Why I am finally upgrading cameras

Thanks guys for the comments and suggestions!!! So much to learn still. But I assure I will b/c I WANT to make this happen. For now the lower drive is my priority. I'd like to read the plate at the incline base, but mostly I want clear detail of the vehicle and what they're doing. Driveway alarms in place now and let me know a visitor is here. Then I will head outside to see WTF they want, no matter the time. Carrying of course

I shall return, I have an appt to make...
 
We have all been there at one time with the consumer grade crap that just didn't cut it when it mattered!

Share your images and goals and we can help you buy once (well twice after the Nest issues LOL)
 
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This triple lens camera could be an option as well, for some areas.

 
Really?? I'll have to look into this further and maybe you can make some suggestions on how to correct it. But when I place 1 or 2 cams down on the lower drive, I would hope IR bounce won't be an issue.

Here is a good example showing how something close to the camera reflecting infrared messes with the whole exposure for the same camera

BEFORE: Normal view:

1735923460381.png




AFTER - a tree branch snapped and didn't completely fall and was in part of the field of view. Look how much darker the image is outside of the IR bounce:

1735923307418.png


It is amazing how much an image can be cleared up just by people not having part of the house and IR reflective bounce in the field of view.
 
wow...I'm glad you pointed this IR bounce to me. Never gave it any thought.

When I first setup the Nest cams, I had a glare? issue on a few, but only at night. I thought it might be reflecting from the soffit or fascia boards. I re-positioned them and that did help, but never completely eliminated it. I even made a make-shift shield out of tape, which also helped but not enough. Figured it was the nature of the beast.

Was going to try and lower the cams away from the soffit, but never got around to it. Here's a couple examples, during the night and then during the day without any glare. It was much worse before I messed with them. I know the dots upr lft are water spots.




 
Since I'm still in the planning stages, I'll keep it all here for now instead of scattering it around in other sections.

I'm still undecided on what cameras to get, but at least one will be a PTZ and one varifocal if not both. I want the PTZ at the apron so I can have the ability to watch the apron area, but not leave it there all the time. Otherwise I'll have to deal with traffic causing false triggers, not that there is much of it late night. It would also allow me to get a close up of the driver and maybe a lic plate. Motion would be minimal if any since the vehicle just pulled in. The cam for the base of the incline only needs to cover a narrow target zone(driveway is 18' wide), for about 100' of distance. But if there was a need, the varifocal would allow me to extend that if I wanted, at a loss of some detail. That's if I understand the function of varifocal correctly. But I also understand my expectations might fall short due to WIFI. Which is why I want to be sure I get the best wifi cam for my needs I don't really have much choice right now, so the end result will be...what I see is what I get. Better than what I have now tho. I do intend on contacting Andy and see if he can give me suggestions to meet my needs

Next...camera mounting...

I initially wanted to mount both cams on a couple trees. The test mule at the incline base is mounted to one. But changed my mind. For one...to access the tree, I had to put the ladder in my loader bucket and position it over the bank. But that was a bit too precarious for my liking, esp if I have to make several trips up/down the tree to get it positioned correctly or for any other needs. As for the apron, there is a perfect tree that I could get the proper height easily, but that tree is on the ROW for the road. Not even sure that I could put one there. So now I've decided to mount both cams on a stand alone post.

My experience with poles is they're too flimsy for 8-10' tall. I did look at lamp posts, but those are about $700 ea so forget that. I can get a 12' 6x6 cedar for under $200 at bLowes. Probably got to a real lumber yard or mill for those. But that would only give me a height of 8' if I bury it 3'. Both poles would be set on the uphill bank for the driveway, so I'll gain some more height there. But I want to limit the distance from the cams to the driveway. Probably have to use a test pole to find the sweet spot.
 
Like many have mentioned, theft is a concern. But as rural as I am, the only thief I'd have to be concerned with, is one who drove into the property. The camera hopefully would catch them in the act. Plus the house cams and driveway alarms would alert me and I'd head out there. At least that's my thinking right now. I'll also devise a way to lock the cameras to the post itself.

