Wireless Security Systems

Notforhire · Mar 29, 2013

I'm was thinking about putting a remote camera in my barn, just so I can check on the animals, from my house. We have had a few problems with theft in the area, so I'm thinking that I might be better off with a recording system with several cameras, while I'm at it. Anyone have any experence with these systems?
My barn is only 50 ft. or so from the house, and has electricity.

Thanks, Bill

DeeDubya · Mar 29, 2013

Bill,
A decent wireless camera is going to be expensive, plus they have a limited transmission distance. Also, this would be considered a weatherproof application. Even if it's out of the rain, the humidity and barnyard ammonia will kill an indoor camera quickly. If there is any way to get a cable to the barn you would be much, much better off. Either a coax (RG59U / RG6) for a standard analog camera or a network cable (CAT5e) for an IP camera would allow the bandwidth for a good picture. You can still power the camera at the barn.

Here's a link to one of my distributors. These are all CCTV vendors. We use a lot of Nuvico DVR's and CNB cameras are a good value. Nuvico DVR's are easy to use, the network software is free and you can get I-phone apps for remote viewing.

Tri-Ed

Dennis

Notforhire · Mar 29, 2013

Funny the way things work. Last fall I dug a trench to the barn to install electric. In the old days I always ran another 1/2 in pipe for telephone. Now with cell phones I figured I didn't need it. Oh well. Here we go again. It can be done, just a PITA.
Sounds like CAT5 is the way to go.
I will check out the web site. Thank you.

Best, Bill

George2615 · Mar 29, 2013

I have a 4 camera wireless system. I believe my system operates in the 900 Megahertz range. I've had it a few years and have not been happy with it. This system is wired into a VCR to record (it could have been wired to a DVR but I already had the VCR). I have steel siding on the house which seems to block the signal at times. (kind of like when you used to watch TV using an outside antenna) sometimes the picture is clear and other times it fades out to a snowy picture. My farthest camera is about 40 ft. from the receiving antenna. The receiving antenna is inside the house and the cameras are outside. Since the recorder is set to record on motion it thinks the snowy picture is motion and records. It also picks up the wireless backup camera on my truck and records it so it must be on a frequency close to the cameras. It is a pain to review video every day only to find the signal faded out for a moment and recorded the event.

I have since purchased a new system that uses hard wired cameras (6) a DVR and 1TB hard drive. I'm going to tie all this in with a spare computer (has 2 more hard drives) with internet connection so I can have alarms / events / remote viewing sent to my android phone and be able to view any camera or event from the phone when I'm not home. I bought the system piece by piece (cameras from one place, DVR from another, cables from another) at reasonable prices (cheaper than a complete 6 camera package system that retailers sell). If I were you I'd find someone nearby who uses a wireless system and ask them if they have the problems I did before buying. No sense buying a system twice like I did. Unfortunately, no one I new had a wireless system to ask.

Notforhire · Mar 30, 2013

Wow am I over my head.

After looking at that web site, and checking some prices, I can see that I'm going to have to do lots of research. With that much money at stake, I don't want to get the wrong thing.
Bill

Ken73 · Mar 31, 2013

Here's a few thoughts:

I bought a DVR system without a hard drive. Came with 8 (eight!!) cameras and 60' wires for each camera. The cameras are fixed (no pan/tilt/zoom) and have no IR cut filters (colors are off a bit during the day, but you get the idea.) Cost me $200 on Amazon. Already had a hard drive laying around from an old computer so no issue there. Run one cat5 run over to your barn (if it doesn't exceed the maximum length of 328ft/100m) and plug it in. You can view the cameras from your computer/tablet/phone. If you need longer cables from the cameras to the DVR, you can buy 100' or even 150' runs pretty cheap then get double-ended BNC connectors and double up the 60' runs for a total of 120' if you need it. No audio though there are inputs for audio on the DVR. You have to find/install a microphone yourself.

I also have some of the wired/wireless ethernet cameras. The cheapies cost $50 on average, and are pan/tilt (but not zoom.) No IR cut filter on these either. The further away they are from your wireless router, the more the video will freeze up and/or halt altogether. Not to mention, they clog up your wireless bandwidth because they typically don't run compression. These same cameras also work wired (cat5) at 100mb. They are not POE (power over ethernet) so you'll need an AC outlet within 5'-6' of the camera. I'm actually converting mine to POE so I don't need an outlet near but that's not for the faint of heart. Sometimes you will find cameras that are POE but they usually cost more.

There are also HD wired/wireless ethernet cameras that are around $100 each; I bought one and it works well. It does pan/tilt/digital zoom. It DOES have an IR cut filter (rather noisy, a "clunk" when it goes from day/night mode) so colors look proper. The other advantage they have over the cheaper ones is because they use compression (H.264) - so even though they are HD (1280x720) - they use less bandwidth for the video.

With either of the ethernet cameras, they have microphones in them so you can actually hear what's going on. Most (if not all) will have an audio output jack for speakers and some even have speakers in them where you can talk to someone (or holler at an animal) through them. Most also have an alarm input/output jack on the back that you can use to activate things or sense things and use that to start recording. Some of the DVR's also have the alarm I/O (mine does not though.)

My frustration around all of them is simply - I cannot access all of them from one program. Each type of camera has it's own access software. In the case of the DVR, I can at least access 4 cameras at a time from my phone, and all 8 from my computer. For the cheap $50 pan/tilt ethernet cameras, I can configure the software to pull in up to 9 at the same time on the same screen, but can't pull them into the DVR software so I can see all of them at once. The new HD camera from what I can tell, can't even pull another camera in at all; you can only view one at a time. Not a big deal for your computer, but annoying for the phone if you want to see more than one.

