There are a lot of good little cameras out there but few have impressed me as much as the G3 Flex.  I know that there are better ones out there but for the price, you do get a lot out of it.  I also know that this is the previous version and that the G4s are now out in the wild.  However, it does not seem that Ubiquiti has a replacement for the Flex yet.  It's also just $79, which is hard to beat.  This is the big reason that I made the switch to Unifi Protect running on my UDM-Pro.  As of writing this I now have 4 deployed around the house 2 outside and 2 inside.  

What you Need/What I used:

1. UDM-Pro
2. UVC-G3-FLEX

First Thoughts:

So the big question why was I looking to switch? I moved into a new house and I needed to purchase additional cameras to get the coverage I wanted. At around the same time there was rumors of many of the camera companies that were based out of China would be band from being sold in the United States. So I was looking for alternatives that would not break the bank.

This camera is smaller than I expected which is not a bad thing this gives me options on where I can put it with out worrying about it being spotted or easily attacked/vandalized. The Flex has limited outdoor uses, this may not be 100% true but for me since the camera does not have a IP rating I am only going to put it were there is little chance that it will get direct rain contact. So limited to something like my front porch.

The set up which I will go over in more detail later was very easy(which is still not that that much). In fact it was by far one of the easiest so far outside of some of the NVR systems that require each camera to be directly connected. Total time was maybe 10 minutes with most of that taken up with firmware updates.

Specs:

For a detail specs follow this: UVC-G3-FLEX

• 1080p, max 25 fps
• Day and Night recording with integrated IR
• Many mounting options
• Weather resistant
• POE 802.3af
• Built in Microphone

Set Up:

Like I hinted at earlier the set up is a breeze.

1. Connect the camera to a POE source in my case a UniFi switch that is connected to my UDM-Pro
   
2. Once it is powered on and you have the App installed on your phone you will tap on the "..." on the top right and select "Add Elements".
   
3. From there if the camera can be seen on the network you will be able to select it.
   
4. You will give it a meaningful name.
   
5. The camera will be updated if needed.
   
6. You are done the camera may need to be rebooted but other than that thats it.

Long Term Use:

Living with it:

I have had 4 of the Flex in constant use for over 6 months now. Now they are only 1080p or 2MP cameras so they are on the lower end of the resolution that I would find acceptable but they only cost $79 from the Ubiquity store. So I find this very acceptable trade off. When I purchased these I bought 1 x 3 pack and 1 x single. The accessories were the same for all unlike the AP's were they do not provide POE injectors for the 3 pack.

However, I really only have used the default mount that is meant for indoors. Other than mounting the camera the bottom of the default mount is rubberized allowing it to work nicely just sitting on a surface. I Currently have 2 Flex deployed in this manor and it has worked out great. The other 2 are outside still using the same mount but screwed into custom "brackets" to mount them to the single gang boxes that the CAT6a was installed into.

The next bit I know that other NVR's can do it but coming from Blue Iris were this was not exactly possible due to CPU consumption. I have all 7 G3 cameras recording all the time and the system generates events when motion is detected. For me this is amazing since an event can start to happen before the given system detects motion. This means it is almost impossible to miss something. All while not drastically increasing the CPU usage from the UDM-Pro.

Another thing that I did like about the Dahua cameras that I had was the Night Color. It was not perfect but in most of my cases I did not need the IR and the camera was still able surprisingly able to resolve most of the colors. The IR attracts bugs at night which does get annoying but not the end of the world.

Durability:

All are still working despite some of my accidental attempts at killing 2 of them. The first was since my house was still new I have a warranty and if I cut through or other wise alter the outside it could void this. So I put one of the Flex in one of my 2 floor windows and built a wooden box to go around it to prevent light from causing a reflection on the glass. Well this caused the camera to start to over heat. Now I am not sure if in the long term if the camera will survive but it is so far. The other is located outside and well while cleaning with a water hose I sprayed it down. I was not paying full attention but it did not get direct spray but was hit by a good amount of water. The good part is that it did not seem to affect this camera but I am not going to rely on this.

Quality:

Like I had stated these are only 2MP cameras so the image quality may not be as good as other brands that are offering 5MP or higher. The one note that made the switch for me easier was the fact that on my old system I had limited the cameras to record at 2MP anyway to reduce the CPU consumption (went from 80%-90% down to 25%). So for my needs this was not that big of a difference. There is a built in mic and it does do a good job. This mic can be disabled but to re-enable it will require a factory reset.

Day time:

Night time:

Storage:

I have a 6TB drive in the system and with 7 2MP cameras recording all the time I have about 60 days worth of recordings with each camera consuming about 132GB a day. Me personally I am good with 30 days of recordings so I can still add more and not dip below that mark.

The App:

I thought I would mention the app since I am not sure if I will review that separately. I know that there are better apps out there with different systems, but from the ones that I have used (Milestone, Blue Iris, ...) I will have to say I like it the best. It is simple and works for the most. Its differently not perfect by any means. I do have some issues with scrolling through the footage on the mobile app which makes me less inclined to use that. When I am looking for something I end up going to the event section first to try and locate what I am looking for. To be honest that is not even much of a deal breaker for me. Other than that it does its job. I can view live and recorded footage. I can make most of the settings changes that I would want, although some still need to go through the web interface(at the time of this writing I could not remember which settings). Finally most important you can export out images or recordings from the system through the app. It does for the most what its supposed to.

Conclusion:

At the time of writing this Ubiquiti does not really have any replacement for this camera. There is a much cheaper option priced at $29 UVC-G3-mini-US, however, it is still in beta at this time. Overall these cameras definitely have been money well spent. They are a balance of price to performance from the Ubiquiti offering. One of the main fears that I had at the start was putting some of these outside, but thus far they have been working without issues. The other concern was if UniFi Protect would be easy to use and reliable, passably more on that later. If you have a UniFi UDM-Pro, or a Cloud Key that you can put a hard drive in. And also in the need of a video surveillance system then this is a good option to consider. For me it has been working out great and so far I have been really happy with it. In the end your mileage may very.