Need some help, need to know what to buy?

[kentuckynet]

Wanting to get my daughter a camera for outside her home, she will want more than 1.
The camera needs to be solar powered, wireless and have the ability where she could have a monitor in the house, and also when away from home see it from her iphone.
Is there such a camera system?
All i need is one camera and dvr/receiving unit, she doesnt actually need a dvr but not sure maybe she has to go that route?
As you can tell i need a little help, she has a internet hotspot in her home but not sure how far this would reach.
I dont want her to have to pay a monthly fee to have these cameras. Farthest distance any extra cameras might be would be 150 ft or less from her home.
thanks for your help, want to get it for christmas

 

[mat200]

Wanting to get my daughter a camera for outside her home, she will want more than 1.
The camera needs to be solar powered, wireless and have the ability where she could have a monitor in the house, and also when away from home see it from her iphone.
Is there such a camera system?
All i need is one camera and dvr/receiving unit, she doesnt actually need a dvr but not sure maybe she has to go that route?
As you can tell i need a little help, she has a internet hotspot in her home but not sure how far this would reach.
I dont want her to have to pay a monthly fee to have these cameras. Farthest distance any extra cameras might be would be 150 ft or less from her home.
thanks for your help, want to get it for christmas

Welcome @kentuckynet

Good to have you join us, and great question.

Personally I have asked Santa for a Electric Car that is like Tesla, but can run all the time on solar panels on it's roof ..

As you can imagine.. I got a letter from an Elf who said "Ain't gonna happen easily" .. I replied, it's ok he doesn't have to bring it down the Chimney, he can leave it in my drive way ..

My recommendation is to take more time to learn what the options are, and to really understand what you want to accomplish.

There are a number of "cloud" / internet dependent solar wifi cameras out there - and perhaps they would work well enough to meet some of your requirements.

If you need to go beyond a "toy" camera ( I jest here ) .. then if you want solar, you will need a serious solar panel system with battary to power a wired security camera system - and that will not be an easy stocking stuffer.

A lot of us here have had issues with WiFi and recommend going with a wired IP PoE system.

( btw - a solar powered EV is in the works by a German company .. we've yet to see it available though .. )

 

[wittaj]

Solar powered and wireless do not exist for surveillance systems, at least not at economical prices. Although you will find some like Arlo and Reolinks, they are useless for being able to ID a perp. For watching dogs play or birdfeeders, they are ok.

 

[Left Coast Geek]

( btw - a solar powered EV is in the works by a German company .. we've yet to see it available though .. )

there are a /few/ out there... my kid spotted this one on a high mountain pass in Morrocco a few years ago...

 

[samplenhold]

Maybe a little more info on what you are trying to 'see' with that cam and how much $ you are willing to spend will help to answer your question.

 

[Gargoile]

Also is there a data cap on the hotspot? Video will kill your data usage if you have limits or caps. I can see it now..person walks into frame and the hotspot says, please deposit another $10 for 2Giigs of data to see the rest of your video.

 

[Left Coast Geek]

most any cam will work OK in the daylight, where they really differ is in how good their night vision is. a poor camera might even superficially look ok on a still scene at night, but something moving will be too blurry. and many cheap cameras 'fake' it with very bright IR illuminators, which I find attract spiders at night, so you end up with images covered in spiderwebs. and battery powered cameras tend to stay off and rely on 'PIR" motion detection, which is slow and can only record things a second or two after detecting a warm body in range. PoE (Power over Ethernet) cameras can record continuously and trigger on complex conditions based on the video such that you can see what happened /before/ the trigger and after it.

Also, if this is for security, you want to be able to get pictures usable for identification, better than 'fuzzy dude wearing a hoodie in the shadows on a bicycle'.

 

[Left Coast Geek]

this is an example of the night vision from a reasonable camera thats been setup properly. just a coyote that wandered by at 2am the other night

camera is a @EmpireAndy IPC-T5442T-ZE at its maximum 12mm zoom, there's a IR spotlight off the lower left side illuminating the driveway entrance, which is like 120 feet from the camera.
View attachment 2021-12-03-Coyote-cropped.mp4

 

[fergenheimer]

this is an example of the night vision from a reasonable camera thats been setup properly. just a coyote that wandered by at 2am the other night

camera is a @EmpireAndy IPC-T5442T-ZE at its maximum 12mm zoom, there's a IR spotlight off the lower left side illuminating the driveway entrance, which is like 120 feet from the camera.
View attachment 111218

Wow, Left Coast Geek, that looks great, I'm going to revisit the thread where you were tweaking it in! I seem to remember you going with an ir flood light. You did good!

 

[Left Coast Geek]

the spotlight had 3 LEDs that were just too bright at the ~100-120 foot range I was shooting for, so I covered 2 of them with 3-4 layers of scotch 'magic' tape to frost them, now 2 of them are floods, and the third is still a spot, this works pretty good. I've actually turned off the IR illuminator on that camera, but there's a wide angle camera right next to it with one on.

