Fitting AVYCON to what you already have
We have four cameras from another brand on our Massapequa house. Will an AVYCON NVR record them, or do they all have to go?
Often they can stay. AVYCON's support FAQ says its NVRs can add third-party cameras that support the ONVIF protocol. Most network cameras from established brands support it, but not all, and older analog cameras on coaxial cable do not work with an NVR at all without an encoder. We connect each existing camera to the AVYCON recorder during the survey or at the start of the install and check three things: that it streams, that it records reliably, and which features work. Basic motion recording usually carries over. AVYCON's AI detection for people and vehicles, facial recognition and plate reading are generally tied to AVYCON's own cameras, so a kept camera may record but not sort its alerts as cleverly. We tell you that plainly, camera by camera, and you decide which to keep and which to replace.
Our security integrator needs the RTSP address of the AVYCON cameras for other software. Is that something you set up?
Yes. iSpy's camera database notes that AVYCON cameras typically stream over RTSP on port 554, which is the standard way to hand a live stream to video management software, a monitoring service or a display system. We confirm the stream path on your specific model, create a separate user with view-only rights for that connection so the main admin password is never shared, and document it for whoever manages the other software. On a business network we also check that the port is only reachable inside the network or through a secure connection, not opened to the whole internet.
NDAA and institutions
Our school's board wants cameras with no Hikvision or Dahua parts. How do you show the AVYCON equipment actually meets that?
By model number, on paper. AVYCON's NDAA statement says its specified compliant products avoid critical components and systems-on-chip from prohibited vendors, naming Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision and Dahua, and AVYCON publishes a list of compliant products. Not every AVYCON product is on that list. For a school, daycare, campus or any client with a compliance requirement, we choose each camera, recorder and encoder from AVYCON's current compliant list, put the exact model numbers on the written quote, and give the administration the list we checked against. If the board's requirement goes beyond NDAA, for example a specific country of manufacture, we raise it before ordering, because AVYCON says its compliant products are made and substantially transformed in the United States, South Korea and/or Vietnam, not in one place.
Licenses and paperwork
Which license should a camera installer working in Nassau or Suffolk actually hold?
There are two layers. At the state level, the Department of State licenses security and fire alarm installers, and 19 NYCRR 195.2 covers closed-circuit television used to detect or monitor intrusion, theft and movement, which is what most Long Island camera systems do. The Department of Labor's licensing summary lists the requirements for the license: at least 18 years old, at least 81 hours of qualifying education, an installer exam and fingerprints. AESS works under NYS license #12000287431. At the county level, Nassau requires a home improvement license for residential contractors through its Office of Consumer Affairs, while Suffolk licenses regulated trades through its own Office of Consumer Affairs except where a town or village licenses them itself. Ask any installer for both and check them before signing.
Our village in Nassau runs its own building department. Do you handle what they ask for?
Yes, and we check before we book. Nassau's 64 incorporated villages each run their own paperwork, and villages, landlords and parks can add insurance certificates and site rules. One Long Island installer says standard camera installs typically do not need local permits; Low Voltage Nation says the state code has required permits for low-voltage electrical installations since January 1, 1984, and that virtually all Nassau towns and villages enforce permit rules. Because sources disagree, we do not guess. We look up what your village or town asks for, tell you before you book, and handle the filing or the certificate of insurance where one is needed. If the village has nothing to file for a job like yours, we tell you that too.
Slab houses, split-levels and long runs
Our Levittown ranch has no basement. How do the cables get from the cameras to the recorder without drilling the slab?
Through the attic, the garage or the outside walls, never the floor. In most slab ranches and Capes, the attic runs over the whole house and reaches the eaves, so we drop each camera's cable down through the soffit or the top of the wall right above the camera. The recorder usually sits in a closet whose ceiling opens into the attic, so the cables come down a single path into that closet. Where a camera sits under a room with no attic above it, such as a converted garage or a dormer, we run the cable along the outside in a paintable raceway or tucked under the eave, sealed where it passes through the siding. The slab stays untouched because some Levittown houses still carry heating coils in the concrete and there is no way to know from above which ones.
Our detached garage is at the back of a long Suffolk lot. Can one AVYCON system cover it as well as the house?
