Just starting out, front door and driveway camera locations

[canadian]

Hey everyone,

Just received my first ever cam last week, the IPC-HDW5231R-Z. I spent some time getting used to it this week and looking for better locations on where to place it at the front of my house. I'm going to get more cam's after this first one is up and running and comfortable with it. This forum has been amazing to get me off the ground. Thanks everyone. Thought I would share where I'm at and I'm open to any suggestions to improve the locations/setup. Quality of the shot will be next, but I'm pretty sure already that I'm going to have some challenges with afternoon sun shining on the front of my house and it making it harder to get a decent face shot (or even body) because of all the sunlight in the background on those sunny days.

As a beginner, what I learned from building a test rig and trying the cam in different locations at the front door and driveway was that what I first thought was going to be best for me did not work out in reality. So the test rig, as suggested by many others on here, sure helped me make a lot better decisions and avoid disappointment (or at least the big pitfalls). I used the bucket and wood method.

I've attached a pic of the front of the house looking from the street and on that pic it has the locations that I'm currently looking marked in red. The goal is to see any people approaching the house via the driveway or going to the front door and to have anyone with any thoughts of breaking in or stealing something to just move on. There has been some daytime break ins and some at night too, so I'm just trying to avoid any of that and be aware of any funny business that may be happening (car door checking, etc...).

The first cam is going above the front entrance door somewhere in the area between the arrows attached to the soffit. I can get to the soffit above the door through the garage (not easily but just enough to fish the cable). The door bell is to the left side of the double doors. I think the closer I get the cam to the middle of the left door will be best (and what I'm currently leaning towards).

I have the camera above the front door physically rotated 90 degrees in the attached pic. I like the shot it gives me with the approach to the front door and even a bit of the street in the distance. I'm going to start with this type of view and see what happens.

I added a couple night pics above the garage that I tried out earlier this week. I'm leaning towards placing the second IPC-HDW5231R-Z dead center in the middle between both garage doors and in the soffit.

I'm just going to go with two cameras in the front to start and then work my way to the side, backyard and inside of the the house.

My basement is finished and running any new cable would be a bitch. So I bought and tested out a powerline adapter (D-Link DHP-P701AV) with a poe injector (TP-Link TL-POE150S) and it's been working like a charm and worked for me (when I tried it in the garage and from anywhere in the house). I'm glad that worked. Not sure how it will be when I start adding cams but I'll find out I guess. I'll have to get a 4 port poe next for the garage (in hindsight I should have just gotten that to start with but oh well) or I might just go with another separate powerline adapter and poe injector for the second camera above the garage doors... not sure yet. Not sure how many cams I can run through one powerline adapter... I know I saw that somewhere on the forum and will have to find that to help me decide on what do.

I'm open to feedback and suggestions, if anyone has any, before I actually start drilling holes this week lol.

I do have a question... if anyone read this far. Is it just a matter of preference if I mount the front cams in the soffit or into the brick right below the soffit or does anyone see one being better or the other in my situation?


Thanks and cheers!

 

[tangent]

Not sure how many cams I can run through one powerline adapter.

depends on the particular adapter and the wiring / sources of interference in your house. You'll be limited by the throughput you get between the adapters. Adding more adapters won't help the bandwidth is shared and adding more could actually decrease it.

As an example if you get 40mbps throughput between the powerline adapters you'd be able to run up to around 4-6 cameras. The bitrate determines how much bw each cam needs. Video is quite sensitive to pack loss so interference from things in your house can have a big impact.

 

[tangent]

RE: front door
you can and should rotate the image in the camera software too.

 

[canadian]

depends on the particular adapter and the wiring / sources of interference in your house. You'll be limited by the throughput you get between the adapters. Adding more adapters won't help the bandwidth is shared and adding more could actually decrease it.

As an example if you get 40mbps throughput between the powerline adapters you'd be able to run around 4-6 cameras. The bitrate determines how much bw each cam needs. Video is quite sensitive to pack loss so interference from things in your house can have a big impact.