Today I'm going to set up one of the Nest cams on a T post (temporarily) across the driveway from the house. I'll have to run an ext cord to power it. Reason being, the driveway alarms have been tripping. At night I can see the deer causing the trip from a house cam and the motion lights I put down there help light the area. But at the apron I can't see shit. I put a game cam down there, but wifi is sketchy at times. There have been times lately that during the day, the apron alarm goes off. Maybe an animal, maybe someone turning around? I have hustled out there, but didn't see anything. Its not from trees or bushes blowing b/c the alarm is at ground level and it faces a bank across the apron.

Any and all comments would be greatly appreciated. I honestly want to make this work with wifi cams.
 
And then there's BI. I have seen many posts with comments and problems with using it, and it may as well be in Arabic lol. So much still to learn and understand. After I get a handle on the cameras, I'll dive into BI more and see if I can get a better grasp of it. Right now...whew!!:wtf:
 
Since I'm still in the planning stages, I'll keep it all here for now instead of scattering it around in other sections.

I'm still undecided on what cameras to get, but at least one will be a PTZ and one varifocal if not both. I want the PTZ at the apron so I can have the ability to watch the apron area, but not leave it there all the time. Otherwise I'll have to deal with traffic causing false triggers, not that there is much of it late night. It would also allow me to get a close up of the driver and maybe a lic plate. Motion would be minimal if any since the vehicle just pulled in. The cam for the base of the incline only needs to cover a narrow target zone(driveway is 18' wide), for about 100' of distance. But if there was a need, the varifocal would allow me to extend that if I wanted, at a loss of some detail. That's if I understand the function of varifocal correctly. But I also understand my expectations might fall short due to WIFI. Which is why I want to be sure I get the best wifi cam for my needs I don't really have much choice right now, so the end result will be...what I see is what I get. Better than what I have now tho. I do intend on contacting Andy and see if he can give me suggestions to meet my needs

Next...camera mounting...

I initially wanted to mount both cams on a couple trees. The test mule at the incline base is mounted to one. But changed my mind. For one...to access the tree, I had to put the ladder in my loader bucket and position it over the bank. But that was a bit too precarious for my liking, esp if I have to make several trips up/down the tree to get it positioned correctly or for any other needs. As for the apron, there is a perfect tree that I could get the proper height easily, but that tree is on the ROW for the road. Not even sure that I could put one there. So now I've decided to mount both cams on a stand alone post.

My experience with poles is they're too flimsy for 8-10' tall. I did look at lamp posts, but those are about $700 ea so forget that. I can get a 12' 6x6 cedar for under $200 at bLowes. Probably got to a real lumber yard or mill for those. But that would only give me a height of 8' if I bury it 3'. Both poles would be set on the uphill bank for the driveway, so I'll gain some more height there. But I want to limit the distance from the cams to the driveway. Probably have to use a test pole to find the sweet spot.

Keep in mind that PTZ cameras are a great compliment to an existing static/fixed cam system.

Nobody here would suggest a PTZ on patrol. They are only good for so many cycles and people have locked up their PTZ by having it on 24/7 patrol.

So with only one PTZ and no additional fixed cameras - what happens when 2 or more people come up to your house - the PTZ is only catching and tracking one of them, not all of them.

That is why PTZs are not a replacement for fixed cameras - they are a compliment to an existing system.

You wouldn't want to depend on a PTZ only as you can't have enough PTZs for a crew of perps coming thru - it would lock on one and miss the others, but it can provide great additional video.

See this thread on how to use your fixed cams to tell the PTZ where to look to help pick up even more useful video.


You would have to set the camera up specifically to read plates. You need the proper camera with OPTICAL zoom for the distance you are covering and the angle to get plates.

Regarding plates, keep in mind that this is a camera dedicated to plates and not an overview camera also. It is as much an art as it is a science. You will need two cameras. For LPR we need to OPTICALLY zoom in tight to make the plate as large as possible. For most of us, all you see is the not much more than a vehicle in the entire frame. Now maybe in the right location during the day it might be able to see some other things, but not at night.

