Security Camera Needed

[anonymous-user]

Had an attempted break-in at my house about an hour ago. Luckily I woke up as the guy was trying the lock and I shouted through the door and he scarpered.

Police said he was after the car keys and have suggested a camera so that at least I could get a picture of anyone if it happens again.

Can anyone suggest a relatively decent system at a reasonable cost. Thinking of a simple motion activated camera by the front door, nothing overly complex for around £100.

Cheers
Gary

[SS2.]

Good to hear you woke and scared the scumbag off.

Have you considered a video doorbell with motion detect ?

[anonymous-user]

SS2. said:

Good to hear you woke and scared the scumbag off.

Have you considered a video doorbell with motion detect ?

Yes it was!

Yes, I’m aware of Video doorbells but was not aware they did motion detection so thanks! Will be researching what’s available over next few days.

[HOGEPH]

Ring does the job for me. I have a doorbell cam, floodlight cam and a battery stick up cam to cover the drive.

[anonymous-user]

HOGEPH said:

Ring does the job for me. I have a doorbell cam, floodlight cam and a battery stick up cam to cover the drive.

Im at John Lewis tomorrow so will check all this out. Thanks.

[SS2.]

We've got a Ring Video Doorbell - very pleased with it..

Pros:
Super simple to fit
Battery powered & WiFi built in (no cables to run)
Integrates well with Echo Show
Battery life is very good
Great apps for Windows, iOS and Android

Cons:
Subscription required to store the videos (~£25 per year, IIRC)
Isn't always instantaneous to respond when trying to access Live View, although that may be down to my WiFi

I invested in a spare battery when I bought mine - guarantees zero downtime.

[anonymous-user]

Blink camera from Amazon. Two year battery life, motion detects, infrared night vision and allows two way speech.

What put me off Ring is you really need a permanent live to it or else you will be removing the unit every so often to recharge it. You also have to pay for cloud storage (Blink you don't) and need to buy an additional bell/ringer module otherwise it only rings on your phone which according to reviews can be a bit hit and miss!

[Steve Campbell]

Just bought 2 Blink XT2 cameras on Black Friday and fitted them last weekend. Quite impressed with them actually.

Easy to set-up, video/pictures look OK to me including night vision. No subscription etc Have fitted one on front of house and one on back out of reach of anyone walking past as they are wireless and could just be taken off the stand.

They can be set with varying levels of sensitivity, you can block sections of the view so they don't trigger, change the clip length and re-trigger parameters etc etc. Simple & easy which is what I wanted.

[mikeiow]

Steve Campbell said:

Just bought 2 Blink XT2 cameras on Black Friday and fitted them last weekend. Quite impressed with them actually.

Easy to set-up, video/pictures look OK to me including night vision. No subscription etc Have fitted one on front of house and one on back out of reach of anyone walking past as they are wireless and could just be taken off the stand.

They can be set with varying levels of sensitivity, you can block sections of the view so they don't trigger, change the clip length and re-trigger parameters etc etc. Simple & easy which is what I wanted.

We did the same (actually 3 cameras - one indoors, normally off, but if we go on hols we would set it to on!)
It does seem to work pretty well. The audio isn't outstanding - might need to fiddle with the settings a bit, and the night vision does really need illuminating, but for the money, seems pretty good!

[Muncher]

Blink XT2, I bought 5 of them a few weeks ago, ok, they're not 100% perfect in all areas but in your situation I think they would work well.

[itsnotarace]

Ring stick up camera pretty good but like others have said run it off the mains and be prepared for an annual fee for saving the videos. Also I must admit there are privacy concerns over who Ring are selling / allowing access to the data

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/20/ring_poli... <<US specific link but there are UK partnerships with police too

[Freakuk]

I've got a mix of the original BlinkXT and XT2 cameras, around 6 I think, simple to use, setup and adjust.

Decent WiFi is a must, I've got two at the edge of the property/land that struggle a bit to come on-line, that would be the same for any WiFi enabled system I am guessing though.

[Munter]

itsnotarace said:

Ring stick up camera pretty good but like others have said run it off the mains and be prepared for an annual fee for saving the videos. Also I must admit there are privacy concerns over who Ring are selling / allowing access to the data

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/20/ring_poli... <<US specific link but there are UK partnerships with police too

I think that's just the normal USA privacy paranoia. If I'm doing something on my driveway, that I don't want the police to see, I'm going to need to put up some huge screens so I can't be seen from the street.

I'd actively be happy for plod to be able to pull data from my camera in the course of investigating a report of crime. Sign me up, let's catch the b'stards.

[geeks]

We have a ring doorbell, however one draw back i have notice recently is that is it misting up/freezing. This is probably down to where it is positioned, its at the end of the drive on the gates, the stuff we have down by the house doesn't seem to suffer from this affliction. It does seem to clear of its own accord quite well though. Apparently some rain x or washing up liquid does stop the misting and the rain sitting on the lens.

Ours at 02:30



and at 06:30

[geeks]

Forgot to say, motion stuff is bob on, it caught a local scumbag not so long ago trying our gates to get in then the car and the neighbours car. Same night about 12 or so garden sheds and garages were broken into, we were spared it owing to out gate being locked, a lesson we learned a few years back when the shed got broken into.

https://youtu.be/v_xh4oZ6n_k

We have the Ring 1, apparently the quality on the 2 is better but its good enough for what we use it for which is as a video doorbell, the security stuff for it is secondary and just a nice feature.

[J1JPE]

Get yourself one of these if you already have mains power to an outdoor light (most houses seem to have lamp by the front door). It just replaces the existing light, has built in SD card, wifi and app so you can download images. Floodlight, infrared, adjustable alert zones, notifications, remote on off etc

https://ao.com/product/noc01uk-netatmo-smart-home-...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Netatmo-Integrated-Floodl...

[Kev_Mk3]

ring door bell and blink cameras

[anonymous-user]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I’ll take a good look at these over the next few days.

[Kev_Mk3]

garyhun said:

Thanks for all the suggestions. I’ll take a good look at these over the next few days.

if you have a Costco card - ring doorbell 2 and chime is cheapest from there

[bogie]

You do have to wonder about all these IoT "security " cameras that are not really secure themselves

https://www.cnet.com/news/ring-doorbells-had-vulne...

Sometimes you cant beat a cable.....