New here. Wanting to add cameras to my property, recommendations?

[agarb]

I would like to implement a camera system to monitor several areas around my property. Considering that this is a multi-acre rural property, I am not concerned about monitoring the entire driveway and lawn. I am focused mainly on access points to my homes and buildings, especially as I rent out space in one of the barns for boat and camper storage.

I have read the cliff notes but confess that I don’t understand everything I read. I did notice that some of the camera recommendations are about 5 years old so I am not sure what the best current recommendations are. Since I have no practical experience, I was hoping I could get some guidance and recommendation on the camera hardware and placement.

Refer to attached image from google maps.

Goals -

1. Monitor back door of house. Mount camera on soffit at position A, 8.5 feet high.
2. Monitor front door of house and the driveway coming in from the road. People generally pull in from the road, park in this section of driveway, and then walk to the front door. Is it possible to “identify” across the 35 ft span from the far side of the driveway to the front door? I would prefer to mount the camera at position C (on the soffit of Barn 1, 14 feet high) but I wonder if position B (house soffit, 9 feet high) is better? Distance to door is 30 feet if mounted at C but only 22 feet if mounted at B.
3. Monitor 28” feet of driveway along Barn 2 and the 53’ door section on Barn 2. I was thinking this would be done with 2 cameras mounted on soffit of Barn 1 at positions D and E. But maybe a camera at point G would also be useful? The problem with location G is that it will be difficult to get network cable to this area.
4. Monitor garage doors and the area in front of them on the west side of barn 1. Maybe from a second camera mounted at position E?
5. Monitor overhead door and entry door on south end of barn 1 by a camera mounted on soffit at position F, 11 feet high.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[Rob2020]

You are off to a good start. You did not mention a budget and you did not mention if you plane to use Blue Iris and a PC (what I recommend) or a NVR.

I would recommend you start slow and build your system, the distance issues can be overcome by using a varifocal camera. You would be better mounting lower than 11/14 feet and using a varifocal to close the distance. The Dahua 2231 is an excellent first camera, great at night, varifocal, $125 currently. This will allow you to get familiar with views, coverage, focal length, etc

2231

Getting ethernet to the barn can be accomplished with direct burial cable, not that hard to trench a small trench and bury the cable.

The best value for the money is the Dahua 5442 cameras. The 3.6mm 5442 is a favorite here. These currently run $160 and can be purchased as Dahua OEM rebrands from EmpireTech Andy (Amazon or direct from Andy). If you wanted to buy two cams to start the 2231 and 5442 would be a solid start.

 

[wittaj]

Keep in mind one camera cannot be the do all/see all. Each one is picked for their particular purpose. In some instances it is a fixed lens and other instances it is a varfocal.

You need to decide do you want wide angle see a lot but only DETECT and OBSERVE, or varifocal that you zoom in to pinch points to IDENTIFY.

See this thread for more on the importance of focal length, along with the commonly suggested cameras in terms of cost and performance day and night, These cameras represent the best all-around choices for what you are trying to accomplish.

The Importance of Focal Length over MP in camera selection

At the urging of several folks here, I created a thread to show the importance of focal length and how focal length can be more important than megapixels (MP). I mentioned some of this in the post regarding The Hookup’s latest video demonstrating different cameras, including one sold from a...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[agarb]

Thanks for the responses. The link about the importance of focal link was interesting and the camera links were very helpful.

It is actually hard to get ethernet to the one barn. Trenching is a tough option because the driveway is blacktop. So a buried cable would have to go out and around the pavement which makes the run quite long; maybe approaching the 100m distance limit.

Was planning to use BI. I have an old PC here that I can probably get started with and then upgrade as I outgrow it.

 

[wittaj]

Glad our responses help!

You can look at potentially a Powerline Adapter to run the data over the electric line to the barn if it already has electric out there (it may or may not work based on how the electric and panels were ran). Or use an ubiquity nanostation or something similar to have a dedicated RF link to the barn. @TonyR is our resident expert with those types of devices and can jump in more here with his recommendations.

BI is great!

 

[TonyR]

@TonyR is our resident expert with those types of devices and can jump in more here with his recommendations.

Oh, I dunno 'bout that..
@agarb, is there power to both barns?

 

[agarb]

Yes, there is electric in all the barns. I will make a sketch later today showing how the power feeds are ran through the various panels.

 

[TonyR]

Yes, there is electric in all the barns. I will make a sketch later today showing how the power feeds are ran through the various panels.

I asked to insure there's power for these radios. If there is Line Of Sight (LOS) between the 2 points to be spanned I'd go with a Ubiquiti Layer 2 Transparent Bridge ==>> airMAX - Guide to Configure a Point-to-Point Link (Layer 2, Transparent Bridge)

You can also go PtMP (Point to Multi-Point) as here ==>> airMAX - Guide to Configure a Point-to-Multipoint (PtMP) ISP-Style Access Point

I've installed over a dozen of them in the last several years and all are still working great but the Nanostations and Loco's of both 2.4 and 5GHz flavor have been hard to get or VERY expensive this past year or so. About the only one in stock right now is this one for $60, quite overkill for your distance but you can dial back the transmit power==>> Ubiquiti airMAX LiteBeam Gen 2 5AC 5GHz 23dBi CPE US

I hesitate to recommend a pair of the TP-LINK CPE210 radios even though I put one in 2 weeks ago on 1/28/23 and it's working great BUT....all my Ubiquiti installs have been running with no hiccups for over 8 years now...time will tell about the TP-LINK wireless bridge. I was between a rock and a hard place so I had to go with it.