Do not fall into the trap that you could occasionally capture plates when a car came close enough to the camera and stopped why it turned around. A moving vehicle on your driveway will be a completely different animal.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night of vehicles traveling about 45MPH at 175 feet from my 2MP 5241-Z12E camera (that is all that is needed for plates):

1675078711764.png



See the LPR subforum for more details.
 
But I also understand my expectations might fall short due to WIFI. Which is why I want to be sure I get the best wifi cam for my needs I don't really have much choice right now, so the end result will be...what I see is what I get. Better than what I have now tho. I do intend on contacting Andy and see if he can give me suggestions to meet my needs

Wifi and cameras do not go together.

There are always ways if you don't want to run an ethernet cable.

You need power anyway, so go with a powerline adapter to run the date over your electric lines or use a nano-station.

Maybe you are fine now one day with wifi cams, but one day something will happen. A new device, neighbors microwave, etc.

Or the perps come with a wif jammer...

Cameras connected to Wifi routers (whether wifi or not) are problematic for surveillance cameras because they are always streaming and passing data. And the data demands go up with motion and then you lose signal. A lost packet and it has to resend. It can bring the whole network down if trying to send cameras through a wifi router. At the very least it can slow down your entire system.

Unlike Netflix and other streaming services that buffer a movie, these cameras do not buffer up part of the video, so drop outs are frequent, especially once you start adding distance. You would be amazed how much streaming services buffer - don't believe me, start watching something and unplug your router and watch how much longer you can watch NetFlix before it freezes - mine goes 45 seconds. Now do the same with a camera connected to a router and it is fairly instantaneous (within the latency of the stream itself)...

The same issue applies even with the hard-wired cameras trying to send all this non-buffer video stream through a router. Most consumer grade wifi routers are not designed to pass the constant video stream data of cameras, and since they do not buffer, you get these issues. The consumer routers are just not designed for this kind of traffic, even a GB speed router.

So the more cameras you add, the bigger the potential for issues.


This was a great test that SouthernYankee tried and posted about it here:

I did a WIFI test a while back with multiple 2MP cameras each camera was set to VBR, 15 FPS, 15 Iframe, 3072kbs, h.264. Using a WIFI analyzer I selected the least busy channel (1,6,11) on the 2.4 GHZ band and set up a separate access point. With 3 cameras in direct line of sight of the AP about 25 feet away I was able to maintain a reasonable stable network with only intermittent signal drops from the cameras. Added a 4th camera and the network became totally unstable. Also add a lot of motion to the 3 cameras caused some more network instability. More data more instability.
The cameras are nearly continuously transmitting. So any lost packet causes a retry, which cause more traffic, which causes more lost packets.
WIFI does not have a flow control, or a token to transmit. So your devices transmit any time they want, more devices more collisions.
As a side note, it is very easy to jam a WIFI network. WIFI is fine for watching the bird feed but not for home surveillance and security.
The problem is like standing in a room, with multiple people talking to you at the same time about different subjects. You need to answer each person or they repeat the question.

Test do not guess.

For a 802.11G 2.4 GHZ WIFI network the Theoretical Speed is 54Mbps (6.7MBs) real word speed is nearer to 10-29Mbps (1.25-3.6 MBs) for a single channel


And TonyR recommends this (which is the preferred way IF you want to do wifi)

The only way I'd have wireless cams is the way I have them now: a dedicated 802.11n, 2.4GHz Access Point for 3 cams, nothing else uses that AP. Its assigned channel is at the max separation from another 2.4GHz channel in the house. There is no other house near me for about 300 yards and we're separated by dense foliage and trees.

Those 3 cams are indoor, non-critical pet cams (Amcrest IP2M-841's) streaming to Blue Iris and are adequately reliable for their jobs. They take their turns losing signal/reconnecting usually about every 12 hours or so for about 20 seconds which I would not tolerate for an outdoor surveillance cam pointed at my house and/or property.

