surveillance ideas

[Dutch445]

had a call from a neighbor this morning, she watched a guy in my back yard looking into the
back windows of my garage. she confronted him, and he made up an excuse that he was
looking for the owner. he was backing away and walking around the back of the house away
from her, as she asked more questions. she then saw the guy heading down the road as
a passenger in a pickup truck, so they had been parked over at my pole barn on the opposite
side of the property. (i'm sure they got a good look there, and that is where the most valuable items are,
as i'm storing a couple bikes for friends, along with my own stuff)
we're pretty rural, but live close to a fairly well travelled highway.
we reported this, and the neighbor gave her statement to LEO, but i was advised it might
be a good idea to get some game cams in my outbuildings as they find that when inside
they work well for identifying people better than outdoor ones that are pretty easy
to defeat, and then they aren't visible until they get inside.
i'm looking for a reasonable recommendation for some game cameras that will work on
motion and record photos or video. the LEO mentioned there are some out there for less
than $100 that will work just fine for this purpose.
any thoughts?

 

[Ken]

A month ago neighbor dairy man had all of his tractor tools stolen. jacks battery charger
also the game cameras that were recording the theft.

Sheriff said to list the items taken and should they be located they would call.

thieves also know about cameras.
ken

 

[ksluy]

The only problem with a game camera is the red light for night shots. I think you may get your stuff and your camera stolen. It would work great in daytime.

 

[Jim Nelson]

I got one a while back just to see what animals we have around at night and it is fun but I'm not sure how good it would be for ID at night as the infra red turns everything white and there's quite a bit of distortion if the animals are moving. The day time pics and video are very good though.The unit I have is a Stealth Cam model STC-G42NG and it cost just a little over $100 and then you have to buy the card and batteries.I got this one through Amazon. This unit will take either a single photo,a burst of 3 photos or a 10 second video when tripped. It also has custom settings that are a little more complicated to set up and with the interpreted Chinese instructions it's beyond me but my grand kids could probably do it easily.

 

[Dutch445]

thanks, i'll look at that one some more, at 10 mp it should be decent,
but i guess it'd have to be hidden for best results....
i started looking at the home security stuff, but that would need wires from
the cameras to the controller/hdd.

 

[Pixguy]

There are systems that are wireless to dvr in house so you might want to ck those out although more than couple hundred. It may be a good time to take photos and or video of everything you have, helps with ins. co's if a claim is necessary.
Bass Pro put up an ad earlier for a game camera for $69 I believe although I'm not sure how good it is.

 

[dave1949]

Access Denied

I like the wireless idea. If someone steals the camera the images are already saved in another location.

 

[Pixguy]

Access Denied I like the wireless idea. If someone steals the camera the images are already saved in another location.

Nice but he'd still need power to the camera although the wifi is wireless.

 

[Country Geek]

The game camera can be useful though as others have said the red light will give it away at night. Rather than have one set to record people in your barn, better to set it to see cars going in and out of the driveway so they'd be less likely to see it. But you might have to step up to pretty good resolution and shutter speed to get one that can do license plates, especially at night.

One other consideration I learned about when using game cameras to monitor my driveway that isn't really talked about but really makes a difference is shutter delay. A lot of them have a 1-3 second delay between the time the motion is first detected and it takes pictures. That can be enough time for someone to walk past it so that by the time it takes the picture, all you have is an empty frame. Or for a car to drive far enough away from it that the plate isn't readable. I think they do this on purpose to avoid false alarms since they were designed to take pictures of deer or other wildlife grazing, not for security. So if the camera has this, you would need to position it so that the subject is coming toward it or otherwise so that a shutter delay doesn't negate its effectiveness.

Given the above game cameras are nice and they can be useful but what's really needed is a game-type camera that's designed for security, rather than game.

 

[Dutch445]

Access Denied

I like the wireless idea. If someone steals the camera the images are already saved in another location.

that sounds like a good idea, i can get power to the camera, and if they see it upon entering the garage/barn i will already have
them recorded, hopefully. especially if they look and say, cheese! i'll look into that a little more.

outdoor cam is tough, i have large parking areas , and these 2 buildings are on opposite sides of my house.

