UniFi Protect ONVIF 3rd Party Camera Tests – Any Good?

UniFi Protect ONVIF Camera Update Testing

Last week we found out that UniFi intended to integrate ONVIF support into its Protect surveillance platform. Ubiquiti went ahead and made this UniFi Protect update available, and I managed to spend a decent amount of time playing with my existing range of ONVIF cameras from numerous third-party brands to see just how UniFi Protect was going to take advantage of third-party cameras in its latest 5.0.33 update. This article details the good, the bad, and the unusual that I experienced while testing out UniFi Protect and a bunch of random cameras!

Enabling camera support?

Once you have installed the latest UniFi Protect 5.0.33 and higher firmware, to enable ONVIF camera support, you simply need to go into the settings of your server and enable third-party camera support in the options menu. It is clearly marked with a beta labs icon, and it’s fair to say that this rollout of ONVIF camera support is still not complete.

But nevertheless, activating support of network-accessible ONVIF cameras is incredibly straightforward. Keep in mind though, as this is still in beta/WiP mode, you are not going to get an expected smooth experience comparable to that of using first-party cameras from UniFi in this setup.

How Has ONVIF Support in UniFi Protect Been Deployed?

First and foremost, Ubiquiti has been true to its word in allowing support of third-party cameras via ONVIF. As soon as I went ahead and updated UniFi Protect to the latest version, all of my cameras that were located on the same 192.ip as the UniFi Dream Machine that I was using immediately appeared on the listed cameras of UniFi Protect, and I was able to adopt these cameras just like any other official first-party UniFi camera.

I assigned user credentials to the third-party ONVIF camera, and after doing so, within 2 minutes, the camera appeared on my Protect camera feed. Lovely stuff.

Equally, they have made a very positive move with support of ONVIF, with the removal of any kind of camera license requirements to use third-party cameras. This is a very, very important detail. A lot of users (myself included) postulated that in order for Ubiquiti to financially support the surveillance platform when users start using cameras from third parties, they would perhaps consider the integration of camera licenses that require you to pay a subscription or lifetime surcharge to use the third-party cameras.

If they had done this, I wouldn’t have been hugely surprised, as brands in network-attached storage that have surveillance products such as Synology Surveillance Station and QNAP QVR Pro have utilized this model in order to find a balancing act between supporting their product and providing a certain degree of out-of-the-box support to users. I am very, very pleased to state that Ubiquiti and UniFi Protect DO NOT require any additional licenses to use third-party ONVIF cameras.

This is a real game changer and will definitely, if promoted correctly, bring a large number of users over to the UniFi platform for surveillance from existing surveillance hardware networks. They can still utilize existing hardware they have in place and merely migrate the primary NVR server to a U NVR or Dream Machine. Again, this is a big, big deal!

ONVIF Camera Support on the Camera Side

An important note for users who plan on reusing older, legacy, or simply readily available ONVIF hardware in their network environment is that just because a camera is labeled as ONVIF-supported, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to immediately appear on the UniFi Protect camera scan. This is not the fault of Ubiquiti, but rather that some ONVIF cameras have the feature, but disable the feature by default.

So, if you have an ONVIF camera in your network environment that is seemingly not appearing on the scanned cameras within UniFi Protect, directly access that camera via its IP in the web browser. Use the administrator credentials that the camera either has by default or the ones you have added to the camera previously, and check the settings menu to find the ONVIF setting. You may also need to apply an additional password and username for ONVIF for security, which you will need to enter into UniFi Protect later down the line when the camera appears.

Additionally, some cameras do not immediately present the option for ONVIF control, instead hiding it behind the option for RTSP (Real-Time Streaming Protocol). When enabled, this will often present the option further along to then enable ONVIF on the camera and therefore be picked up by UniFi Protect. So, if your camera is not immediately appearing on your UniFi Protect scanned cameras, don’t immediately blame Ubiquiti; instead, double-check that the camera is on the same local network and that it has the settings applied. Additionally, maybe refresh the UniFi Protect page just to instigate a fresh scan.

