Need help picking low-profile facial cameras for exterior doors

[Legolad]

Hello IP Talk,

Please pardon the long post, but I tried to anticipate the questions you might ask.

Here's an executive summary:

• Need good quality camera, under $150, to capture faces of people at my door, day or night.
• Prefer to mount in wall behind a lexan plate
• Willing to use a low-profile dome
• Cat-5 and coax already present at both doors
• Prefer a POE cam with good focus and image up to 4 meters
• Hoping for roughly 70 to 90 degree viewing angle

FRONT PORCH


BACK PORCH



The Long Version

CURRENT SETUP
My current cameras are these old B&W NetMedia in-wall cams:
http://www.parts-express.com/netmedia-sc01-bw-in-wall-camodulator--335-426


These connect to the coax network with a special coax adaptor which is soldered to the cam's main board. The cams get power from dedicated power inserters attached to the coax in my structured wiring closet in the middle of the house.


The other boxes you see are old landline intercoms that I actually still love.
http://www.intercomsonline.com/Doorbell-Phone-Doorbell-Intercom-System-p/df1003.htm
In addition to individual runs of coax to each door, I have a single run of Cat5 at each door.
Each doorbell uses 1 pair (2 wires) of the Cat5 cable and connects to a special box in the wiring closet.


I know I could replace the doorbells with doorbell IP cams, but frankly I like what I've got for a variety of reasons and I'm not yet happy with the tech level of the doorbel cams. For now, I'm only interested in replacing the existing cameras.


Background
We live in a "transitional" neighborhood. The mysterious looking boxes at our doors have scared off lots of thieves and kids with ill intent. We did have a guy break into a package in 2000, but within a week of filing a police report (complete with grainy pictures of the guy who did it) nearly all the activity stopped. People just stopped coming to the door.


Over the years we've seen plenty of people case the place, but as soon as one of them sees the weird black plates on the wall they leave. We get packages almost daily, but we haven't had a single issue. This while lots of neighbors are reporting thefts and break-ins almost weekly.


I share all of this because I think that a bullet would actually become a target for some of these kids who just want to see the world burn. A dome might work because it's harder to bash it off the wall with a bat. But I believe the in-wall really freaks people out. It's the fear of the unknown and I want to keep it if I can.


The specs I think I want

Am I being too picky?
Can I find these traits in an in-wall or very low profile cam?
- Under $150 each
- Max 4" width
- clear facial video of humans who get near the door
- good day and night results
- POE
- 1080p
- min. 700 TVL
- H.264/265
- WDR
- ONVIF
- 4mm
- IR that reaches 16 feet or 4 meters


I'm fairly handy and I feel confident I could rig a sturdy housing for a bullet or dome if I had to, but if any of you knows a better way, I'd love to hear about it.

Cameras I Like So Far
Here are a couple of cams that caught my eye on aliexpress:


This HIKVision has a nice low profile and should meet my quality needs, but it has a plastic housing, so I'd probably try to mount it inside a more sturdy enclosure of some kind.
http://goo.gl/4Yn0C1


This BOAVision cam is a little large for my taste, but the metal housing might make up for that and it appears to have all the necessary specs. I have no idea how it will perform, but the seller has lots of good feedback.
http://goo.gl/hanVU0




Thanks for reading. I look forward to learning from you all.

 

[Abbell]

I have been really giving this one serious consideration.

 

[nayr]

why dont you just upgrade the lil board camera in them? they still exist quite readilly: http://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/cDxwwTSu

no ir, and and the are not that great.. but they are cheap, cheap enough you could get one to see if it'll be suitable for you.. there are various configurations in a few resolutions, with poe and without, with audio and without, with variable lenses, and without.. look about for em on Ali

there is a big thread here, they call em top-201 iirc.

 

[Legolad]

[UPDATE]
Lol. As I was writing this I had this flashback of having ordered one of these. After a little digging I found it on my workbench. Now I just need to get a POE switch. Wow. I need more brain cells.


[ORIGINAL]
You know, I did look at those early on, but the only light at night is from a street lamp out front and the roof prevents that from reaching the door. I just immediately dismissed them in favor of the IR-enabled cams.

Now you've got me thinking about putting a motion sensor on the transom above the door. The porch lights are already on a Zwave network, so all I'd need is the sensor. They are certainly cheap enough. Looks like I have something to test!

 

[Legolad]

Yeah. That was on my short list earlier but I hadn't checked yet to see if you can connect it without the little mounting stand. If I could do that I might be able to cut a hole to fit it or mount it inside a metal box with a lexan cover. Thanks!

 

[nayr]

take it out of the case and it looks just like the board on the camera you linked, probably will bolt right up to your old setup with minimal modification

This is a standard form factor, disassemble most cameras far enough and you'll find this inside:

also search around for ip board cameras, you can get the same basic components any of us are running in our off the shelf cameras, and stick em in those boxes you already have installed

 

[Legolad]

Awesome! Thanks, Nayr.

 

[tangent]

The other boxes you see are old landline intercoms that I actually still love.

I noticed that you like the mysterious black box when I re-read your post after I typed some of this, but still useful info...

How often does somebody stick their face right in front of the cam trying to see if there's a camera behind the plate?

DoorBell Fon makes some very discrete flush mount products that can actually accommodate a small hidden camera (behind the dark plasitc phone symbol), I haven't used them myself.
http://www.doorbellfon.com/product html/DP38NxF.htm
http://www.doorbellfon.com/product html/DP38NxN.htm
would require a really small camera on the order of the IPC-HUM8101.

Something like the cheap pinhole came mentioned already is a good option. Be warned some "TOP-201" cams have malware iframes in the web interface, switching your DNS to open dns may afford some protection. The in-cable PoE adapter may not fit in the wall box, but it sounds like you have enough cables to do other things if needed. Even if you retired that cam entirely you could still keep the lexan plate. I'd put it back up with a security torx or similar screw not a flat head (ace usually has them locally).

If you wanted other cameras, if they're high enough they probably wouldn't get messed with. You could also hide a camera in birdhouse or a planter.

I'm tempted to try making a hidden camera out of a cellphone camera module that's a generation or two old but still has a nice BSI CMOS sensor.

 

[howiegood]

Be warned some "TOP-201" cams have malware iframes in the web interface, switching your DNS to open dns may afford some protection.

Hi tangent, would you explain how I check for malware?
Howie

 

[tangent]

Hi tangent, would you explain how I check for malware?
Howie

It's discussed in the TOP-201 thread along with firmware updates. I don't think it was too widespread. Basically this was a 1px*1px iframe to a malware domain, other types of malware are possible. View the source code for each page and search for iframe tags or maybe anything with http in the source, repeat for each page of the interface. On the other side of things you're looking at port scans, fiddler, wireshark, proxy logs, etc to analyze what it's doing. Various threads about security measures and distrust of many camera brands. Often some features like NAT traversal may be implemented with the best intentions but they have security consequences. Without going full on layer 3 switch, you can segment cameras pretty well with a second consumer grade wireless router use static ip's, if you give it DNS use open dns only or maybe there's a region lock dns out there, parental controls can restrict it a lot. If you allow them to get to the internet make an ntp server the only destination. Disable UPnP. Some adjustments to RIP ans SPT settings may be required on the primary router for security.


Open DNS may block the malware domain. You can also add malware filters to Adblock / uBlock and of course make all plugins click to load and keep things up to date.