Need advice on setting up a system in detached garage.

[vaskalrhetoric]

Hello, I am needing some advice on how to setup a system in a detached garage. My garage is very close to my house, probably 10-20 feet. My neighbor's kids throw cigarette butts on my property and trespass constantly with one of the kids being brought in for vandalism four times by the police. I would like to setup some cameras so I can get some evidence and file a report. I have power in my detached garage and really only need two cameras. I would like to be able to remotely view the cameras from inside my house, and access the recordings. On top of that being able to record at night would be a plus. What kind of system could I setup in my garage that could make this possible? I figured I could go with a couple wireless cameras that would somehow upload the data to my computer inside the house, or have a DVR in the garage that would store the data and could be accessed from inside the house. I can hard wire the cameras as well if that would give a more reliable image and camera. I've also had damage to my garage door from the kids running their bikes into it. I called the cops but since there was no evidence it turned into a he said she said. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[tomw]

Wires>> wifi...actually, wifi completely sucks.

Should not need a dvr...most cams can store to an SD card on cam.

Run a lan cable from the garage to the house.

For night time, go with perm lighting (even low wattage ie. 4W LED's produce a really good image vs IR). Avoid (or at least test) sensor lights as the cams can flare when they go on.

 

[pozzello]

i'm using a couple of powerline adapters for two cams in my garage.

one is plugged in to an outlet inside the house closest to the garage (actually on the same leg that goes out that way)
and the other is in the garage connected to a small poe switch for the cams.

mine are zyxel pla-401's, but there are models with wi-fi at the far end too, which might be handy to
stream music out to the garage while tinkering, but i wouldn't rely on it for cameras.

 

[vaskalrhetoric]

Well I do have good lighting on my garage, and in the driveway where I want to position the camera. I read that wireless sucks, and I could run cable into the garage pretty easily but the issue is I don't see a good place to terminate the connection inside the house. My master bedroom faces the garage, and on the other side of the master closet is where most lines are run into the house. The electrical, coax, and fiber lines. The garage is only about 8 feet away from this wall so I could easily run some cable into the garage, but the other end would terminate in the closet. Does that mean I would then have to run a cat5 cable from the master closet into the master bedroom where my Verizon router is?

Also I am not sure how the cards work on the cameras. If the camera stores the footage to the SD card, does that mean I can still remotely view the footage if the camera is directly wired to my Verizon router? Since I really only need one camera at the moment that will cover the front of my garage and the driveway since it is a duplex situation I would love to get a camera that can produce a good image, and as I understand it wired is going to be the best option to produce a reliable high quality image.

 

[pozzello]

yes, you would need to run an ethernet from your router or switch to wherever the 'sending/inside' pla is plugged in.

and yes, cams with SD cards can generally be viewed remotely, both live and recorded, but you need to open holes in your firewall (often called virtual server)
or use some sort of VPN or ssh tunnel, which is more secure.

wired or wireless will not affect the quality of the recorded images. but wireless is just generally less reliable,
especially for hi-rez high-quality video whether live or recorded.

hope that helps...

 

[Kawboy12R]

Running wire is better but if you want a reliable bridge between your router in the house and a switch in the garage to run your cameras from, make a bridge using a pair of these- http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Nanostation-Outdoor-5GHz-locoM5/dp/B00HG1CTDW

You'll be rock solid and won't be able to tell the cams aren't directly connected. Follow the directions here under the direct P2P link section to make your bridge. Plug one Nano into your home router, plug the other Nano in the garage into a PoE switch and plug all the cameras you want into the switch. Just be careful with the ports labeled PoE on the power supplies for the Nanos. Ubiquiti's PoE is 24v and cameras, switches, etc use 48v PoE. Ubiquiti PoE is just for powering Ubiquiti equipment. Plugging the wrong thing in will fry one or both pieces of gear. You're so close that you can even mount both Nanos indoors without line of sight. I hooked up a multipoint P2P setup this afternoon to link 4 buildings together and had one locoM2 Nano talking to a Picostation through a whole house and a garage 200 feet away to reach where the Picostation was mounted and still had 4-5 bars of reception. You may even have to turn down the transmit power a bit on both Nanos.

 

[vaskalrhetoric]

Thank you, I'll definitely look into the bridges. I was planning on buying a nice wireless camera that has the ability to also run as wired. I figured I will be able to put up with the wireless for now and then once I am able to run the CAT5/6 to the garage I can switch the camera over to wired. I think since I only need one camera at the moment this will be a good solution for my situation. All the information was super helpful and now I just have to undergo the task of picking out a camera. Since my router and garage are so close I am going to see what the wireless connection will be like, and if it is extremely weak then I'll look into the bridges. Since it might take me a few months to get around to running the cable with all my other projects.

 

[rmw85]

I'm starting a project such as this today. I have a detached garage and want to put some cameras on it as well. Not 100% sure on how stable my setup will be at the moment as I'm going to try the wireless method. Biggest problem is the cold temps in the winter but i'll cross that when time comes. I plan on going with a wireless bridge that has an Ethernet port on it http://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7438RPn-Universal-Indicator-Smartphone/dp/B00794RDVY going to a DLink POE switch and from there to my 2 cameras on the garage. I went with 2.4 to keep the 5ghz band free and also plan on connecting that to an Old N router so not to take up bandwidth on my main router. Also since i'm lazy i plan on setting that up to one of those wireless power outlets so i can turn off and turn on from the house incase the Edimax needs power cycled i dont have to go outside but if i'm away that doesnt do much good now does it

 

[blake]

I'm starting a project such as this today. I have a detached garage and want to put some cameras on it as well. Not 100% sure on how stable my setup will be at the moment as I'm going to try the wireless method. Biggest problem is the cold temps in the winter but i'll cross that when time comes. I plan on going with a wireless bridge that has an Ethernet port on it http://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7438RPn-Universal-Indicator-Smartphone/dp/B00794RDVY going to a DLink POE switch and from there to my 2 cameras on the garage. I went with 2.4 to keep the 5ghz band free and also plan on connecting that to an Old N router so not to take up bandwidth on my main router. Also since i'm lazy i plan on setting that up to one of those wireless power outlets so i can turn off and turn on from the house incase the Edimax needs power cycled i dont have to go outside but if i'm away that doesnt do much good now does it

I would not use that. I would stick with the Ubiquiti Nanos. They are a proven solid product that last.

 

[rmw85]

I would not use that. I would stick with the Ubiquiti Nanos. They are a proven solid product that last.

This is probably true but I want to try the Free/Parts laying around method first.

 

[Kawboy12R]

Yep, stick with Nanos. Particularly M5 Nanos if you don't need the distance or obstacle penetration of the M2s. 2.4ghz is more prone to interference from cordless phones, microwaves, etc. You might be fine but you might also be rolling the dice a bit with M2s. Hard to say without a site survey and some actual testing though. You or your neighbours might not have particularly noisy cordless phones and won't care if your cameras get knocked offline every time someone makes popcorn or warms up a coffee. I've known some 2.4ghz phones to play nicely with wifi but some will absolutely hammer all 2.4ghz wifi in the area into submission while they're being used. BTDT but YMMV.

 

[blake]

This is probably true but I want to try the Free/Parts laying around method first.

Enjoy your testing.