Lets Talk About Remote Security Cameras for your Castle/Crib

[cral12]

Any updated recommendations?

Piper seems to get good reviews
http://store.getpiper.com/

[Kavvy]

Originally Posted by TSXCman

My parents recently had their property broken into in Kaslo BC and have now rigged the property with cameras. They use DLink 5010 and 5020s maybe? They are rated as indoor cams, but we've zipped them under eaves troughs.

They record for up to a week for $4 a month with camera FTP. We all get email alerts for movement. For instance, I was having breakfasst and got an email, I clicked on the email, and then a video stream of someone we know that was checking the property. We also have one under the house to detect water heater failure if it blows.

It works well so far.

See this would scare me as it is my understanding FTP sites are not encrypted?

[Iceman90]

I bought this set of cameras/DVR from Memory Express during one of their daily deals a few weeks back.

The cameras are wired, so they're going to take more to put up and get connected in your house, but I am a fan of this unit. The DVR software is nice and gives you a lot of options (motion detection, always on, motion detection in some regions, etc).

[Iceman90]

Originally Posted by Kavvy

See this would scare me as it is my understanding FTP sites are not encrypted?

You can setup an encrypted FTP if you want to. SFTP.

[Stealth22]

So I gotta bump this again. Sorry to hijack the thread, but I thought it better than to start a new one.

I was doing a bit of digging into cameras last year, and it's come off the back burner once again.

I'm pretty much settled on the fact that I want to use 1080p IP cameras, each one wired to a PoE switch with a desktop/server running BlueIris. OR, alternatively, wired to a PoE enabled NVR. But regardless, if I'm going to do this, its going to be all network-based.

Here's my problem.

As I said on the last page, the house is wired with CAT5e to various rooms, but not the exterior. I can do all the camera research myself, I can get a friend to help physically install them (or pay someone to do it), and I can wire the whole thing up myself.

What I can't do (go ahead and laugh at me if you want) is run the CAT5 to various exterior locations.

Does anyone know who I can call to get an estimate on the wiring?

Thanks!

[canadianmoosette]

I was at Home Depot the other day and was looking at the Nest cam system. It looks pretty neat and I like the smartphone monitoring feature. We purchased a Nest Thermostat awhile back but don't move into our new place until next week so we haven't have a chance to test it out yet. The Nest camera and the smoke alarm system seem like the next logical step if we like the brand. Does anyone have any feedback or experience with Nest products?

https://nest.com/ca/camera/meet-nest-cam/
https://nest.com/ca/smoke-co-alarm/meet-nest-protect/
https://nest.com/ca/thermostat/meet-nest-thermostat/

[Fuzz]

There are a lot of bad reviews on their smoke detectors, at least there were a couple years ago. Lots of false alarms, inability to silence, weird stuff. Not sure if it has all been fixed, but I'd scrutinize some online reviews before diving in to the smoke detector.

[HotHotHeat]

Nest is building a nice ecosystem, that all runs out of th same app. I've had the thermostat for a couple years. Didn't end up finding the 'learning' part of it beneficial, but the wifi is nice.

My issue with the nest cam is it needs to be plugged into a wall outlet, when my house is wired for cat5 cameras.
They have a smart lock coming out that looks well designed too.

[Northendzone]

Originally Posted by Stealth22

What I can't do (go ahead and laugh at me if you want) is run the CAT5 to various exterior locations.

Does anyone know who I can call to get an estimate on the wiring?

Thanks!

at this moment in time i can't remember the name of the place that handled the structured wiring in my house originally - it is on 114th ST SE not far from deerfoot inn if you want to look it up on google. They seemed to do a fine job.

otherwise, google calgary structured wiring and you'll get names of places.

[Stealth22]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

at this moment in time i can't remember the name of the place that handled the structured wiring in my house originally - it is on 114th ST SE not far from deerfoot inn if you want to look it up on google. They seemed to do a fine job.

otherwise, google calgary structured wiring and you'll get names of places.

Our original electric vendor was in the same area...although there seem to be a few down there. When I emailed one of our reps last year, he didn't seem too keen on doing it. They always seemed to overcharge for stuff anyway, so I wasn't too bothered about calling them.

I've got a couple lines in the water, so I'll see how it goes. Thanks for the reply!