Amazon.com : Infrared Illuminator Microlight IR Helios P4 30/130 30deg Narrow Angle up to 300ft Night Vision Outdoor IP67 PSU 99.240 V AC : Electronics

Amazon.com : Infrared Illuminator Microlight IR Helios P4 30/130 30deg Narrow Angle up to 300ft Night Vision Outdoor IP67 PSU 99.240 V AC : Electronics

www.amazon.com

 

[fergenheimer]

the spotlight had 3 LEDs that were just too bright at the ~100-120 foot range I was shooting for, so I covered 2 of them with 3-4 layers of scotch 'magic' tape to frost them, now 2 of them are floods, and the third is still a spot, this works pretty good. I've actually turned off the IR illuminator on that camera, but there's a wide angle camera right next to it with one on.

Amazon.com : Infrared Illuminator Microlight IR Helios P4 30/130 30deg Narrow Angle up to 300ft Night Vision Outdoor IP67 PSU 99.240 V AC : Electronics

Amazon.com : Infrared Illuminator Microlight IR Helios P4 30/130 30deg Narrow Angle up to 300ft Night Vision Outdoor IP67 PSU 99.240 V AC : Electronics

www.amazon.com

That model is no longer available but if you like the brand, I will keep that in mind. I have an area where the IRs on the camera are not enough. I as also noted you left it a five star review on Amazon.

 

[Left Coast Geek]

they are a little expensive. nicely made, properly weatherproof. to permanently install them outdoors, I would solder splice their pigtail to similar wire for the rest o the run, use marine shrink wrap to seal the wires and the whole thing.

I'm looking at IR LED tape, that I can mount in some moldings I already have, and make these 1m long LED light bars I will install under the roof gutters.. strategically placed, I could turn off most of the camera LEDs and have better light.

 

[Left Coast Geek]

this is a 60 degree version, Amazon.com

 

[Vick H]

Hope this is the right spot for this question lol and your going to like it. I bought the two set gs1c zumimall cameras. Problem is I put a 32 gig card in both of them and it wouldn't read them. What to take them out but I don't see them in the camera. So I went and bought 64 gig cards and put those in and they go in and kind of snap in but the 32 still must be in there somehow off the opening for the cards and it's reading 32 instead of 64. I took the 64s out and for the life of me I don't see the 32 cards in there. But they have to be because it's only reading 32 gigs.

 

[Vick H]

Hope this is the right spot for this question lol and your going to like it. I bought the two set gs1c zumimal cameras. Problem is I put a 32 gig card in both of them and it wouldn't read them. Went
to take them out but I don't see them in the camera. So I went and bought 64 gig cards and put those in and they go in and kind of snap in but the 32 still must be in there somehow off the opening for the cards and it's reading 32 instead of 64. I took the 64s out and for the life of me I don't see the 32 cards in there. But they have to be because it's only reading 32 gigs.

 

[Left Coast Geek]

if yiou have a SD (micro?) card stuck in a camera, you're probably going to have to take the camera apart to extract it, and that quite likely will damage its weather seals.

 

[fergenheimer]

this is a 60 degree version, Amazon.com

Almost pulled the trigger and noticed that is a 940nm instead of 850. I've got another question of opinion. The camera's irs illuminate to the first row of trees but I want to see further. You can almost see a blue dot on the top left quadrant. That is the well pump. I obviously have power there. Would an illuminator there work or would it blind the camera as they would be pointed at each other?
Thanks!

 

[sebastiantombs]

Pointing an IR back at a camera isn't a good idea. The first problem is the extreme bright spot it creates. The second problem is that the subject is now lit from behind as they approach which kills all detail, IE no easy identification traits available.

I use this to light up a 250x250 foot area -

Blaster

Amazon.com

A view of the back yard at night using this IR -



Note the bright spot center left. That's the IR in another camera, Dahua 5442, that watches our vehicles. It's about 75 feet from the camera used for the capture, a Dahua 2231.

 

[fergenheimer]

Thanks @sebastiantombs, that was a question I knew the answer to as soon as I hit post! I do see shadows from other irs and bright light when two are pointed at each other. There is a trail to the left that I am interested in and thought I might point the external ir that way and not directly at the camera. With the shadows of the trees and movement in the breeze, that probably will not work well either. I've got one of the CMVision lights but bought the 940nm so it doesn't work well. I'll order the right one and give several locations a try.

 

[Left Coast Geek]

Almost pulled the trigger and noticed that is a 940nm instead of 850. I've got another question of opinion. The camera's irs illuminate to the first row of trees but I want to see further. You can almost see a blue dot on the top left quadrant. That is the well pump. I obviously have power there. Would an illuminator there work or would it blind the camera as they would be pointed at each other?
Thanks!

opoops, I missed that its a 940... afaik, that won't work very well with most of our cameras.

I used the spot specifically to hit my driveway entrance which is 100+ feet away (I think the road is 160 feet or something). its tricky balancing lights between the foreground and distant, a light is 2 f/ stops brighter on an object that is half the distance. I wish these illuminator had a dimmer control so you could balance the light better when you use several.