Security cameras / home monitoring

[drab]

Help me PH

I want to make my home into a fortress, or at least slightly harder to break into then my neighbour.

There's 3 areas of easy access; one is the front door which is just off a quiet street, the second is the kitchen door which is accessible through an unlocked gate / small fence; thirdly the conservatory which is accessible through both these methods and also through the rear garden. At the end of the garden is a garage and carport which are easily accessible through an unlit lane. This is where I'd be if I wanted into my house - down the lane, straight through the carport, garden, and yank open the conservatory doors.

I'd like 4 cameras - one facing the garage door and carport, one inside the garage, one covering the garden / conservatory, and one on the back door / side of house. Any suggestions? My main priority is receiving prompts to my mobile when someone appears in the vicinity of a camera if possible.

[LaserTam]

I'm no expert, but I have CCTV, just one camera looking over the cars on the drive. Its a system from CCTV42 (a PHer on here, cant recall his user name).

Cant fault the system or service from them - very clear picture even at night. It doesn't (I dont think) offer mobile alerts, emails are possible - however, if I was getting email alerts, my mobile would be going off all night. I think its possible to adjust the sensitivity that triggers movement, but with mine set as it is, when searching for events that have happened overnight, it will regularly come up with 15 events through the night, where a car has driven past (its a small cul-de-sac) or a fox, a cat, a spider walking across the camera - very occasionally a scoundrel trying my door handles (which is why I put it in the first place).

There maybe better systems or same system could be set up better to prevent the alerts, but I wouldn't want my phone going off that many times every night.

[Foppo]

I am looking at something similar to what you want.We have a chap who looks after our bulglar alarm a once a year check.Ex navy lad he would set it up for me for about £400 that is three camaras.I like to go ahead my misses thinks it is a waste of money.>

[BlackZeD]

Lights, lights, lights, all automatic and bright, keeps the buggers away.

[drab]

thanks - i'll have a search for cctv42 and see if he can help a fellow PHer out

we do have a few security lights installed but the garden is so sheltered no one would know whether they were on or not tbh, i certainly wouldn't notice from inside the house.

[Baldinho]

Take a look at Arlo. Plug and play and sends you alerts when it detects movement. I have it at home and does a good enough job to catch the odd rat wandering past at night.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=searc...

[bogie]

Ive been using 3 camera Arlo system for a few months now, its great. Really convenient and easy to setup. Work away a lot at short notice so nice to get alerts when people turn up, cleaner comes etc

[grenpayne]

I've just installed 2x Foscam C1 cameras just yesterday. They link in to your home wifi and you can monitor them in real time on your iPhone, iPad or Android phone as well as your PC. They will also ping an alert to your phone if they detect motion within any time frame you specify.

They cost me just shy of £50 each and I had them up and running in about 20 minutes. So far I'm really impressed! I also have a Synology NAS drive and they link in to that too (via a downloadable app) and thus allows the recording to be stored on the NAS rather than on an SD card within the camera.

[essexrobb]

i wnet for a hikvision setup, 8 cameras and a 2tb hdd recorder, all set up to the router, first time i did anythign like that myself and it took awhile to get my head around the port fowarding but its so handy when you out and what to check on the house. my kids have it set on there ipads etc so any noise or knock on the door they know to check the cameras first. amazing night vision, we can easily see 20meters clearly and make out faces etc.

i love them and just like a buglar alarm i wouldnt live without them now, also as someone else said lights help so much too.

[eliot]

Cameras are part of the solution, but decent bright lights are also important.
I dont use camera motion detection as spiders and cobwebs mess them up.

[page3]

Baldinho said:

Take a look at Arlo. Plug and play and sends you alerts when it detects movement. I have it at home and does a good enough job to catch the odd rat wandering past at night.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=searc...

Wish there was a similar product that offered local storage. Cloud isn't much good to those of us with a poor upload speed.

