Theta cameras is theoretically cool until you realize that for the Tele and Wide-Angle lenses that means you can’t aim them at all, and you’re stuck with either a completely perpendicular wall mount or a camera pointed straight at the ground. The other issue is that if you’re not mounting in a drop ceiling, the hole you’d have to make to get the AI Theta receiver into the ceiling would be about three times the diameter of the hole for mounting the actual camera.
Camera Recommendations
So that means that out of the 19 cameras that UniFi sells, the top performer if you’re building a premium system is definitely the $379 G5 Pro, which has 4K resolution, 3x optical zoom, great build quality, and smart person, vehicle and animal detections. It’s also got a good microphone for recording audio and doing audio based smart detections, it’s got a highly visible status light for deterrence, and it’s got that option to buy the add-on vision enhancer spotlight for color night vision.
The AI Pro also had very similar image quality to the G5 Pro, and for $120 more per camera you do get 2-way audio, face detection, and license plate detection as well as a few other smart audio detections, but in most cases the G5 Pro is the better value and my top recommendation for a more premium system.
And for outdoor cameras, if you’re on a budget and can work with the lower field of view, the G5 Bullet punches way above its price tag at $129, and the G5 Turret is also a good option if you need that wider field of view.
For indoor cameras, I like the G5 Flex which has good image quality and has lots of discrete mounting options like the recessed ceiling mount, and unlike the AI Theta you still have the ability to aim the lens, you still get IR night vision, and it’s only $129 per camera.
And the last camera that really stuck out to me was the G4 Instant, which is their wireless option that still had pretty good image quality, is rated for outdoor exposed mounting locations, and still has all the smart detection options for $99. I think anyone who is considering a Wi-Fi camera system from Ring or Nest would be much better off with a few G4 Instants recording to a CloudKey Gen2+ running UniFi Protect which gets you local recording, better picture quality, and a user friendly experience with no subscriptions.
UniFi Protect Highlights
And that brings me to the UniFi Protect application itself, which as I said before was my top pick as the most user friendly NVR two years ago, and UniFi has added quite a few new features since then.
Starting with by far the best feature. The smart detections overview is second to none and the G4 and G5 series cameras not only allow you to see person and vehicle detections, but you can use the heatmap functionality to specify an area of the image where a person was detected, and it will show you only the events from that area.
Stepping up to the AI lineup of cameras, you can pair down the detection even further by selecting specific faces that will group together by name, and for vehicle detections you can select the specific vehicle color that you’re looking for, and search license plates if your cameras are properly positioned to do that.
Timeline playback is also extremely user friendly and allows for single or multicamera playback with both timelapse style scrubbing and event only viewing. However, as a long time Blue Iris user, I thought there were a few things missing from the Protect playback window including frame by frame advancing, a volume control slider, and H.264 reencoding for export compatibility. I’d also love to see them add the ability to export a dewarped view of a 360 camera, but aside from those little nitpicks I think a majority of people would be blown away by how well UniFi Protect works compared to other NVRs.
The mobile app is just as user friendly and has the same timeline and detection style playback, has highly configurable rich push notifications for just about every event type you can think of, and the new alarm manager makes it easy to setup those notifications on a per user and per camera basis.
If you have multiple sites like a home and a business, or vacation properties and you want to keep an eye on all the sites at the same time, UniFi has also released Vantage Point which lets you add up to five separate Protect NVRs from different locations onto a single shared screen where you can setup live views with cameras from each of your sites and view them all at the same time.
And to run UniFi Protect itself, there are more options than ever depending on the number of cameras you have and the amount of storage and redundancy that you need, with the least expensive option being the CloudKey Gen 2+ for $249 with a 1 TB SSD preinstalled which has a capacity of up to fourteen 5-megapixel cameras or eight 4K cameras.
And there’s pretty much an option for every number of cameras and every storage need, but depending on your requirements you could go all the way up to the $1999 Enterprise NVR with up to 560 megapixels of cameras and 240 terabytes of hard drive space in RAID5 configuration, though let’s be honest, you probably don’t need that and it’s mostly designed for old sites with a bunch of older cameras preinstalled.
Protect 5.0 ONVIF Testing
And that brings me to the last part of this video which is the new ONVIF compatibility that lets you add your third party cameras to your UniFi protect setup. While I definitely agree that this is an awesome first step, I think its main purpose is compliance for large companies that need to keep a certain number of days of footage recorded rather than full security camera functionality, because the current implementation only supports video feeds and no audio, doesn’t support ONVIF motion detections, and doesn’t have ONVIF control for PTZ cameras. So, it is a video recorder in the most basic sense, but that part does work.
However, because Protect 5.0 is automatically detecting and adding ONVIF cameras on the same subnet, you can’t choose which video stream the camera picks up, which results in some high resolution cameras recording their low resolution substreams instead of a main stream, and for multi-lens cameras there’s no way to configure which lens is shown or add a camera multiple times to record each lens. Depending on the camera brand, I found that some streams were buggy at best (Reolink) and seemed to be putting a lot of strain on the NVR’s processor.
Again, the feature is only a week old, so the potential for big things is there, but you shouldn’t go out and buy a UniFi Protect appliance to add your third party cameras to yet. If you want to use all the best parts of UniFi Protect you still need to use UniFi cameras, and that’s probably going to be the case for the foreseeable future.
No Sponsored Reviews
As always there are no sponsored reviews on this channel, but I do have links below for all the cameras and protect appliances in this video, and as always, I appreciate when you use those links since as an affiliate I do earn a small commission on the sale at no cost to you.
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