 

[BWSSR]

Covert cam...I think it's name...stand alone power(batteries) and can send you a text picture...so you have a saved picture and know right then when

 

[Country Geek]

that sounds like a good idea, i can get power to the camera, and if they see it upon entering the garage/barn i will already have
them recorded, hopefully. especially if they look and say, cheese! i'll look into that a little more.

As an added measure, if you have decent internet (I know that can be a big IF), have your computer record the images to a cloud drive (like Dropbox) so that even if they come in your house and steal the recording computer, you still have the videos in the cloud.

 

[kf4uda]

Something like this is on my want list: Amazon.com : HCO SG580MB Blackout Invisible GSM Cellular Wireless Scouting Camera : Hunting Game Cameras : Sports & Outdoors

A little pricey but it wont spook the game or criminal and you get the picture sent to your phone. This in combination with a pre-paid sim card would seem like a great solution for game pictures or security.

 

[Dutch445]

Covert says it needs a sim card for a wireless network, and strictly battery operated, and with these
buildings not heated i hate to rely on batteries, not to mention i think it means another wireless acount

newegg has a 3 pack version of the one from best buy, for 142$. cloud storage is a good idea, i'll have to
look into that, i think at one point i had a drop box account???

i wonder how the camera quality is, they
don't list megapixel, here is the cam specs:

Video Compression Format: MJPEG
Image Format: PAL/NTSC (Both are OK)
Image Frame Rate: 30fps (Max.)
Image Resolution: 640 x 480(VGA), 320 x 240(QVGA), 160 x 120

 

[timster2]

Access Denied

I like the wireless idea. If someone steals the camera the images are already saved in another location.

Put one of these cameras in the window they looked into. Once they see the camera they will be discouraged from doing anything, and you will have a nice picture of them. I have one set up like that near my front door and you will be surprised how many people notice the camera. I can see exactly when the UPS or FedEx packages arrive and get an email notification within a minute or so of the activity along with a picture or video. You can also set them up with microphone and speakers to communicate. Depending on your camera and setup you can monitor the cameras from your cell phone or computer as well.

 

[B7510HSD]

Why not get an IP webcam mine is a Sharx and it is POE power over ethernet basically you plug a small waal wart in at the router end and run ethernet cable to the camera...they do offer wireless models BUT you need power at the camera for these..you can live stream over the web they have built in FTP functions so no PC is required and can be set for motion dectect also!! Mine records to an external drive plugged into the router...

 

[dave1949]

Is the building within wireless router range from the house? You basically can run your own home wireless network to anything within range, no batteries since you have power available where the camera would be.

Wireless routers are not complicated to use. Sharon's laptop, Kindle and iPad are all wireless network devices here at home. Plus the Chromecast thing plugged into the TV is using that wireless network. A camera would be just another network device.

 

[Dutch445]

yes, i can get signal in both buildings, (esp if i mount near a window).
we have many devices on the network already, laptops/phones, sony home theater system,
chromecast, and my dish has a slingbox that allows me to send out broadcast from my
dish system, cool when traveling, we can watch live tv or recorded items on the dvr.

i'm looking at ip cameras, and there's a million of them out there and it's getting confusing.
i'll do some more research later or over the weekend. camera quality is a concern, but i'm
seeing much higher prices for good camera quality vs game cameras but those don't have
network compatibility. (at least i haven't found one yet)

 

[EddieWalker]

You really get what you pay for with cameras. I've been using and enjoying game cameras for years, but over and over again I see threads where people use them for watching their homes and then trying to identify people on them when they get robbed without any success. They never seem to get that clear picture you need.

Eddie

 

[MoKelly]

Since you seem to have a good neighbor and they are relatively close by, I would also consider getting an alarm that will go off if a door or window is opened when you are away. I would get one that makes as much noise as possible for as long as possible. At best, this could motivate the intruders to run away and at worst could notify your neighbor that something is wrong. Can't hurt and many of these alarms are pretty reasonable in price.

Good luck. I hope all works good for you.

MoKelly