Thoughts on camera locations

We are building a house, and this coming weekend I'll be running all my CAT6. There is no drywall up yet, so now is the time to get all the cable run while it's easy. The plan is to eventually get 5-6 cameras on the exterior, but in order to keep immediate costs down, I am starting with three. I will be running cable to nearly every corner of the house because I don't exactly know what will work best or where those future cameras will go. However, I have three spots picked out for the initial cameras I am getting from Andy (@EMPIRETECANDY).

Above the front door will be a Dahua HDBW4231F-AS. In the back corner of the house under the soffit (covering the back yard), I will have a Dahua HDW5231R-Z. In the front corner of the house on the driveway side, I also will have a Dahua HDW5231R-Z under the soffit. This is where my big question is. We will have 5 soffit lights in the front of the house as shown in the photo. I'm afraid that the camera by the driveway is going to get a lot of glare from the closest light. Would you agree? Where would be a better place to install that so I can still capture the driveway and the majority of the front yard? Maybe centered above the single stall garage door in the soffit? Obviously the #1 goal is coverage and quality video, but I'm trying to keep the cameras as inconspicuous as possible. I don't need them completely hidden, but I'm on the side of the argument that doesn't want to draw attention to them.

Also, I'd like to just double check the front door. I think having the camera on the handle side of the door is more likely to capture faces. I know the thought is anything over 8-feet is only going to catch the top of someone's head, but from the pictures I've been seeing, that's only when someone is standing under the camera. I think I'll still get good shots as someone comes up towards the porch. My other intent is to watch for packages left on the porch. This neighborhood has a problem with packages either not getting delivered even though they say they are, or they disappear after they've been left on the porch. We order from Amazon quite a bit, so I want to be able to see if something gets delivered, and to catch it if it grows legs and walks away.

Thanks for taking a look and offering your two cents.

Right now would have been a great time to had a cam on hand, and using a test rig, test out your locations before running cable.

Front door, my thinking is if the doorbell is rang, I want to be able to look at a display to see who it is. So I'd put the cam centered in the vestibule just at the top of the front door. Then use Corridor Mode. YMMV.

JoelJ said:

My other intent is to watch for packages left on the porch. This neighborhood has a problem with packages either not getting delivered even though they say they are, or they disappear after they've been left on the porch. We order from Amazon quite a bit, so I want to be able to see if something gets delivered, and to catch it if it grows legs and walks away.
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Look at this from a different perspective, rather than relying on CCTV after the event and trying to identify the person who is taking your items. Construct a wooden box in your porch or nearby for couriers to leave packages in. Then it becomes part of the look of the porch rather than standing out as a new delivery. Put a label on it 'packages - safe place'. Once you have a box, you can then put a sensor on it to ping you when its opened by the courier and you can then look at your camera if you really want to. Anyone who would steal your mail is not going to walk up to the box regularly, every day to check if there may be something inside. If they do, you will have them on camera anyway?

JoelJ said:

We are building a house, and this coming weekend I'll be running all my CAT6. There is no drywall up yet, so now is the time to get all the cable run while it's easy. ...

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Very nice! Love doing the cat5e/Cat6 at this stage!

Great advice from @looney2ns and @bobsmith

Recommend pulling more lines than you imagine at this stage. Cat5e/Cat6 is affordable, so when in doubt pull a line. I like to pull N+1 - in case there is a break or failure with one line at this stage of the build out. Also look at wiring up your media center, den, and alarms at this point.

I suspect the camera at your entry way maybe too high, please do take a look at
Dahua minidome catches guy casing house

I believe you may want a few cameras lower for to catch a good facial image of those wearing hats - so definitely test those locations and have someone wear a baseball cap and ask them not to look up and see if you can catch their faces with the placements of the cameras.

Also remember that soffits and walls will reflect IR, and you may also to to look at an IR illuminator - thus you may want to wire up a location or 2 for that.