If set up correctly the Ubiquiti Layer 2 Transp. Bridge will be like a CAT-5e cable, but without the distance limitations, will be a dielectric media that won't attract or conduct ESD / lightning damage but of course, cannot carry POE voltage.

Here's the schema I've used the last several years. The above Litebeams are different as far as configuration terms but the instructions above to the Ubiquiti airMAX Guide will make that distinction between "AC" devices (like the Litebeam above) and "M" devices (the type in my image below) when configuring.

 

[Sybertiger]

Whatever you do, plan to make your system robust enough to handle additional cams. It's not uncommon for someone to have 10 cams setup for a single story 2,000 sq-ft home on a small lot. As it was said above, don't expect a camera to cover a large field of view and have desirable DORI (Detection, Observation, Recognition, Identification) quality.

 

[wittaj]

I asked to insure there's power for these radios. If there is Line Of Sight (LOS) between the 2 points to be spanned I'd go with a Ubiquiti Layer 2 Transparent Bridge ==>> airMAX - Guide to Configure a Point-to-Point Link (Layer 2, Transparent Bridge)


You can also go PtMP (Point to Multi-Point) as here ==>> airMAX - Guide to Configure a Point-to-Multipoint (PtMP) ISP-Style Access Point

I've installed over a dozen of them in the last several years and all are still working great but the Nanostations and Loco's of both 2.4 and 5GHz flavor have been hard to get or VERY expensive this past year or so. About the only one in stock right now is this one for $60, quite overkill for your distance but you can dial back the transmit power==>> Ubiquiti airMAX LiteBeam Gen 2 5AC 5GHz 23dBi CPE US

I hesitate to recommend a pair of the TP-LINK CPE210 radios even though I put one in 2 weeks ago on 1/28/23 and it's working great BUT....all my Ubiquiti installs have been running with no hiccups for over 8 years now...time will tell about the TP-LINK wireless bridge. I was between a rock and a hard place so I had to go with it.

If set up correctly the Ubiquiti Layer 2 Transp. Bridge will be like a CAT-5e cable, but without the distance limitations, will be a dielectric media that won't attract or conduct ESD / lightning damage but of course, cannot carry POE voltage.

Here's the schema I've used the last several years. The above Litebeams are different as far as configuration terms but the instructions above to the Ubiquiti airMAX Guide will make that distinction between "AC" devices (like the Litebeam above) and "M" devices (the type in my image below) when configuring.

And this is why I call you are resident expert LOL. You have first-hand real experience with at least 3 different options for RF type connections!

 

[agarb]

I hesitate to recommend a pair of the TP-LINK CPE210 radios even though I put one in 2 weeks ago on 1/28/23 and it's working great BUT....all my Ubiquiti installs have been running with no hiccups for over 8 years now...time will tell about the TP-LINK wireless bridge. I was between a rock and a hard place so I had to go with it.

Believe it or not, I actually have experience with the TP-Link CPE710.

About 18 months ago,I helped a friend piggy-back onto his parent's internet connection. He lives about 1/3 mile across a farm field from them. It's a fairly rural area and his parents (and myself) get internet from a small local company using Ubiquiti gear transmitting from the top of a grain leg. But my friend didn't have line of sight to the grain leg while his parents did. So we installed a CPE710 on his Dad's barn and another on friend's house. After the install, we verified that my friend was getting internet speeds in the 5-8 Mbps range and left it at that. Did not test any other throughput speeds. The connection has been pretty robust with no issues that he has told me about. He is actually in the process of putting another CPE710 on his new barn, also pointing back at the AP on his parent's property.

For now, I'm going to concentrate on getting just a couple cameras installed and worry about networking to other building after that. At least I now know who the expert is!

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

We did a project for a big farm at WA last year, and they are working very well, customer is happy.

Here are my suggestion for your place. Bullet B5442E-ZE or Z4E has Stronger IR than the turret, so your place most of them use the bullet is better, not too big if install at the barn.

POE NVR maybe good for your using, we have long range ePOE power way, support 800m with epoe cams and cat6 cable, so not really need bridge.

 

[agarb]

Here are my suggestion for your place.

Thank you. I will review the recommendations and try to learn more.

 

[Rob2020]

As a FYI since you are new here, Andy is highly regarded here and provides technical support to the products he sells.

 

[Coldair]

I had a guy bore under the driveway and stuff in a 1.25 pvc conduit

 

[TonyR]

@agarb ,
If you don't mind me asking, what is your gepgraphic location?
I ask because of lightning...light, moderate or severe?

No way would I install any length of metallic, conductive cable for networking or communication purposes between 2 structures, especially if either or both have a metal roof, even underground, in an area with such severe lighting as is prevalent here in the southeast U.S. (FL, GA, AL, MS, SC, TN, IN). ...but maybe that's just me.

 

[agarb]

@agarb ,
If you don't mind me asking, what is your gepgraphic location?
I ask because of lightning...light, moderate or severe?

I'm in the midwest. We get thunderstorms. Buildings have metal roofing.

 

[TonyR]

I'm in the midwest. We get thunderstorms. Buildings have metal roofing.

Then I re-emphasize the last paragraph in my previous post. ^^^

 

[looney2ns]

Keep in mind that lightning does not need to be a direct hit to do damage.
An induced surge can occur from strikes up to a mile or more away.

 

[Sybertiger]

^^^^ no joke....I remember getting a pretty nice jolt to the arm when I grabbed the metal framed sliding glass door to close it as a thunderstorm was approaching. Bad timing....it was enough to make me yelp and I'm not a yelper....LOL.