But for me, this works in my situation: dedicated AP, non-critical application and periodic, short-term video loss.... if any one of those 3 conditions can't be achieved or tolerated, then I also do not recommend using wireless cams. :cool:
 
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Many people unfortunately think wifi cameras are the answer and they are not. People will say what about Ring and Nest - well that is another whole host of issues that we will not discuss here LOL, but they are not streaming 24/7, only when you pull up the app. And then we see all the people come here after that system failed them because their wifi couldn't keep up when the perp came by. For streaming 24/7 to something like an NVR or Blue Iris, forget about it if you want reliability.


This is how the consumer based cameras "gets" away with wifi cams because they only stream when recording because if they were 24/7 it would cause even more phone calls to the 1-800 numbers.

But we have a whole thread dedicated to the wifi crap quality of wifi cameras because they cannot keep up with the bandwidth demands of increased bitrate during motion.

Even a few of your images show this issue. This image is a low rez image because the wifi couldn't keep up and this is attached to your house. A real camera sending 24/7 video to a VMS system will be even worse.

1736009562514.png


Here is one of the many examples from the thread I linked:

With motion of only a 2MP camera:

1735833063937.png



Without motion:

1735833079905.png



If you are serious about this, don't even consider wifi cameras.
 
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And then there's BI. I have seen many posts with comments and problems with using it, and it may as well be in Arabic lol. So much still to learn and understand. After I get a handle on the cameras, I'll dive into BI more and see if I can get a better grasp of it. Right now...whew!!:wtf:

There are just as many issues with NVRs also.

An active thread right now where someone can't get a camera to be recognized in an NVR.

Here is the search tool of all the NVR versus BI comparisons:

blue iris vs nvr ip cam site:ipcamtalk.com - Google Search


NONE of the better grade systems are true plug-n-play either. At a minimum you need to manually set shutter speeds.

If you want true plug-n-play simplicity, then justs continue to go with one of the consumer brands - Ring, Arlo, Reolink, Nest, Blink, etc. They are true plug-n-play because those cameras all run on default/auto settings with very little, to no ability to change camera parameters. Just recognize nighttime motion quality will be poor.

Simply download their app and scan the camera QR code and you are up and running, with a better app experience also.

But their plug-n-play simplicity comes at a cost of nighttime performance and ability to customize stuff, but obviously many do not seem to care about that as those systems are popular and those consumer grade systems are a perfect fit for those that want simplicity and not having to learn how to use an NVR or other type of VMS system.
 
Maybe I'm wrong, but everything considered, maybe I don't need to worry about a LPR right now. But I'd get one as an add on eventually. I mostly want to be able to see the entire lower drive and be able to decide if I need to go out there. I will not hesitate to do this at any hour of the day. I have gone out at 3am in the past to confront someone.

Can I put a PTZ and a fixed cam on the same pole for the apron area? Maybe the fixed could be a wide angle?
Bear with me with these Q's as I'm still trying to understand and figure out what will work for my needs. Had no idea of the complexity with all the camera options. Def an eye opener for me and glad someone referred me to this site.
 
Maybe I'm wrong, but everything considered, maybe I don't need to worry about a LPR right now. But I'd get one as an add on eventually. I mostly want to be able to see the entire lower drive and be able to decide if I need to go out there. I will not hesitate to do this at any hour of the day. I have gone out at 3am in the past to confront someone.

Can I put a PTZ and a fixed cam on the same pole for the apron area? Maybe the fixed could be a wide angle?
Bear with me with these Q's as I'm still trying to understand and figure out what will work for my needs. Had no idea of the complexity with all the camera options. Def an eye opener for me and glad someone referred me to this site.

Yes you can put two cameras on the pole and have a PTZ and a fixed cam.

Many come here AFTER being violated looking how to do LPR because their system just didn't catch enough detail.

Heck we have a guy in another thread developing a method to get the unique identifiers of a TPMS sensor in the event the plates are removed/covered.

You can never have too many ways to try to capture the identity of the perps.