They all have "motion recording" in them, but I've found that my DVR just constantly records anyway as it detects just about everything. I'm still working with it but it's very frustrating. For the pan/tilt ones, the cheaper ones have to have your computer up and running to do recording. The HD one I bought has a micro-SD slot that it can record to so it doesn't require a computer to be on with the software up. The DVR of course, has the hard drive built into it but can also record through your computer if you like.

Note: if you want pan/tilt/zoom on a DVR, it's NOT cheap - not even close. They also require an additional wire pair for the RS422 control wires of the pan/tilt/zoom motors. Wireless cameras are available for DVR's too, but typically you won't find them pan/tilt/zoom (without them costing an arm and a leg.) They generally come in 2.4ghz which means they have a high potential to interfere with or be interfered by WiFi signals. However, you can find them in 1.2ghz or other frequencies. Keep in mind; higher frequencies mean shorter distances but better bandwidth.

If you DO decide to get a wireless ethernet camera, try to get one that does wireless "N" - gives the camera more bandwidth and better range typically (you'll obviously need an "N" router for it to connect to.)

Hope this helps a little.

Notforhire · Mar 31, 2013

Ken73 said:
Here's a few thoughts:

If you DO decide to get a wireless ethernet camera, try to get one that does wireless "N" - gives the camera more bandwidth and better range typically (you'll obviously need an "N" router for it to connect to.)

Hope this helps a little.

Yes you did help me some. I think the biggest problem is that I'm one of those type with one finger guys. I'm not too far ahead of the cave man as far as electronics goes.
I don't need zoom. Sound would be nice on the barn camera, but not a must. My computer is always on and next to my bed, so I'm thinking if there was sound, a noise could wake me and I could look on the screen. I could cover my whole house/ barn with 4 cameras. Hard wire would be easy except for the barn, as previously mentioned.

Bill

jhasafety1 · Mar 31, 2013

I have been looking and have been getting emails from X10.com - Security Cameras, IP Cameras, Home Security, Wireless Camera, Home Automation from what I have seen and read thier stuff sounds promising and the price is right.

Ken73 · Mar 31, 2013

jhasafety1 said:
I have been looking and have been getting emails from X10.com - Security Cameras, IP Cameras, Home Security, Wireless Camera, Home Automation from what I have seen and read thier stuff sounds promising and the price is right.

I'd shy away from this stuff. If you want it to try it, I've got a couple of boxes of that stuff laying around. It's plagued with issues unfortunately. Sounds great on paper but in reality doesn't work very well and doesn't last long either. Most of it is battery powered and despite being on a lower frequency (315mHz I think?) it doesn't penetrate walls very well (at least it didn't at my old house.)

Their camera system is computer based, and worked off of a switching system that only allowed one camera to be viewed at a time. Any of the camera functions required a computer to be running but the base functions (alarm, turn lights on/off) worked off the computer interface even if the computer was off.

It was cool because you could program it on your computer with a simple graphical interface that allowed you to do things like - take a snapshot of someone if they rang your doorbell, then e-mail it to yourself so you could see who was there. You could have the lights come on when you opened a door or even disarmed the alarm with the remote.

I had mine working for maybe a month, then the system began to break down for various reasons. I tried and tried to make it work; there's also a special "crossover" device that you had to install in some situations where the signal wouldn't hop over to the other phase, so some devices would work while others would not. Really, a huge disappointment. It's cheap for a reason.

Code54 · Mar 31, 2013

DeeDubya offers some excellent advice. I often get to see and use some of the top of the line camera systems and gear (IR/Thermal/seismic/motion/etc) and with wireless, good =expensive. When I need wireless I use it but it is costly and sometimes you end up using "old school" equipment (microwave for straight line installs over distance) because the new stuff just does not always work that great. A few years ago I was teaching a class and one of the other instructors had a new top of the line wireless CCTV system that was supposed to be good for 100's of yards through any typical walls including concrete. Well we hooked it all up and went down the hall two classrooms and we could not get a picture. We moved closer (now MAYBE 20 yards away indoors) and finally had a picture - and this was the "good stuff" (aka: expensive). Turns out something in the bldgs construction interfered with the system so it was totally worthless. In the amount of time we wasted trying to figure it all out we could have hard wired a system and had perfect reception from the start.
You will see a lot of the company's offer wireless solutions and you pay more for them than what you pay for a wired system system with the wire/connections/etc and a better quality camera. If it is possible run the wires and you will be much happier in the long run. Once the wires are there upgrading the camera is easy and simple.
Just to stress this, I put an entire CCTV on my house and I went to the trouble of wiring it even though it was 10 times more work

DeeDubya said:
Bill,
A decent wireless camera is going to be expensive, plus they have a limited transmission distance. Also, this would be considered a weatherproof application. Even if it's out of the rain, the humidity and barnyard ammonia will kill an indoor camera quickly. If there is any way to get a cable to the barn you would be much, much better off. Either a coax (RG59U / RG6) for a standard analog camera or a network cable (CAT5e) for an IP camera would allow the bandwidth for a good picture. You can still power the camera at the barn.

Here's a link to one of my distributors. These are all CCTV vendors. We use a lot of Nuvico DVR's and CNB cameras are a good value. Nuvico DVR's are easy to use, the network software is free and you can get I-phone apps for remote viewing.

Tri-Ed

Dennis