Planning for a newbuild - complete newbie

Vincent

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Hey all, newbie here getting a start on planning IP cam coverage for a house under construction. I've tried to make a start and located Cat-6 to the couple of locations marked on the attached pic. Basically I'm trying to determine locations but trying also to limit number of external cameras to 2 to 4 if possible.

I am just starting to digest the good information available on the site but in the meantime I'd thought I'd keep a running post on ideas, so I can incorporate any feedback as we go along.

Summary so far:

1) POE IP camera mounted centre of garage door opening. Probably quite a wide FOV to capture road in front and movement in the driveway. Height of camera around 2.4m (just under 8 feet). At this stage I was considering a Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z) based on the extensive thread, low light performance, and the fact I don't know what I'm doing with FOV so will probably appreciate the flexibility!

2) Stub wall to left wall of the driveway I was going to put in a separate video intercom system. Given so few experiences successfully integrating these into an IP cam ecology, probably going to be one of those that sit separate. I've run Cat 6 to the location anyway just in case as I understand one can often use the Cat-6 as a connector cable between external intercom unit and internal screen anyway. Not sure which unit and there appear to be plenty on the market - any recommendations?

3) POE IP cam mounted at the rear right of the house covering most of the backyard and pool. Height of camera about 2.3m (roughly 7.5 ft).

4) Cat-6 runs back to central location where I'll connect to a patch panel, then through to a POE unmanaged switch (considering a HP 1820-24G-PoE+ at this stage). I might run the IP cam cables to an NVR? There will be a NAS in the tech space with the rack but at this stage I'm considering a separate NVR solution rather than BI off NAS or similar, for simplicity). The video intercom cables may be run separately again depending on which unit is chosen.

5) Haven't really thought about internal coverage yet but with 18 internal cat 6 outlets plus hopefully a reasonably extensive wifi system, open to suggestions on 1 or 2 internal cameras/locations.

6) Are there alarm systems e.g. pet friendly PIR's that are favoured by the community here? A bit off topic...

Many thanks for any feedback you might have

ipcam.jpg
 

nayr

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Just start off slow, working on your driveway and front door are the best places to start.. use External PoE so you can place your NVR some place else than your central wiring point or distribute cameras across branched switches.

Indoors there should be some good dahua starlight mini-domes w/IR coming down the pipeline, I'd like to get one for the kids playroom.. You can put one of the 3.6mm in a corner and see the entire room, see Dahua Starlight Mini-Dome 3.6mm (IPC-HDB4231C-AS)

Indoors my cameras are: Living Room, Kids Bedroom, Kids Playroom, Garage Bay, and Pet Door.
Outdoors my cameras are: Front Door & Driveway, Back Door & Patio, 2x Street Parking, Trailer/Trash and Gate to back yard, LPR off Street Traffic that all are using zoom extensively and I have a single wide angle on back yard.

~12 cams and I cant really think of any place else to put another camera, unless I want to watch the sky/weather.. I do have a narrow perspective from my roof that can see the mountains ;) though I am trying to get a 2nd LPR camera online for cheap
 

Vincent

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Thanks Nayr, wow that's a LOT of cameras. I've also appreciated your various posts around the forum, really been a great primer for starting from zero.

At this stage I'm thinking of another camera or two off the laundry (there's a line run to there already) which is sort of midway on the narrow West side of the house. 2x in corridor mode pointing to the front and back @ about 2300mm height should capture ID's hopefully if someone jumps the fence and tries entry through there.

Your point on running multiple cameras off branched switches makes sense and I hadn't thought of that before. I will have a POE enabled switch centrally but a long way from the cameras. For the cameras on branched switches, would I also run an additional POE switch at the branching point? I assume there is a limit to how much amperage a single POE port off the central location will support...
 

nayr

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If you have power nearby you can just put a 2nd poe switch and link em together.. its safe to plug non-powered devices into a PoE switch and use it like a normal switch.

If you dont have power nearby you can use one of these: 1 to 4 PoE Extender as long as your cameras combined dont over-draw the port.. standard PoE is ~12W and PoE+ is ~25W but many supplies provide more than that, its just the guaranteed minimum specified in specs.. Fixed cameras usually use 2W-8W each, PTZ's 18W-60W depending, spec sheets should reveal maximum current draw.

I started off with 4 cameras outside, then kept building up..
 
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Vincent

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Thank you for the rule of thumb on power draw, that should work well as I intend to get a POE+ switch centrally so an extender might work. Do you think 2 or 3 cameras off the same Cat-6 link will have enough bandwith. Theoretically this should handle 1gbp so I assume yes, but not sure in practice.

Secondly do you think 7 to 8 feet is a reasonable mounting height for cameras looking for facial id's?
 

nayr

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that extender is fast ethernet, but H264 cameras dont really require more than 10Mbps cranked up at full quality so even that is more than adaquate for 4 cameras.
 

looney2ns

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Thank you for the rule of thumb on power draw, that should work well as I intend to get a POE+ switch centrally so an extender might work. Do you think 2 or 3 cameras off the same Cat-6 link will have enough bandwith. Theoretically this should handle 1gbp so I assume yes, but not sure in practice.

Secondly do you think 7 to 8 feet is a reasonable mounting height for cameras looking for facial id's?
No higher than 8ft. Lower is better.
 
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