Camera for our boat dock

[benchmark]

Hello folks,

my first post so please forgive me if i seem to be asking something silly. I already have a home IP camera setup (Tenvis setup) which has been working great for the last 3 years but this new project is proving to be a challenge to me because of the peculiar circumstances

I belong to a small fishing club and all our boats (about 26 of them) lie at the same marina, we have been talking about installing some kind of camera setup that can be remotely accessible online so that we can all see our dock and boats, monitoring of the tide levels, storm effects and general security without having to take the long drive all the way to the marina.

The setup will have to be accessible to members of the club via the internet.

we have obtained permission from the marina authorities to install the cameras and there is access to electric power for the camera.
The marine even has free WIFI but the problem is that we do not have access to the router to do any port forwarding or even to open any ports, The company that is suppling WIFI to the marina is reluctant to allow us access to their commercial routers. However we can log unto the Free wifi with any laptop, tablet or smartphone whiole at the dock

This is now my question:

Can anyone suggest a camera model or setup that can log unto to Free wifi . A normal Tenvis camera need ports to be allocated hence not possible, i need a model that can connect to the free public wifi and transmit pictures without any port permissions.

I have also thought about a GSM SIM card camera that can send MMS pictures on demand but the main problem with this is that all the models i can see are only capable of sending data to a limited number of phones , usually 3-5 . hence not useful for all the club members. Also it would be silly paying for a 4G mobiledata SIM card plan when we have free WIFI at the marina.

Any alternative setup ideas will also be appreciated.

 

[Zxel]

You MUST have port forwarding to get the desired results you want, the free WiFi has a very restrictive firewall (at least it should). There are some alternatives that could work though, here are a few that come to mind:

1. FTP push jpeg images or video from the camera to a remote server that has full access to the internet. You can use virtual hosting (cheap - like $20 a month, think digitalocean or amazon web services), or a members computer. Members would access the server.

2. Long haul WiFi to another WiFi hotspot (maybe to a marina residence if it has them) where you can port forward.

3. Use cellular connectivity (4g - data rate cost will make this cost prohibitive I'd think).

4. Hack thru the marina's free WiFi firewall (not recommended).

There are professional installers that are members of this board - they will probably have other suggestions too.

 

[benchmark]

Thank you for your response, it certainly gives me more to think about.

do you think that the 'Dropcam' will work?

http://mobile.pcmag.com/?origref=https://www.google.com/#!/article/5265771acb007179a055175e-nest-dropcam-pro

.

 

[fenderman]

The dropcam should work unless your club specifically blocking certain traffic...note that the drop cam is not outdoor rated...it may function fine if it use protected from direct rain/snow..
Also dropcam charged a yearly fee, 99 for seven days of recording and 300 for 30 days of recording...
You may also just be able to use the P2P (peer to peer) function in hikvision cameras to avoid port forwarding..while this is not normally recommended because of security issues, i doubt that is a problem for a camera pointed at boats...I have never used or tested the function though...
Here is another option that may work...http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-SmartCam-Outdoor-SNH-E6440BN-Camera/dp/B00P1NAPPQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1422123270&sr=8-3&keywords=samsung+ip+camera#productDetails
You should not need to port forward that camera.

 

[benchmark]

that Samsung can you linked looks hardy and it's an added plus that it is designed for outdoor use. Do you reckon that it can log on to our free wifi just like a laptop does?
.

 

[fenderman]

that Samsung can you linked looks hardy and it's an added plus that it is designed for outdoor use. Do you reckon that it can log on to our free wifi just like a laptop does?
.

Yes, you will be able to enter the wifi credentials in there...i would give it a shot...worst case just return it to amazon..

 

[benchmark]

I just ordered the Samsung camera , I hope it can get past the marina wifi splash screen, I will keep you guys informed.

 

[fenderman]

I just ordered the Samsung camera , I hope it can get past the marina wifi splash screen, I will keep you guys informed.

great...let us know...

 

[networkcameracritic]

You can use a Dahua or Hikvision cameras through their cloud without port forwarding. I have not tried this, but the Hikvision site is http://www.ezviz7.com/ and Dahua I believe is http://www.easy4ip.com/ or http://www.dahuap2p.com/. They provide a website where you access the cameras remotely.

The alternative to port forwarding is to provide a VPN tunnel. You can setup VPN say on a PC running NVR software as an example on the dock, then your guest would connect to the VPN, then they can access the cameras and recordings.

Keep in mind these cameras use a lot of bandwidth and the ISP may get annoyed and block RTSP.

 

[benchmark]

Hi guys , i promised to update you guys after the great help I got here. Well I am pleased to say that the Samsung smart cam works a treat, it logs unto the free wifi and is accessible remotely. I did however notice that everyone who looks into it using our common Samsung account has access to change the settings and passwords.
Is there a way that I can limit the admin privileges or even upload the video to an intermediate site or server then allow it to be streamed from there?

 

[fenderman]

Great!..there should be an option to set up a user account with limited privileges..

 

[benchmark]

Yeah, I have looked high and low, that option seems to be missing from samsungs smartcam app and not even on the smartcam account settings page.

 

[Zxel]

If the camera can ftp the pics you could put a server in between the camera and your users - Digital Ocean has servers for $10 a month that would do it.

Edit:

A little fancier but you could also stream thru the server too by setting up a tunnel thru it, something like stunnel should do it (but I haven't used stunnel for rstp streaming before) - but there are others.

 

[benchmark]

Whats a tunnel"

 

[Zxel]

Here is the wiki on it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stunnel. A "tunnel" is just a private connnection from one device to another (usually computers - but it doesn't have to be) thru a public channel (like the internet). A VPN connection is a "tunnel" for example.

 

[benchmark]

Thanks , i just read the Wikipedia write up but it seems too complicated for me, I was hoping for a simple uncomplicated solution. For example some kind of software that I can input the Samsung smartcam login details so that this 'intermediate' software directly accesses the video from the cam then it shares the video to the public with another different password. That way the public do not log on to the cam using our Samsung smartcam account with admin privileges .

 

[Zxel]

I was hoping for a simple uncomplicated solution. For example some kind of software that I can input the Samsung smartcam login details so that this 'intermediate' software directly accesses the video from the cam then it shares the video to the public with another different password. That way the public do not log on to the cam using our Samsung smartcam account with admin privileges .

Then I suggest you use a third party IP camera cloud service like https://www.angelcam.com/apps/cloud-recording or https://www.mangocam.com/. The camera streams to the service and your users connect to the service to view it - they don't directly connect to the camera. Just make sure if you do choose a service that they allow multiple user accounts OR multiple users on one account (because I didn't research that). This is basically what I was talking about using your own server and stunnel, however, a third party cloud service may be an even better choice because it will be easy on your side and about the same (or less) in cost (depending on who you choose and which plan).

Hope that helps.