[LChoy]

Wanted to check with the CP Hive mind

Any recommendations for a video baby monitor?
I heard a lot of good things about the Nest Cam, but I don't think I need a monitor that is wifi compatible and I don't mind carrying a video monitor around or setting it up on the coffee table so I don't need to view it from my phone

Baby R Us and best buy have a bunch of different models, but the reviews seem mixed on all of them. Main important thing for us would be good video quality and night vision (enough to tell whether their eyes are open)

Thanks CP

LChoy

[4X4]

I got a Summer brand one as a gift, and the picture quality was pretty good (even at night), but the drawback was that it was only one way sound, and the stupid thing broke down after less than a year. I went and bought another one from kijiji, and that one broke down less than a year later. Pretty crappy quality for a not very cheap monitor.

Now that she's bigger, I can leave her in the house to play or watch cartoons while I go screw around in the garage out back. Instead of a monitor, I bought some badass walkie talkies so she can alert me that Caillou has come on and I need to change the channel (not allowed to watch that stupid show). The walkie talkies will come in handy for camping and dirtbiking as well. The packaging claims 37 km range. I could be out and about on the dirt bike and still check in with base camp to find out when dinner is ready. I swear I bought them for the kid though.

[LChoy]

Update

So I picked up the Nest Cam
It was pretty easy to set up and the picture quality is really clear, even if I have it set on standard 720p. Night vision is amazing

The only thing negative is that the digital zoom isn't very clear and become pixelated. It's good for a wide shot, but not so much on closer objects to the lens.

The other thing I noticed is that the sound isn't very loud on the receiving end

I have 14 days to play around with it before deciding if it's everything I wanted in a wifi camera/baby/home monitoring system

LChoy

[Diemenz]

Originally Posted by Lchoy

Update

So I picked up the Nest Cam
It was pretty easy to set up and the picture quality is really clear, even if I have it set on standard 720p. Night vision is amazing

The only thing negative is that the digital zoom isn't very clear and become pixelated. It's good for a wide shot, but not so much on closer objects to the lens.

The other thing I noticed is that the sound isn't very loud on the receiving end

I have 14 days to play around with it before deciding if it's everything I wanted in a wifi camera/baby/home monitoring system

LChoy

Zoom is way better on 1080p. Also in the app you can adjust the camera volume, it comes terribly low out of the box.
Go into sound then crank the microphone sensitivity.

[Stealth22]

Update on my end as well...managed to get the exterior wired with CAT6 for a reasonable price. Bought some Hikvision cameras online, and hooked them up to a server running Blue Iris. The whole setup works great!

[LChoy]

Originally Posted by Diemenz

Zoom is way better on 1080p. Also in the app you can adjust the camera volume, it comes terribly low out of the box.
Go into sound then crank the microphone sensitivity.

I did crank up my mic volume to 100%, but it's still a little on the low side unless I crank up my speakers on my PC, or use ear buds on the phone

As for the zoom, even in 1080, I was experimenting with zooming into to objects around the room, and it tends to become pixelated easily. Although, this is more of an issue on PC than on our android phones.

[CroFlames]

Is there any research about houses actually being targeted because they HAVE cameras? Would thieves consider cameras a sign that there are valuables in the house, and thus cause the house to become a target?

Is it good idea to make your cameras conspicuous, or is it better to make them inconspicuous?

I'm having a hard time placing myself in the shoes of a criminal at the moment.

[Northendzone]

^ good question, hard to know what goes thru the mind of a thief. I guess my thought is that a obvious camera might deter an amateur thief; however, a pro would likely side step it.

so the camera I bought to start this thread died, I tried a bunch of stuff to update the firmware and nothing worked. Seeing as how I more or less just want to see in my garage when the door openes unexpectedly (I have the chamberlin myQ app on my phone), I picked up a baby monitor last night and will try and install it and see if it give me what I want (which is to be able to see the inside of my garage)

[cupofjoe]

Not to rain on anyones parade, but Nest is on death watch in my industry. I would be careful about purchasing any Nest products as they might get orphaned. I don't recommend it to my clients.

Google - 'nest death watch' for more info.

[Russic]

Originally Posted by cupofjoe

Not to rain on anyones parade, but Nest is on death watch in my industry. I would be careful about purchasing any Nest products as they might get orphaned. I don't recommend it to my clients.

Google - 'nest death watch' for more info.

Oh boy. That is not sounding good. Thanks for the heads up – I missed this story.

http://9to5google.com/2016/04/04/nes...working-there/