[bogie]

page3 said:

Baldinho said:

Take a look at Arlo. Plug and play and sends you alerts when it detects movement. I have it at home and does a good enough job to catch the odd rat wandering past at night.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=searc...

Wish there was a similar product that offered local storage. Cloud isn't much good to those of us with a poor upload speed.

works fine on my DSL 5Mbps down, 512Kbps up

its not permanently streaming, only records on movement. Default is 10 secs on detection, but you can change it. I think the local storage option is coming in an update. However both options have pros/cons ... the key selling point of arlo, is no wires, the cameras are running on batteries. It literally is 10 mins out of the box to be up and running.

in an ideal world we would all have hard wired multi room systems permanently recording that you can access from anywhere ....or would we ? Its fun to see what the missus is up to when you are away I guess

Edited by bogie on Saturday 5th September 21:35

[Baldinho]

page3 said:

Wish there was a similar product that offered local storage. Cloud isn't much good to those of us with a poor upload speed.

I've got a sub 2mbps download connection and 0.5mbps upload. It's absolutely fine. You can set how long each camera records for plus the quality of the recording. I have mine set to highest resolution recording and no issues.

Has been great to keep an eye on stuff remotely (particularly when the cleaner buggers off after three hours and tries to charge us for four!). Everything time/date stamped.

It comes with a basic upload/storage package free which would suit the majority of people. If you want to get fancy with more cameras and longer/extra storage capacity then it's possible to pay a bit more for that.

It's really very good and the night vision is more than acceptable.

[LaserTam]

Re the comments above about cameras that connect to your wifi - surely the stream of data to the wifi and then to the NAS or wherever for storage is all 'on-net' and not across the internet broad band? So the upload and download speeds would be irrelevant wouldn't they? Or am I misunderstanding the solution?

[red_slr]

Have you looked at Smartthings?
The UK version launches next week.

[GrumpyTwig]

LaserTam said:

Re the comments above about cameras that connect to your wifi - surely the stream of data to the wifi and then to the NAS or wherever for storage is all 'on-net' and not across the internet broad band? So the upload and download speeds would be irrelevant wouldn't they? Or am I misunderstanding the solution?

Your internet upload matters if it's pushing images/footage up to the internet/cloud or if you want to view the live image over the internet on your phone for example.

If you don't used online storage or internet streaming then yes, your internet matters not.

Though even WiFi can struggle with video streams if they're a high enough resolution/data rate and the connection is poor.

[bogie]

the Arlo camera system comes with its own wi-fi access point to overcome the limitations you may have on your existing router. Also its low power optimised to save the batteries in the cameras

there are multiple solutions out there, from fully wired, partial wired (power only, wireless for data) and completely wire free cameras

then there is the local storage versus internet storage options

less wires is most convenient to setup but you rely on having a good wi-fi network and changing batteries every 6 months

completely wired is probably the most reliable, but the most involved to setup

local storage is good if you want 24 x 7 real time streaming and a record of everything

cloud storage is easier if you want access from anywhere and even more data security...the thief cannot steal your film ....

[GrumpyTwig]

If they work as advertised they do look quite good, battery life of 4-6 months on the cameras? Very impressive but I guess they have to be moved to be charged which would be a bit of a git if they're up the side of a house.

Netgear stuff is usually well made though.

[Baldinho]

I've got mine on max resolution which hits battery life. They each take four cr123 batteries. I've bought rechargeable ones and they're lasting just over two months on the busiest cameras (kids going in and out the whole time)

[bogie]

GrumpyTwig said:

If they work as advertised they do look quite good, battery life of 4-6 months on the cameras? Very impressive but I guess they have to be moved to be charged which would be a bit of a git if they're up the side of a house.

Netgear stuff is usually well made though.

im 3 months in on original batteries, when they go will goto rechargeables and try to get the highest capacity. Yes, on one of my cameras I need to get a ladder out to change the battery in it

of course the alternative is running an ethernet cable and having that do power too.....