Thanks for that info tangent. That makes me comfortable to at least plan for a 4 port poe when I add the 2nd cam for the garage outside and to go through the one powerline adapter and I may need to compromise with bitrate. The most I would add in the front are 3 cameras (one more for possibly inside the garage) through that powerline. Like you said, interference is the big unknown for me and I won't know until I get things fully running and if I need to either upgrade to a better poweline or, worst case, lower the bitrate. That gives me a plan. Thanks again. (Also about rotating the image in he software too)

 

[wantafastz28]

do have a question... if anyone read this far. Is it just a matter of preference if I mount the front cams in the soffit or into the brick right below the soffit or does anyone see one being better or the other in my situation?


Thanks and cheers!

5231 can pivot whatever way you need as I'm sure you know... i would mount it on which ever is easiest to get the wire to, if the soffit is too high, I would put it on the brick.

 

[canadian]

5231 can pivot whatever way you need as I'm sure you know... i would mount it on which ever is easiest to get the wire to, if the soffit is too high, I would put it on the brick.

I ended up mounting it into the soffit. It made more sense for me once I looked more closely at it. There was a 2x6 that I was able to get 2 of the 3 mounting screws into above the soffit. And I used 3 inch wood screws for those 2... so it's in there good. A simple hole saw worked great too for to run the wire through the aluminum soffit. I'm happy. Fished the wire this afternoon too. Next to make the final connections.

 

[canadian]

Been fine tuning and adjusting blue iris but here are some more pics of the front door cam. Overall very pleased with myself so far lol.... thanks to the forum! Going to order another cam or two next and add those.

 

[bigredfish]

Good job! One down 6 or 8 to go

 

[Solar Deity]

Very nice @canadian . This forum is a wealth of knowledge. I see you've done your homework. Strong work sir.

Side note: Love the decorative concrete your property has. I've been a dispatcher for a local concrete company for the last 20 years or so. With that comes the side jobs for family/friends.

Is the decorative portion snowblown, or do you have radiant heat installed in the walk and driveway? I've done a few radiant installs in my travels and it's the cat's ass.

SD

 

[canadian]

thanks @Solar Deity and @bigredfish

The radiant heating would have been really sweet ... but I didn't even look into it to be honest. I use a plastic shovel and have a small push toro snowblower with a rubber blade and that works for me.

 

[code2]

Nice work but my OCD would kick in over drive seeing the date and time stop on the side like that in corridor view

 

[canadian]

Thanks, Lol I hear you @code2 . Maybe it's my inexperience too (and trying to get too much in one view with one camera) but it was the only place where I found to be out of the view of where people or cars would pass through (and it bothered me more when I had it across the bottom or top and in the view of where people pass). I'm good with where it landed for now. My thinking was if I need to provide a video clip to the legal authorities then it would have the time and date visible somewhere on there for reference. Funny how I got to that point now that I'm typing it out. I might move it around in the future but so far it works for me since I still only have the one cam up and running (been upgrading my home alarm system in the meantime too as another mini project and also just trying different settings in the cam to get better night pics).

 

[wantafastz28]

I think he's saying u can put the time facing the right way so u don't have to turn your head side ways to see the info.

like this.

 

[mat200]

Hey everyone,

Just received my first ever cam last week, the IPC-HDW5231R-Z. ...

I'm open to feedback and suggestions, if anyone has any, before I actually start drilling holes this week lol.

I do have a question... if anyone read this far. Is it just a matter of preference if I mount the front cams in the soffit or into the brick right below the soffit or does anyone see one being better or the other in my situation?


Thanks and cheers!

I would consider placement in the blue dot ( right side of garage ) pointing as indicated ( to the left of the picture ) to get coverage by a suspect coming in from the neighbors side.
This way if they attempt to enter via the garage you hopefully will catch them.

between the camera by the door and this other placement you've got a good frontal coverage.

 

[bababouy]

I would mount one on the left side of the garage also so that you have two cams criss crossing. This will give you a good shot of the street and any cars coming up the street from that direction. It might not seem important now, but when shit goes down in front of your house, you want to be able to see the car and where it comes from.