ONVIF Camera Control Vs. UniFi Cameras

Despite the mostly positive feedback that I want to give Ubiquiti on their decision to enable ONVIF camera support in UniFi Protect, it is worth stating that its rollout, at least in the version that I am testing, is certainly not without its bugs currently. Despite the larger update being a full rollout by Ubiquiti, they were pretty upfront that third-party camera use is still very much in the beta stages—and it definitely feels that way in some areas, where I hope we see improvement soon.

For a start, the range of services and camera features that may be available in your third-party camera are simply not accessible via the third-party camera integration currently. This shouldn’t be a huge surprise realistically, as the Open Network Video Interface Forum (ONVIF) is chiefly about connecting camera feeds and network surveillance servers; it is not primarily a means of controlling the target camera. The result is that, unlike using a first-party UniFi camera where you have full management and control of detection services, enhanced features, specialized detection, and integrated Protect features, an ONVIF-connected camera is effectively a simple camera feed, and the UniFi Protect surveillance system is merely acting upon that camera feed.

This means that if you are using particularly specialized third-party ONVIF cameras in your network environment, such as specialized PTZ, optical zoom, or enhanced AI detection/edge camera hardware, little to none of this is currently usable in the beta ONVIF update for Protect. I am positive that this will change, and perhaps a handful of camera brands will be integrated into UniFi Protect in a more system-management-enabled fashion as compatibility and verification increase. But nevertheless, right now ONVIF support provides only access to limited camera features and simple streaming from third-party cameras.

All this said, some ONVIF cameras in my setup surprised me with how quickly and easily they were adopted. For example, the Reolink Duo – a dual lens, 180 degree view camera that on practically every other NAS/NVR system I have tested it on has either failed to work, only displayed a since camera feed, or only displayed a static image. So, therefore I didn’t have high hopes. colour me surprised! Not only did the Reolink Duo camera work, but both camera feeds were displayed (in the 180 overlapped feed) perfectly, only using a single camera feed/input too. Really impressed – especially when you factor in that that the UniFi surveillance doesn’t need camera licenses, so no need to worry about needing double licenses for a dual lens camera.

As the third-party camera support element of UniFi Protect 5.0.33 and higher is in beta, other users have highlighted a few issues along the way that, although I didn’t encounter them, are worthy of note. For a start, third-party cameras in the UniFi Protect feed do seem to be a little less refreshed and visible than that of first-party UniFi cameras. No doubt this will change as optimization and integration of ONVIF are improved upon within UniFi Protect, but right now the user experience of a UniFi camera is definitely considerably higher than that of integrating an ONVIF camera into your existing Protect setup. Additionally, some users have reported software restarts and the necessity to restart their U-INVR or UDM system after the update. Bottom line, although the UniFi Protect 5.0.33 update is pretty well polished, if you are updating for the sake of third-party camera support, just understand that it is by no means a fully polished process at this time.

Rolling Back to a Previous Version of UniFi Protect?

If you have already updated your UniFi surveillance system up to Protect 5.0.33 or higher and you want to roll back your firmware to a previous version, this can be achieved by accessing the system via the SSH terminal input and forcing the system to downgrade the software to an earlier version. Do keep in mind that doing this is not without risk, and SSH is considered an expert-level and system-altering means of correcting settings. So if you are going to do this, know what you are doing, and make sure that your recordings and configurations are backed up appropriately first.

Head into the server settings via the console, then scroll to the bottom and find the option for SSH.

Enable SSH, take heed of the warning that Ubiquiti presents about the dangers of using SSH, and then apply an SSH security credential. This is important, as it ensures that your system cannot be exploited by a third party when your SSH access is enabled.

Once you have enabled this, there are plenty of different terminal software clients you can use to access the system on the command line, but the easiest and most configurable and free is PuTTY. Download PuTTY from their official website, install it, and then in the PuTTY user interface, enter the IP address of your UniFi system, and then enter via the command line.

From there, you just need to enter your username and password, and then utilize the commands below to roll back the software on your system.

apt-get update

apt-get install –reinstall –allow-downgrades unifi-protect=4.1.53 -y

Again, this is a relatively risky move for the inexperienced, and I would not recommend doing this unless you know what you are doing, and all your backups are robust and in place.

