Security Cameras -update

[newbury]

Have you tested any compact remote power sources for the wyze cam?

I've used various sizes of power banks but my need for total unconnected to the grid power is minimal. A 10AH power bank last about 3 days IIRC.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

A buddy of mine had two four wheelers stolen last year. When he discovered the theft he thought "I have two trail cams with sd cards on the road into the property. I've got them on camera." Well, when he went to check the trailcams they were both gone too. I travel that same road and had noticed the cameras, so they were not obvious but I guess they were to the crooks. This year he is paying a ridiculous fee for cellular cameras that send him a video to his phone when activated. He's hoping they will climb the tree and steal one of them. He should have a perfect picture of the thief as he takes down the camera.

On those cameras you have to put tape over the red light. Or get black out cameras. Or get a cellular and put it in a non obvious place. Because thieves will figure you have the obvious under surveillance. They will come in the other way. We use them on hog traps here and have another cell phone to text a number to the gate latch.

 

[Jchonline]

A question. What exactly do you expect from a security camera setup. You are three hours away from the property. Are you planning on having a video feed at your current house. Are you going to sit and monitor this video feed - 24/7/365. And exactly what are your plans if you see nefarious activities.

I am up there full time now, but before I had one positioned to get license plates, and they work at night. They also have activity zones, so it detects vehicle, people, and animals separately and sends me an alert anytime it detects whatever I configure it to. I could see someone at my front gate, their license plate. All footage is recorded in the cloud. You do also get 2k resolution so it is good enough to make out features, and read license plates.

However I do understand the issue, 3 hours away calling the sheriff is kind of iffy. However if you have license plates (and thieves are stupid enough not to cover them up) then it is effective If the sheriff will follow through.

Insurance is definitely a must. I have everything insured.

 

[Jchonline]

On those cameras you have to put tape over the red light. Or get black out cameras. Or get a cellular and put it in a non obvious place. Because thieves will figure you have the obvious under surveillance. They will come in the other way. We use them on hog traps here and have another cell phone to text a number to the gate latch.

With the Arlo cameras, I have them mounted up in trees 20 feet. They have a battery in them, and I have a small solar panel up in the tree that keeps them charged.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

A question. What exactly do you expect from a security camera setup. You are three hours away from the property. Are you planning on having a video feed at your current house. Are you going to sit and monitor this video feed - 24/7/365. And exactly what are your plans if you see nefarious activities.

Well, it helps the cops a lot if they know what time it was stolen. Maybe a license plate number always helps. What they look like always seems to help. What make vehicle and color helps. I'm one of the poorest sap suckers to ever wear a pair of over all's and walk barefoot down a dirt road. But I can see they will help.

 

[dlctcg]

Mostly, I expect to use the images to identify who damaged things and turn it in to the authorities or use as evidence in a civil case for restitution.

IMHO this is only realistic if you are getting real-time notifications of events (& even at that you may not have a case)...

If you want to just take some pictures of things that have happened in the past for you to review when you arrive at your property 3hrs away & realize something has happened... purchase a inexpensive camera that will record to a SD card & if it hasn't over written it's self you will have images to review... if they are a week + old... unless you recognize the person don't expect to much from the local authorities (nothing against them, most of my relatives are them).

I agree with many others here that cellular with notification, although not cheap, is the way to go. Spypoint, Tactacam, Cuddleback, etc. are all good cellular trail cams / game cams but you are more interested in damage / security cams... Although not inexpensive you may want to look at Vosker (yes it is Spypoint tech) but has their built-in AI feature that helps identify & get the photos you need by identifying human or vehicle activity in the monitored area. The V200 includes 100 photo's a month... This is a security cam... not a trail cam... (look for promotional pricing / or a local dealer as their on-line pricing is not always the best).

Our company has deployed many of these units for clients to monitor & secure otherwise inaccessible locations... remote property gates, horse properties, etc. but our biggest customers for these have been temporary / remote construction sites where materials or equipment is kept. If they steal the cam it has geo tracking built-in.

 

[mikester]

Well, it helps the cops a lot if they know what time it was stolen. Maybe a license plate number always helps. What they look like always seems to help. What make vehicle and color helps. I'm one of the poorest sap suckers to ever wear a pair of over all's and walk barefoot down a dirt road. But I can see they will help.

