Where would you place a front door / entry camera?

crc2004

crc2004

Pulling my weight
Apr 18, 2016
213
145
I’d like to install a camera at my front door and I’m hoping for recommendations on camera and/or placement location. Thanks.

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Wow, such a beautiful house. Do you need recommendation for a single camera, probably wifi with internal recording (MicroSD), facing the main street (like the last photo) or facing the main entrance door? For the type of construction, cabling looks like a difficult task. I only noticed a wired push button for the mechanical bell. Have you consider a standalone camera like the one included in the Ring or similar products? If the mechanical ring bell is connected to a transformer (120Vac), you may install the Ring PRO 1080p version, powering the unit from the transformer. The basic Ring 720p have a plug (micro-USB) for recharging purposes. The Ring (as well as a similar product, the DoorBird) works through a Cloud for storage. It means you would receive push notifications when someone press the call button or by motion detection (DoorBird takes a snapshot of the last 25 frames for free), but both offers paid plans for limited recording time.
The only problem is that you loose connection if Internet is down. You may also need WiFi coverage at the installed location. Included find a photo for Ring Pro facing the opposite wall. I understand Ring sell an angle bracket to change the camera/unit position)

In case of installing a WiFi IP camera (or cameras), you need the same wifi coverage, but also need to power the camera, a task somehow difficult, again for the type of construction. You may tried rewiring the entrance lamp to extract power (an Electrician task). The recording will be included inside the camera, consider a maximum of 64GB. You may found brands like Hikvision, Dahua and Axis (I personally prefer the Axis M1065-LW)

ring pro_1080.png
 
Rewiring the main lamp, means wiring if necessary to extract the "hot" power from the lamp installation, but you may need to consult an Electrician and your local electrical codes.
 
Stay away from using Wifi for security cams if you want reliability.
Stay away from any cam that is "cloud based". It's a racket.
Ring and Arlo both have had outages lately that left there customers cams worthless.
Do it right, and run a POE Ethernet cable. It's not that hard, construction method would affect it very little.
If you don't want to run the wire yourself, hire an electrician to run it for you.

There is NO reason to be paying some outfit such as Ring, Nest or Arlo a monthly fee. Stay away from them all!
Buy once, cry once.
 
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@looney2ns Mostly at the door but now that you've asked I guess I need to think this through a little more. I have other cameras that will pickup people taking the normal route to the door. I have had a package stolen from behind the left pillar when they cut across the lawn the entered the patio from the left side. I have a DH-IPC-HDW4231EM-AS being used for something else and specs look similar to the IPC-HDBW4231F-AS, I guess I'll do a temp mounting and see what it looks like.

@eggsan The area above the light has some free space where I can route POE. I can also attach to the left door as it's only opened when moving large (fridg) items in/out of the house.
 
looney2ns said:
Stay away from using Wifi for security cams if you want reliability.
Stay away from any cam that is "cloud based". It's a racket.
Ring and Arlo both have had outages lately that left there customers cams worthless.
Do it right, and run a POE Ethernet cable. It's not that hard, construction method would affect it very little.
If you don't want to run the wire yourself, hire an electrician to run it for you.

There is NO reason to be paying some outfit such as Ring, Nest or Arlo a monthly fee. Stay away from them all!
Buy once, cry once.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I've already DIY wired 6 POE cameras and would only use WIFI as a last resort.
 
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agree with looney2ns. My recommendation was basically considering no option for cabling. I should ask first crc2004. Construction in my Country is mostly concrete, or historical buildings were cabling is no option. That's why I always recommend Axis (WiFi) for security reasons, especially for cyber-attacks.
 
looney2ns said:
If people at the door, then this has been a popular choice.
Mounted at face height on one of the walls, with a 2.8mm lens.
New arrival 2MP Starlight IR Mini Dome Network camera IPC HDBW4231F AS,free DHL shipping-in Surveillance Cameras from Security & Protection on Aliexpress.com | Alibaba Group
Click to expand...
I had plans to save some money and use these instead of the Starlight turrets at my doorways. However all of the locations receive at least a few hours sun in the early morning or late afternoon... so I struck them off my list due to concerns about UV degradation of the dome. Was this the right decision, or should I put them back into consideration? I'm curious what would comprise "too much" sunlight exposure.

Cheers, Steve
 
I'm guessing this is just wood construction with stucco.

This porch might take 2 cameras. Depends on exactly what you want to see.
Somewhere closer to the door will be more useful overall, but it looks like it might not be that hard to tuck a camera in the corner above the arch looking back at the door (garage on opposite wall?). like this:
upload_2018-3-19_18-2-41.png
 
Barboots said:
I had plans to save some money and use these instead of the Starlight turrets at my doorways. However all of the locations receive at least a few hours sun in the early morning or late afternoon... so I struck them off my list due to concerns about UV degradation of the dome. Was this the right decision, or should I put them back into consideration? I'm curious what would comprise "too much" sunlight exposure.

Cheers, Steve
Click to expand...
The turret is the better choice. There is a less expensive fixed focus version that's a little smaller, the Dahua Starlight Fixed Lens Turret (IPC-HDW4231EM-AS)
 
@tangent the red dot location would be an easy install since the other side is the garage and I already have a POE switch in there.
 
tangent said:
The turret is the better choice. There is a less expensive fixed focus version that's a little smaller, the Dahua Starlight Fixed Lens Turret (IPC-HDW4231EM-AS)
Click to expand...
Excellent. That's the one that took place of the doorway dome on my list... thanks to the great information gleaned from here. I appreciate you re-confirming it as the "saver option"

Today I need to stop vacillating over the NVR options and get my order!

Cheers, Steve
 
crc2004 said:
Here's the view to and from that corner taken with my iPhone.
Click to expand...
I was thinking rotated 90 degrees and that you'd still want a camera right at the door, the other corner there could work too. A second camera just might give you better coverage of locations packages could be left and the rest of the porch.

The best advice is to test the locations with the actual cameras, decide what locations you like and how hard they'd be to wire.
 
tangent said:
I was thinking rotated 90 degrees and that you'd still want a camera right at the door, the other corner there could work too. A second camera just might give you better coverage of locations packages could be left and the rest of the porch.

The best advice is to test the locations with the actual cameras, decide what locations you like and how hard they'd be to wire.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll repurpose my IPC-HDBW4231F-AS BBQ cam and test the different angles over the next few days.
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