What if you can't get out there fast enough? Would be nice to give the police a plate number.

If you are in position to be close enough to get the camera like next to your driveway and angling the camera looking down your driveway to a spot of about 35ish feet or so, you can accomplish LPR with a $120 camera. Cheap investment.
 
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Wifi and cameras do not go together.

There are always ways if you don't want to run an ethernet cable.

You need power anyway, so go with a powerline adapter to run the date over your electric lines or use a nano-station.

Maybe you are fine now one day with wifi cams, but one day something will happen. A new device, neighbors microwave, etc.

Or the perps come with a wif jammer...

Cameras connected to Wifi routers (whether wifi or not) are problematic for surveillance cameras because they are always streaming and passing data. And the data demands go up with motion and then you lose signal. A lost packet and it has to resend. It can bring the whole network down if trying to send cameras through a wifi router. At the very least it can slow down your entire system.

Unlike Netflix and other streaming services that buffer a movie, these cameras do not buffer up part of the video, so drop outs are frequent, especially once you start adding distance. You would be amazed how much streaming services buffer - don't believe me, start watching something and unplug your router and watch how much longer you can watch NetFlix before it freezes - mine goes 45 seconds. Now do the same with a camera connected to a router and it is fairly instantaneous (within the latency of the stream itself)...

The same issue applies even with the hard-wired cameras trying to send all this non-buffer video stream through a router. Most consumer grade wifi routers are not designed to pass the constant video stream data of cameras, and since they do not buffer, you get these issues. The consumer routers are just not designed for this kind of traffic, even a GB speed router.

So the more cameras you add, the bigger the potential for issues.


This was a great test that SouthernYankee tried and posted about it here:

I did a WIFI test a while back with multiple 2MP cameras each camera was set to VBR, 15 FPS, 15 Iframe, 3072kbs, h.264. Using a WIFI analyzer I selected the least busy channel (1,6,11) on the 2.4 GHZ band and set up a separate access point. With 3 cameras in direct line of sight of the AP about 25 feet away I was able to maintain a reasonable stable network with only intermittent signal drops from the cameras. Added a 4th camera and the network became totally unstable. Also add a lot of motion to the 3 cameras caused some more network instability. More data more instability.
The cameras are nearly continuously transmitting. So any lost packet causes a retry, which cause more traffic, which causes more lost packets.
WIFI does not have a flow control, or a token to transmit. So your devices transmit any time they want, more devices more collisions.
As a side note, it is very easy to jam a WIFI network. WIFI is fine for watching the bird feed but not for home surveillance and security.
The problem is like standing in a room, with multiple people talking to you at the same time about different subjects. You need to answer each person or they repeat the question.

Test do not guess.

For a 802.11G 2.4 GHZ WIFI network the Theoretical Speed is 54Mbps (6.7MBs) real word speed is nearer to 10-29Mbps (1.25-3.6 MBs) for a single channel


And TonyR recommends this (which is the preferred way IF you want to do wifi)

The only way I'd have wireless cams is the way I have them now: a dedicated 802.11n, 2.4GHz Access Point for 3 cams, nothing else uses that AP. Its assigned channel is at the max separation from another 2.4GHz channel in the house. There is no other house near me for about 300 yards and we're separated by dense foliage and trees.

Those 3 cams are indoor, non-critical pet cams (Amcrest IP2M-841's) streaming to Blue Iris and are adequately reliable for their jobs. They take their turns losing signal/reconnecting usually about every 12 hours or so for about 20 seconds which I would not tolerate for an outdoor surveillance cam pointed at my house and/or property.

But for me, this works in my situation: dedicated AP, non-critical application and periodic, short-term video loss.... if any one of those 3 conditions can't be achieved or tolerated, then I also do not recommend using wireless cams. :cool:
insert the emoji for my eyes rolling around my head lol. I had to read it 3 times to understand. lol The thought of trenching and everything else, is overwhelming. I'm buried up to my ears right now, This would only put me further behind. Was hoping to get by with just a coupe cams to be an eye in the sky for that area. But after understanding you better. and being this isn't a super urgent situation, maybe I am better off to trench and rune the lines I need. Gonna have to give this more thought before I proceed. The last thing I want is to put wifi cams down there and be disappointed.