Good luck on reading a license plate unless you mount a camera at bumper level and put in an S-bend and major speed bumps on your driveway to slow traffic down. Oh and don't forget auxiliary IR lighting. Expect to spend $$$ if you want a semi-reliable license plate capable camera setup.

If it makes you worry less put in a few cheap stand alone cameras. Top up your insurance and lower your deductible.

Internet enabled cameras mean your data is stored on someone else's computer, usually located in China. The great thing about internet cameras - Makes it easier for thieves to find and scope out your property. The can check out what you have before breaking in. You mind as well leave the keys in the door lock and padlocks if you connect one of these chinese cameras to your network.

 

[plowhog]

Mostly, I expect to use the images to identify who damaged things ...

We have a tubular steel gate that is 42' off of the county road. Someone hit it and bent it.

Same thing happened to me. I installed a quality trail cam pointed at the gate. It detects motion and records images to a SD card.

Not long later, I checked the camera to find dead batteries. I reviewed the SD card, finding that it had snapped 5,000+ photos. A new picture every time the wind blew a branch or a leaf anywhere in the camera's view!

The frequency of snapping wind-induced pictures drained the batteries. The sheer number of pix made reviewing them virtually impossible. Oh- did I mention I put trail cameras at my other gate locations as well?

 

[JouneNer]

Arlo is the one of the best security cameras option, They provide many options for security camera

 

[PILOON]

My SIL's solution is to use a bunch of dummy cameras so that the live ones are lost in the crowd.
Also he has a post on which hangs a nice collection of bird houses. Very decorative but only one has a camera looking out of the birdhouse hole (door) aimed such as to get a full face photo.
Also the camera sends photos to his phone.
He has called me a couple of times so that I could go investigate.

I'll add that they had a costly incident* by thieves earlier on.
This occurred at their chalet that happens to be close to where we are retired.

Break-in's are an annual fall event in this area.

*smashed doors, electronics and collectables etc., $5K insurance claim.

 

[Torvy]

I figured i should update the thread. My wife got me a pair of the Spypoint cell cameras. Shout out to @Midniteoyl for the suggestion. In the beginning, the 100 photos per month was more than enough. Then construction started.

It is fun to be able to see up-to-date shots of the progress without the drive. Even at the least frequent setting, I am getting 12-16 shots a day.

Cameras use regular batteries and monitor their charge, so I don't have to check them. They have been up 2 months now and haven't used much juice. (Over 80% remains). They also have a temp reading, but they are not calibrated correctly. For instance, right now it says 69 F, but the weather app says 77 F. Difference has been too large for minor variations and is pretty consistently 8 degrees low. We didn't need to do anything with our cell plan. Just uploaded the app on my phone, put batteries and memory card in and scan the Code in the box to register.

Tested them out about a week in town, then placed them on propert. Just this morning it caught a coyote walking across the garage location. Happy with them so far. Also had neighbor's cattle on the property. Cameras allowed us to contact the landowner who notified the lessee.

 

[grsthegreat]

I have been told, but never actually checked, that a cellphone camera can see infrared light from a trail cam. If this is true, than a thief can find camera location. Ive seen this so called fact posted everywhere online when i was shopping for a trail cam. Personally i didnt care as mine is to see wildlife. We dont have a theft issue here (yet) to worry about. And deer dont have cell phones (yet).

 

[ponytug]

I have been told, but never actually checked, that a cellphone camera can see infrared light from a trail cam. If this is true, than a thief can find camera location. Ive seen this so called fact posted everywhere online when i was shopping for a trail cam. Personally i didnt care as mine is to see wildlife. We dont have a theft issue here (yet) to worry about. And deer dont have cell phones (yet).

Two tidbits:
1) some cheap IR LEDs glow reddish in the visible, making some cameras visible to the naked eye after dark. Better cameras usually advertise "pure" IR, or "black", and don't glow in the visible.
#2) CMOS, the silicon technology used for almost all digital camera intrinsically has some near infrared sensitivity. Almost every camera maker puts a filter on that blocks the IR portion to enhance the visible performance. There was a batch of Sony cameras many years ago that had some near-infrared sensitivity, due to their choice of filter. More or less as soon as the internet woke up to being able to filter out the non-infrared, the phones and cameras were pulled. Lots of click bait around "see-through" clothing. (The clothing had to be pretty thin to begin with...) I tried one out for detecting lameness in horses, but the infrared performance was really just too feeble. You would never have found a trail camera with it. A few years later FLIR came out with their add-on infrared camera. Those work really well.

