Confessions of a former geek

[BlueHeron]

Career #1 started with engineering school and my first Fortran class (punched cards all the way) in '75, to which I was drawn after my first Basic class in high school (punched paper tape). After a few years of Fortran and Assembly language programming, I switched to supporting VAX systems, PCs, and early LAN/WAN (Banyan, Novell, even LANtastic). I reached my technical limit helping to design, create and teach an InfoSec program at the community college where I'm on faculty. I go the chance two years ago to switch over to teaching math, and I LOVE it -- algebra now is the same as it was 45 years ago.

So I blinked a little too long and there's an entire technology set about which I know absolutely nothing but I need to know about this stuff - I need some cameras, and a good way to monitor them. I'm good with the network configuration issues and troubleshooting, but just knowing what to choose? Clueless and want to figure it out in time to mix a margarita and go out on the boat and try to find some osprey nests.

So I'll thank you in advance for your help, and apologize in advance for my shocking ignorance about things that it seems that I should know.

 

[pozzello]

Welcome, blueheron. I've done some time on VAXen myself. Fortran, yup. Even spend time in the summer in Rehoboth Beach...

OK, so you want a door cam to ID people at the door and talk to them. You need a cam with two way audio. Some have built in
mics, some just have a connector to hook up your own mic. Most do not have speakers and require an external powered unit.
Look for a cam with PoE (power over ethernet), as wireless is just too unreliable and if you have to run a wire, make it just one
(good quality cat5e/cat6).

Then think about if/how you're going to record video, so you can tell who's letting their dog poop in your front yard or which
punk is testing your car doors at night. If you're comfortable running a PC 24/7, the Blue Iris is a good choice. If you'd
rather go the appliance route, then an NVR (of the same brand as your cams is easiest) may be for you.

most cams will have some sort of web UI and iphone/android app to view video directly form the cam (and there are 3rd party apps too),
but once you've got more than one camera, it makes more sense to stream them all to a PC or NVR and interface with that.

hope that gives you some answers, or maybe just brings up more specific questions. cheers!

 

[gwminor48]

Hello BlueHeron, welcome to the forum.