UniFi ONVIF Camera Support – The Future and Updates?

In the 1 week since Ubiquiti allowed me to access the UniFi Protect 5, there have been 12-13 micro upgrades that went ahead and made bug fixes and improvements (starting at 5.0.20 and ending at 5.0.33 currently). That is ALOT of work for an update that, although bringing other new features into the fold, is almost certainly going to be mainly engaged with because of ONVIF camera support – which is arguably going to hurt/undermine sales of their own camera hardware. I really respect this kind of software development that arguably is more about what users want, rather than what will sell the most accessories and kit. Right now, 3rd party camera support is still not quite on par with the 1st party cameras (grid camera feed responsiveness, camera controls and alerts, etc), but you definitely get a feel for what UniFi are aiming for here in this feature update, and I think it’s pretty clear that they are going to continue to evolve on this. Th Protect 5 update is a full release, but keep in mind that the ONVIF/3rd Party Camera support is still ‘beta labs’ and therefore, if you are in a mission critical setup and/or have cameras in 24×7 necessity, maybe stick with UniFi cameras in your setup until the ONVIF support has more time in the oven. Definitely update to Protect 5, but for parity experience with 3rd party cameras on par with UniFi cameras – that is gonna take a pinch longer I think. That said, they are not putting their feet up. Example, here are the Improvements over the course of a week from the release notes of UniFi Protect 5.0.20>33:

• Improved application resiliency when restoring backups.
• Improved the user experience for Storage Manager.
• Improved livestreams on larger grids.
• Improved playback experience for cameras with Enhanced Encoding.
• Improved Storage Manager user experience.
• Improved the user experience in playback when only Low-Quality footage is available.
• Improved the user experience when no storage is available in Storage Manager.
• Improved the user experience in detections when only a single camera is available.
• Improved handling for third-party cameras without snapshot capabilities.
• Improved application resiliency when restoring backups.
• Improved streaming resiliency for Viewports.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed the inability to export/archive Low-Quality footage.
• Fixed an issue where enabling ONVIF could cause the application to crash.
• Fixed an issue that could cause losing AI event settings after restoring backups.
• Fixed an issue where users with custom full permissions couldn’t see paired doorbell settings.
• Fixed an issue that caused the UP-Sense battery level to be always 50%.
• Fixed an issue where Smart Detection events were triggered at the end of the event.
• This improves the use of Alarm Manager and resolves an issue with 3rd party integrations.
• Fixed an issue where you could experience a page crash when a popup player was opened.
• Fixed an issue where you couldn’t access playback history after upgrading to 5.0.26, this may also help with some crashes Android users experienced.
• Fixed the inability to configure ringtone settings for Chimes.
• Fixed an issue where Slack message actions didn’t work with Alarm Manager.
• Fixed the inability to adopt 3rd party cameras when the MAC address cannot be discovered.
• Fixed an issue where Alarm Manager could cause high CPU usage and resolved Stackable Automations issues.
• Fixed an issue where users still had limited permissions after giving them Full Management in rare cases.
• Fixed broken thumbnails for some third-party cameras.
• Fixed an issue where users couldn’t remove devices due to a hidden button.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Android app to crash.
• Fixed an issue where third-party cameras can show up as adoptable repeatably.
• Fixed bitrate speed reporting for third-party cameras.
• Fixed an issue where Alarm Manager could cause high CPU usage.
• Fixed an issue where users could see incorrect start/end times in the Playback section.
• Fixed timeline scrubbing issues for 3rd party cameras with untypical aspect ratios.

So yeah, this isn’t a feature they seem to be just shoving out the door! I will return to this subject again very soon in a comparison video and article coming later in 2024!

Meanwhile, if you are looking to scale up your surveillance setup with UniFi, and are looking for 1st or 3rd party cameras for your network surveillance (and you want to support us at NASCompares in what we do), use the links below to look at suitable cameras for your surveillance needs. Have a fantastic week!

Unify Cameras	Affordable ONVIF Cameras ($50-99)	AI Powered ONVIF Cameras (80-150)

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