Whether FLIR cameras work for finding trail cameras and security cameras, I don't know. As a general rule, I subscribe to the line of thought that the most effective security cameras are hidden where folks don't think to look.

All the best,

Peter

 

[oosik]

I'm retired and live at my property. Before I spent a whole lot of $$$$ on any security system I check this out. What is local law enforcement going to do if you come to them with pics on your security device. Will they immediately begin an investigation. Will the pics on your security device be adequate for them to do much of anything.

There is only one way into/out of my property. A mile long driveway. I have an outer gate at the county road and an inner gate where the driveway meets the property.

You would be surprised how many finally realize that they are trespassing and turn around before coming thru the inner gate.

I don't need no lousy security cameras. Just more shotgun shells.............

 

[newbury]

I've about 50 Wyze cams for 4 locations plus a bunch of floaters. Stock was built up since 2018.
Plus one or 2 of several other major brands before I focused on Wyze.
Most of the Wyze Cams are V2's & V3's. The V2's cost about $25@ and the V3's about $30@ with shipping.
Inexpensive enough so when I have a concern about a leaking pipe or stray dogs I can put a camera on the area. I've about three I use for backup cameras/FEL cameras
My biggest problem had been bandwidth.
With 10 cams operational at my Mississippi site and an upload bandwidth of about 0.7Mbps or less I couldn't watch more than 2 cams at a time. After I was upgraded to fiber with 100 up/100 down that went away, I can run all 10 at once with live feed.
Wyze has done a couple of corporate screw the consumer actions in the past, one was to drop support of older Android devices sooner than expected.
But for me the cameras have been very "hardy", I think I've only had about 4 die over the years. And they were indoor cameras placed outside over winters.
Those get assigned as decoy cameras.
/edit - a big sticking point for years was that you had to go 3rd party app to even display on windows, but now they have it implemented so I can monitor my cameras with Windows 10.

 

[grsthegreat]

I've about 50 Wyze cams for 4 locations plus a bunch of floaters. Stock was built up since 2018.
Plus one or 2 of several other major brands before I focused on Wyze.
Most of the Wyze Cams are V2's & V3's. The V2's cost about $25@ and the V3's about $30@ with shipping.
Inexpensive enough so when I have a concern about a leaking pipe or stray dogs I can put a camera on the area. I've about three I use for backup cameras/FEL cameras
My biggest problem had been bandwidth.
With 10 cams operational at my Mississippi site and an upload bandwidth of about 0.7Mbps or less I couldn't watch more than 2 cams at a time. After I was upgraded to fiber with 100 up/100 down that went away, I can run all 10 at once with live feed.
Wyze has done a couple of corporate screw the consumer actions in the past, one was to drop support of older Android devices sooner than expected.
But for me the cameras have been very "hardy", I think I've only had about 4 die over the years. And they were indoor cameras placed outside over winters.
Those get assigned as decoy cameras.
/edit - a big sticking point for years was that you had to go 3rd party app to even display on windows, but now they have it implemented so I can monitor my cameras with Windows 10.

Yeiks….im sure glad i dont need to surround myself with 50 cameras.

 

[Midniteoyl]

I figured i should update the thread. My wife got me a pair of the Spypoint cell cameras. Shout out to @Midniteoyl for the suggestion.

Happy those are working out..

 

[streamin]

Just bumping this tread as there may be newer stuff out that could be better or something. I bought a Reolink and it failed to connect at the property, I did have cell service so I don't get it. I wasted $250. Now I am looking for a good alternative.

 

[Fishin-4-a-Livin]

I am in my second month of using Solium brand 4G cameras.

So far, so good. Very easy setup and use. And I am not very tech savvy at all.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09V2JG9G1?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

 

[nyone]

I also have a remote piece of land with a spypoint cam on it. I can tell you that if your not there every month and it gets below 32*f get the solar cam. I didnt at first and changing the lithium AA batteries cost me $80 in fuel alone.

I would also caution anyone wanting to do this to make sure the camera isnt the most expensive thing on the property. I used (and still use) the $25 walmart Tasco cams for years. There more reliable than the bigger name brand units and even more reliable than my solar spypoint.