thanks for taking the time to do all that.
So yeah, you are right about the bathroom in the middle of the house up on top. And funny enough, we were thinking about demo'ing that bathroom. I wonder if that's an opportunity to get wiring down by the front door. I actually bought an Arlo Pro over Christmas and have it mounted up under there, pointing down the sidewalk coming up the house, but the cam isn't picking up motion until you are up on the porch. By the time it starts recording, you only see the back of someone as they are walking away.
Now what I really like is the potential camera location over to the right. I think you could come down that corner of the house and yeah, there's enough greenery over there and the break in the house with the side room that a camera might be pretty hidden there.
What kind of cam would you envision there? A bullet? Do they make a "side" mount for it?
I do have a cat6 line going to the back garage already (you can see it hanging in the pic of the backyard). I am going to tidy that up and run it thru the attic and then underground one of these days.
As far as cameras go, choose quality over quantity. The IPC-HDW5231R-Z/ZE are good choices for most camera locations, it has a huge aperture and good bsi sensor. For the front door another option would be the starlight wedge. Here's one of the threads on it:
Front door ID camera IPC-HDBW4231F?
My earlier post was more focused on places you could get wires to than optimal camera placement. Here's a different image.
There are lots of places around the front door / porch roof where you could put cameras. My favorites would be right above the mailbox (wedge) or right above the door centered (turret or wedge). A lower camera is better at capturing faces especially when hats or hoodies are involved.
Over to the right, you'd probably need to be farther over than what I showed with the red circle. Anywhere near orange line would work and wouldn't too hard to get wire there or mount the camera. I would angle this camera towards the walkway but wouldn't try to actually see the door. If there's attic access over there or you aren't opposed to creating one you could run cable that way. Could also be opportunities for cabling in the vicinity of the chimney.
You could still put a camera up high by the roof if you wanted to.
Remodeling the bathroom would certainly present some opportunities for wiring.
I would probably also wire up a small motion detector at the front door for the most accurate alerts.
It's better to take it slow and learn as you go. You could start with a camera on the orange line and a couple in the backyard / alley on the garage.
Return the Arlo while you still can.