There is no power at all anywhere close, so a nano station won't work there.

I'd like to investigate this more:

>>>For a 802.11G 2.4 GHZ WIFI network the Theoretical Speed is 54Mbps (6.7MBs) real word speed is nearer to 10-29Mbps (1.25-3.6 MBs) for a single channel

>>>And TonyR recommends this (which is the preferred way IF you want to do wifi)
 
insert the emoji for my eyes rolling around my head lol. I had to read it 3 times to understand. lol The thought of trenching and everything else, is overwhelming. I'm buried up to my ears right now, This would only put me further behind. Was hoping to get by with just a coupe cams to be an eye in the sky for that area. But after understanding you better. and being this isn't a super urgent situation, maybe I am better off to trench and rune the lines I need. Gonna have to give this more thought before I proceed. The last thing I want is to put wifi cams down there and be disappointed.

There is no power at all anywhere close, so a nano station won't work there.

I'd like to investigate this more:

>>>For a 802.11G 2.4 GHZ WIFI network the Theoretical Speed is 54Mbps (6.7MBs) real word speed is nearer to 10-29Mbps (1.25-3.6 MBs) for a single channel

>>>And TonyR recommends this (which is the preferred way IF you want to do wifi)

Yeah if you do run wifi, it is highly recommended to have a router that is not connected to the internet and the rest of your network and have it simply be for the cameras. Just recognize/accept that there will still be video drop out and fails.

But if you want/expect any level of detail that far away from the house, don't expect to get it with wifi cams.

How long do you go between charges on Nest? Keep in mind a camera streaming 24/7 will use a lot more power and will die faster.

Maybe you compromise for now with better cameras on the house and a few of these Nest for potential early indicators of someone coming up the driveway.
 
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Just a comment about my current cams...my Nest do run 24/7. I have every sec of time for the last 60days available. But I'm going to assume its considered recording b/c of the loss of detail when I look beyond 24hrs back.
 
Just a comment about my current cams...my Nest do run 24/7. I have every sec of time for the last 60days available. But I'm going to assume its considered recording b/c of the loss of detail when I look beyond 24hrs back.

From Nest:

Nest Cam (wired) or Nest Cam (battery)
These cameras can record 24/7 if they're connected to power and have a 24/7 Video History subscription. After about 8 minutes of continuous recording, they'll switch to event recording. Note: 24/7 video history is not available on Nest Doorbell (battery), even when wired. Available with Nest Cam (outdoor or indoor, battery) when wired.


So you are getting 24/7 with a battery operated camera? If so, how long does the battery last?

How much is that monthly subscription for subpar pixelated substream video in motion?
 
"Yeah if you do run wifi, it is highly recommended to have a router that is not connected to the internet and the rest of your network and have it simply be for the cameras. Just recognize/accept that there will still be video drop out and fails."

This sounds like a possibility combined with adding a camera...not consumer junk...to the house. Would I lose phone access to the cams set up like this?

Bear with me please lol. I'm am trying my best to follow every last thing you just said, and Can't thank you enough for all that info!!!. Its starting to make sense . As I said, I may just say F it and do it right by trenching. Its not that I'm not capable of doing that, just another project I dont need.
 
From Nest:

Nest Cam (wired) or Nest Cam (battery)
These cameras can record 24/7 if they're connected to power and have a 24/7 Video History subscription. After about 8 minutes of continuous recording, they'll switch to event recording. Note: 24/7 video history is not available on Nest Doorbell (battery), even when wired. Available with Nest Cam (outdoor or indoor, battery) when wired.


So you are getting 24/7 with a battery operated camera? If so, how long does the battery last?

How much is that monthly subscription for subpar pixelated substream video in motion?
No battery, all powered and no door bell. All 8 are outdoor IQ cams and 3 with flood lights

Last I knew subscript cost me $12 per month