How many cams do you have at your residence?

L

LittleBrother

Pulling my weight
Sep 16, 2014
480
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I have four at the moment, one in the baby room. When I "snuck" the third one onto the porch this weekend I got surprisingly little flak from my wife, but I dare not introduce a fourth at the moment, and really I'm running out of outdoor things to look at anyway, though I have an absolutely incredible spot for a PTZ. Just incredible, but I'll never get funding for it :)

Most people I mention this to are incredulous at why I would need cameras, since I live in a safe neighborhood. I can't really answer them, because I don't understand the question; I'm incredulous that they don't find it cool, and it costs a great deal less than a professional security system, which only offers any benefit when there is a break-in (otherwise $30/month for nothing).

I assume others here get "Why do you need those?" type questions? The best answer is I need it for the same reason a guy needs a V8 in his car or $2k golf clubs. Just because.
 
The only thing that matters is what you both think, not anyone else. And you hear it on TV all the time. "We're shocked, this is always such a quiet neighborhood. Nothing like that ever happens here." Thankfully, nothing usually happens here either but that doesn't stop me from having eight cameras, one being a ptz. My girlfriend with whom I live with might have put up a bigger stink but I work overnight and I monitor my home system very closely during that time, so she feels safer. Plus she's a cool chick man, lol. We also make mutual considerations for the things we want along the way. Btw, within the first week of putting the cameras up, I had a recording of a guy checking out my car doors and when he saw they were locked he walked across my property in front of a camera. Point being, you think nothing is going on but when you start monitoring things in the wee hours, it can be a different story.
 
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I have 15 currently, all outdoor. This is an unusual circumstance as far as a place to live so I well know that I have some mild overkill.... :D

9 ACTi 3mp, one ACTi 2mp and then 5 analog. I prefer to replace the ACTi cameras with Hik now as I prefer them but no need replacing what is still working for now.

Used to have none but now that I do this for work I can see me having cameras from now on of some type or another just for the heck of it if at all possible.
 
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If that's the case than you are very behind reviewing them, hint hint. :joyous:
 
I have 3, but i want more because I live pretty close one of the most dangerous city in America and NJ, only thing holding me back is lack of physical installation experience :( and money!

The 2 MP turret with EX-IR is not bad and reasonable cost... if i buy for myself and they have the matching junction boxes now, maybe time to just do it before something happens and snow starts falling.
 
Don't you get a discount milkisbad?


I have 2 analog
2 fixed ip and 1 ip ptz
 
I had 3 cams up but took them down over the weekend in preparation for demolition starting at my house for the renovations. I'm just waiting for some funds to clear and will put in an order on AE of 5 varifocal domes, another turret, a mini dome to replace the turret I had at the front door and possibly a Dahua black face PTZ. I thought about cams indoors but my partner is dead against it. I figure if I can see someone breaking in then their going to be up to no good no matter if I can see them or not.
 
milkisbad said:
I have 3, but i want more because I live pretty close one of the most dangerous city in America and NJ, only thing holding me back is lack of physical installation experience :( and money!

The 2 MP turret with EX-IR is not bad and reasonable cost... if i buy for myself and they have the matching junction boxes now, maybe time to just do it before something happens and snow starts falling.
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Too bad they won't let you take some home to help familiarize yourself with them as part of your job ;)
I thought about cams indoors but my partner is dead against it.
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Understandable. I had one indoors for months after we hired a new nanny but to put one up now I think my wife (and our nanny, who we totally trust) would find it creepy and uncomfortable, plus if I'm honest I like to late night binge and don't need my wife catching me haha I put up a couple of the super cheap intrusion alarms on the weekend. Only worth anything while we're home, but for the price it's hard to go wrong. With a good enough external setup you shouldn't need an internal one anyway, IMO, because you've already captured what you need before they're in the house.
 
Cameras are fun. I am not married so nobody complains that I have 23 cameras mounted. Though people certainly do find it strange when they notice. LOL

3 of these are inside the house, and 2 of them are almost always unplugged. 1 is plugged in all the time but not monitored, and just detects motion, recording to its SD card and FTP'ing to a small NAS drive.

The other 20 cams run through Blue Iris. Of these, 3 are in my garage and 17 are outside. It is unavoidable that there are a lot of redundant views. 2 of the outdoor cams are Dahua PTZs, though they are quite simply toys because I have solid views of everything through the fixed cams.

I have about 8 more cams no longer in use that have been taken down. I expect that number to grow quickly when 4k cameras finally become affordable, and decent.
 
I only have 10, 9 are Hik 3MP and 1 is a Dahua 1.3MP bullet. I have another Dahua bullet and 2 mini-domes that are not installed at the moment. I removed them for the Hiks.
 
bp2008 said:
Of these, 3 are in my garage
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LittleBrother said:
Okay, I have to know...[/COLOR]
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Nah, there is nothing special in my garage. It just happens to be where my PoE switch is located so it was super easy to run cables in there. Any one of the cams sees nearly everything, and their IR adds up to make it brighter during the night than during the day.
 
4x all dahua.. 1 black face PTZ and a mini PT at the front. All recording 24/7 and I am retaining about 12 days of video.

I intend to put one hidden in living room for pet watching while away, we have outdoor cats that wont check in for a house sitter so its the only way to reassure the sitter there alive when I see em sleeping on the sofa. I'll also be able to see fish tanks and make sure nothing big is floating in it.. it will be setup so it never records unless the security system is armed and away. Right now I have a webcam ontop of the TV I pull still snapshots off and nobody has ever noticed it.. even when it lights up and grabs an image.

I may add a few more outside but what I have gives already me complete coverage of all ingress points, both gates, both doors plus my cars really well. I'd like a blackface dahua I could recess into a flat celling on the other corner of the house.. that could grab plates of people driving down the street, watch another parking area and get a better angle on sidewalk traffic.. dont think that will happen soon.
 
15 Cams now... But.... How many RAT cams do you have is the real question :)


Foscams do have a second life:

This morning's catch.
 
I have 4. cctv cams for few years, just now upgraded to ip cams have 4 new units..and wow! the picture.. I started with some bargain units I got off Amazon they are Xonz brand 720p.. they are so far really a steal as i got them for $23.00 each shipped. they have a good picture. definitely HD of some level, and the night vision is just amazing. that's due i figure to these cams being kinda large and have alot of large irs and they really broadcast the light. i can see HD clear over 40 ft to me that just crazy good. so im sold on the ip HD stuff. running blue iris go that going yesterday with help from forum member Felderman. I will keep the ccts going till they quit.
 
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