Personally after installing my cameras and using them for awhile - I believe I would actually need more cameras than I had initially planned for to the meet my functional requirements.

When in doubt pull more cat5e/cat6 while the walls are open ;-)
( and remember in some tight spots EMT conduit can be your friend to protect your cat5e/cat6 from drywall screws ... )

Have fun!

This would be a good time to run Cat 5/6, just about everywhere. You never know when ethernet cable might come in handy in that particular room or part of the premise

If the electrical wiring is not yet up... I HIGHLY recommend good steel electrical boxes - not the cheap plastic ones. So much stronger, and harder for the dry wall crew to break them.

looney2ns said:

Right now would have been a great time to had a cam on hand, and using a test rig, test out your locations before running cable.

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I was actually hoping there is a way to do this. I've got the one HDW5231R-Z ordered and on its way from Andy already. I should have it in plenty of time to set up a test rig and try out a few locations. Is there an easy way to just view the camera from my laptop temporarily?

As for the other comments, I will definitely be running CAT6 everywhere. Anywhere we will have a smart TV, Apple TV, video game console, and anywhere we might ever want a dedicated computer station. This way we're not relying on wi-fi for everything. And speaking of wi-fi, I'm planning on installing a couple access points as well. I know there's probably something I'm going to want to add or change in the future, but hopefully this gets us set up well initially.

JoelJ said:

.. one HDW5231R-Z ordered and on its way from Andy already. I should have it in plenty of time to set up a test rig and try out a few locations. Is there an easy way to just view the camera from my laptop temporarily? ...

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Yes, you will need a POE switch or POE injector to power on the camera.

iirc the camera comes with a default user/password and IP address

From giomania's notes:
Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z)

"Open your web browser and go to http://192.168.1.108, login with username: admin, password: admin"

Thanks guys. I will set something up to test the angles later this week. However, electrical will only be roughed in at that point, and the soffit lights will not be installed. There really won't be a good way to test a camera next to the light until after it's all up and running. Is it safe to assume that having a soffit light in the field of view only 1'-2' away is not going to be a good idea? If so, looking at the picture of the front of the house, where would be your recommendation for that camera instead?

I would move it over like you had thought, at least a foot away from the light, but I don't have that issue so not really sure. Also, if you put that camera too high, you will get IR reflection off of the eaves. I think my "driveway" camera is over a foot below the top of the wall, and I was just able to adjust to get the eaves out of the picture. But depends how far out they extend, and angle.

As for the height of the front door cam, you "might" be able to see faces as they approach, but remember bad guys these days wear baseball caps or hoodies, they have learned to keep their faces down because of cams.

Randy

Pixels on target, we typically need a lot more cameras to get enough angles and pixels on target to get a good potential ID shot. ( using 100ppf as a measure and with a 45 degree angle on a 2MP varifocal starlight the ID spec gives us a range of 25 feet. With a 4K camera at 88-90 degrees we have an ID range also of 25 feet )

To improve the chance of a good ID image we need the cameras lower thus I suggest considering mounting on the walls. I am not certain about how the lights will affect them, you can get a lamp and hook up a generator to test them I suppose.

I suggest trying out the following locations. Remember it's OK to OCD a little here and get extra cameras - the cost at this stage of the build out is very affordable.

If you have a test rig, try mounting a camera low to the ground, maybe a foot or so up. Turn off the IR, and spray paint the body to blend into its location. Your overt cameras can provide the IR or have separate IR lamps. I've bought a load of IR LEDS and I'm going to try daisy chaining some in an existing light fitting to see the results. The 5231 is the best camera I've bought, but it can't give good footage in low light without some IR illumination.

mat200 said:

Remember it's OK to OCD a little here and get extra cameras - the cost at this stage of the build out is very affordable.

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Exactly. Enjoy it and have fun experimenting with the cameras. Buy a decent cat6 crimp tool and get wiring!