Yes, but the garage usually needs its own small network point. A single copper network cable has a practical length limit, and a detached garage at the back of a big lot can be near or past it once the cable goes up the house, across the attic and down again. The common answer is a cable from the house to a PoE switch inside the garage, which powers the garage cameras and sends their video back on one line. How that line crosses the yard depends on the ground, the driveway and what is already buried; we plan it on site and put the method on the quote. If the garage already has power and a network line, the job is simpler and we test what is there first.
The AVYCON ONE app
The AVYCON ONE app reviews look rough. What do you do so the app is not the weak point of the system?
We set it up as part of the install and prove it works before we leave. The App Store listing we checked showed 2.9 stars from 52 ratings, with one reviewer saying the app hangs about half the time and that their installer struggled to save the device. Most of those problems come from three places: the recorder's network settings, the phone's app permissions and an account that was set up in a hurry. We give the recorder a fixed address on your network, update its firmware, create the owner account with you, add each family member's phone with the access they need, turn on the alert types you actually want, and then test live view and playback on cellular data with Wi-Fi off. If a phone still struggles, we find out why while we are there.
Privacy and neighbors
The house next door is ten feet from our side yard. How do you aim the cameras so we are not recording into their windows?
With angles first and privacy masks second. New York's Civil Rights Law section 52-a makes it unlawful to install or use a video surveillance device where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, and installer guidance recommends digital privacy masking on exterior cameras to avoid capturing a neighbor's yard or windows. On a tight Long Island side yard, we aim cameras along your own wall and down toward your own path, rather than across at the house next door. Where some of the neighbor's property still falls in the frame, we draw a privacy mask over it in the AVYCON recorder, which blacks out that part of the picture permanently. In Shirley, CBS New York reported police saying a backyard visible to the public is fair game, but a window is a different matter, and we keep cameras away from them.
Our AVYCON cameras have microphones. Should we turn the audio on?
Usually not on outdoor cameras. New York requires consent for audio recording, and legal guidance on home cameras advises disabling audio unless you know a consenting participant, such as you, will be part of any recorded conversation. A camera on your front door picking up two strangers talking on the sidewalk is the kind of recording that causes trouble. We leave audio off by default and turn it on only where you have a clear reason and understand the rule, for example on a doorbell where you are the one talking to a visitor.
Theft, tampering and the morning after
Burglars in North Valley Stream turned cameras away and taped over lenses. How do you set an AVYCON system up so that does not leave us blind?
Height, overlap and alerts. We mount cameras out of easy reach, usually under the eaves rather than at head height, so nobody can turn or cover them without a ladder. We place cameras so that each important camera is seen by another one; a person reaching up to tape a lens is then recorded by the camera across the yard. And we turn on the recorder's abnormal-event alerts, which in AVYCON ONE are a separate alert category, so that a camera that goes offline or loses its picture sends a notification to your phone. On a house that sits empty for long stretches, those alerts are what tell you something is wrong before you get home.
Our cars sit in the driveway overnight. Which camera positions catch someone trying the doors or reading the key fob signal?
Two kinds: a wide view of the whole driveway from the house, and a narrower view of the driveway mouth for faces and plates. ABC7 reported police saying Long Island burglars are attracted by cars in driveways, and the East Hills case in June 2026 began with three people searching a car at 3:45 a.m. A wide camera on the garage corner shows what people do around the cars. A second camera aimed at the point where the driveway meets the street, mounted where headlights do not blind it, is what gives you a usable picture of a face or a plate as people arrive and leave. We set the recorder to treat people and vehicles in the driveway as alerts while ignoring cars driving past on the street.
Power and storms
During Isaias half of Long Island lost power. What happens to an AVYCON system in an outage like that?
Without a battery backup, it stops, along with the router that sends alerts to your phone. ABC7 reported that at the peak of Tropical Storm Isaias in August 2020, almost half of PSEG's 1.1 million Long Island customers were in the dark. We recommend a battery backup for the recorder, the PoE switch and the router together, sized to ride through a short outage and shut the recorder down cleanly in a long one, so the drives are not damaged. A battery will not keep a system running for days. If you have a whole-house generator, we connect the recorder to a circuit it covers, and we set the recorder to restart and resume recording on its own when power returns.
