Need advice, security camera in assisted living

[jonjonbear]

Hello all,
I would search for this but not sure what to search. I wanted to see if anyone might have a not-too-expensive solution.

My mother in law lives in an assisted living center. She has a private two room unit. One night she woke and her cat was not laying on the bed. She got up to investigate, and found the door in the adjoining room was ajar with the trash can in it and the cat sitting there looking at it. This really freaked her out and none of the staff claim to have done it. She asked us about cameras. I have a Blue Iris system so know what is entailed with that and that would not be a solution here. She has decent Wifi (her own, via her own cable provider) but there is no computer in the room to run software on. Is there any type of camera, even ones we put memory cards in that we can access remotely? I know this isn't a hard thing to set up by my biggest concern is how to deal with the dynamic IP address. What would be ideal, is if she says someone was there, or did something, one of us could look at the recording (and even download it to our own device)
Is this even possible without a computer or NVR? I am guessing perhaps a camera system that works through a cloud service? We are thinking about a two camera system, one for each room.

Thanks in advance folks!

John

 

[cyberwolf_uk]

For a simple solution with your limitations of not having access to your internet router etc... Have you thought about the "Nest" range of cameras?
Very much plug and play with cloud storage for remote viewing. I've only ever installed one for somebody who wanted one for child minder viewing.

I would always go for the full NVR / BlueIris and Dahua / Hikvision cameras myself but sometimes you have to give the customer what they want. But the above may be a simple quick solution with the limitations you have.

Pro's and Cons.

 

[DavidDavid]

Chances are she would be able to identify the person in the room with something like a nest or something similar. It's not like she needs a full blown security system with 2 weeks of retention and super awesome cameras in order to give evidence to police.

If she has her own internet, you could potentially put a Raspberry pi in the room to run a VPN server so that you could access the cameras too remotely.

If it were me, I'd probably get

This Dahua Starlight Fixed Lens Turret (IPC-HDW4231EM-AS)

Or this Dahua Starlight Mini-Dome 3.6mm (IPC-HDB4231C-AS)

And record to SD cards in the camera.

Just make sure she doesn't call you a week after something happens because I don't think the cards can hold more than a day or two. Maybe longer if you play with settings but I don't have any SD cards so idk.

 

[jonjonbear]

Hi David,
Thanks, those appear to be wired cameras. I'm going to have to keep this wireless as they wouldn't take too kindly to me drilling holes in the walls. Those do look like really good cameras. I know a lot of cameras are accessible from their proprietary apps (Like foscam or Amcrest) I just don't know if you can view the recordings remotely or not. She would probably be on the horn pretty quickly so don't need gobs of recorded storage. Nest would be okay, but their cloud service is a bit pricy, specially for two cameras.

John

 

[looney2ns]

Hikvision cube.

 

[Probird79]

This popped up on my YouTube recommended feed. If you want to use a nest camera but connect it to a computer (using BI) and bypass the subscription fee. I bet you could do this with cheaper "nest type" cameras. You can purchase a cheap laptop (perhaps used) and install BI. This might not be the cheapest route but it beats paying a subscription (that quickly surpasses the cost of hardware) and you get everything else you want.

Nest Cost
Camera: Nest Cam Indoor - $200 or Nest Cam IQ - $300
Basic Package: $10/month ($100/yr)
Extended Package: $30/month ($300/yr)
PLUS each additional camera is $5/month ($50/yr)

With 2 cameras that's an initial cost of $550-$950 (if subscribing yearly so more if paying monthly). I didn't realize that these things cost so much!