Wifi cameras with solar panels for large area

[equinox1191]

I need to set up about 14 wifi cameras in a trailer park. The owners bought Arlo cameras that require a base station and 5 pair with each one, the range on these is not enough. The area all has good wifi coverage with several high gain antennas being placed, but the Arlo system doesn't take advantage of that as each camera connects to the base station instead of the larger wifi network. Can anyone recommend a good wifi camera that can be placed without wires that might serve these purposes, I see a bunch online but I know now not to trust marketing materials and was hoping to get some advice from actual people who actually know what they're talking about and not just trying to sell something. Thanks.

 

[lewic]

Depending on the budget, I have seen lots of people using Ubiquiti products with cameras. Either using an AP to boost the wifi signal for more of a mesh system or using their "AirMax" line for wirelessly beaming the video back to the recorder. With the "AirMax" antennas then can use any off the shelf camera.

 

[wittaj]

Wifi is 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 use it through a wifi router. And then you are far enough away that you would not have full signal, and it will slow your whole system down.

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. 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. Now do the same with a wifi camera and it is fairly instantaneous (within the latency of the stream itself)...

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.

And that doesn't even account for the need for power. Solar there would not cut it unless you go all in, at which point it would be cheaper to run ethernet.

We really need a sticky about wifi and solar cameras LOL:

Solar powered outdoor wifi camera

I'm looking for a Solar powered outdoor wifi camera that connects to a wifi access point, and has a local storage, cloud backup would be a plus any info would be great

ipcamtalk.com

Any battery powered no internet cameras?

I need to buy a few cameras for my work but i dont think what i need exists on the market. I need 3 outdoor wireless cameras with around 50ft range, for local surveillance that dont require internet or any kind of wires. So they need to have some kind of battery. And then i would need a monitor...

ipcamtalk.com

Wireless Outdoor Camera Selection

Is any one aware of an Outdoor camera available that has: IP65 Rugged rain Proof No Wires needed. WiFi with solar or Lithium ION power. NO APPS Required, No Android no proprietary hardware, Constant streaming, not motion activated. Night Vision. Audio collection preferred. 30 to 50ft...

ipcamtalk.com

Solar powered outdoor wifi camera

I'm looking for a Solar powered outdoor wifi camera that connects to a wifi access point, and has a local storage, cloud backup would be a plus any info would be great

ipcamtalk.com

Rural camera system advice

Hi all, New to the forum and thanks in advance. So I have a 70 acre ranch in Texas and I find myself upgrading my system due to Q-See exiting the business and I would like advice on some “upgrades”. I currently have 16 cameras spread out over about a 1/4 mile from the main house. I just...

ipcamtalk.com

Feasibility of license plate reading at my house

I live on a corner of a kind of busy road and quiet neighborhood street. If possible, I'd like to place a camera that was able to capture license plates of cars coming and going. There is a stop sign, so it should be pretty easy to capture I would think. The issues are that I don't have ethernet...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[equinox1191]

The wifi is very fast and the cameras will be the only thing on the network, the 14 Arlo cameras work when they are close to their respective base stations but the range is abysmal. Maybe use a combination of the 2 types?
Do they make cameras that use cellular signal? Seems like it could be a way around the wifi bottleneck, as far as I know they have put a few thousand into the non-working system so I think function > cost at this point. They keep having giant brawls and other shenanigans, though it kinda seems like an episode of trailer park boys over there just en espanol. I was worried someone might whack the cameras down anyways but they don't seem to care at all.

 

[wittaj]

You only think the arlo's work. They are not streaming 24/7. Constant motion detection activation and those batteries are dead quick. See how well it works with all 14 trying to stream motion at the same time.

The nanostation someone posted and what people have suggested in the links I provided are what you need.

They make cellular capable cameras, but you better come with unlimited data SIM cards. A camera could easily need 85GB per day or more depending on settings.

When a thief came through here, my neighbor with his brand new solar powered arlo's that are installed 7 feet high and was literally within 8 feet of the perp could not provide an identifiable image at night. Too much motion blur.

 

[equinox1191]

That is true, they work on demand and save a rolling amount of video to watch back. I don't think they need them to be viewed all at once. Just recording would be fine really. Thanks for the quick replies and advice, I need to work up a plan and temper their expectations.

Yeah I think the quality would matter when you're trying to ID people. Though you can see what house they come out of, it might be enough. The biggest thing is the lack of wires, which doesn't seem possible as the entire place is paved.

 

[wittaj]

Yeah, that is the biggest part is managing the expectation. If all you care about is to OBSERVE that yeah a fight started at 11:28pm and it was from people coming out of these two trailers, that is one kind of camera.
If you want to be able to IDENTIFY who they were, that is a different type of camera.

 

[SouthernYankee]

I have posted this before.
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

 

[user8963]

The area all has good wifi coverage with several high gain antennas being placed

you should start at this point.

how are these antennas connected ? are they wired with lan cables ?
you can run camera cables to this points and install poe switches there...
there is another option which might work if you are still unable to run cables .......

if they are wired, you can install small switches on each antenna.
ubiquiti is able to use Point-to-Multipoint bridges on some of their device family... so you install another ubiquiti antenna and use one antenna at each camera.... you should avoid to use more than 5-6 cameras at once to balance the load of each wired point...
with installing another "wifi network" you avoid to overload the other "normal" wifi network.

ubiquiti should be able to handle the traffic... and point-bridges will avoid most of the problems which comes with wifi.


and get rid off these arlos... buy poe cameras ! and without power nothing works fine.
but you should be able to read the manual... you can connect most of these shitty arlos to your own network

 

[mat200]

I need to set up about 14 wifi cameras in a trailer park. The owners bought Arlo cameras that require a base station and 5 pair with each one, the range on these is not enough. The area all has good wifi coverage with several high gain antennas being placed, but the Arlo system doesn't take advantage of that as each camera connects to the base station instead of the larger wifi network. Can anyone recommend a good wifi camera that can be placed without wires that might serve these purposes, I see a bunch online but I know now not to trust marketing materials and was hoping to get some advice from actual people who actually know what they're talking about and not just trying to sell something. Thanks.

The wifi is very fast and the cameras will be the only thing on the network, the 14 Arlo cameras work when they are close to their respective base stations but the range is abysmal. Maybe use a combination of the 2 types?
Do they make cameras that use cellular signal? Seems like it could be a way around the wifi bottleneck, as far as I know they have put a few thousand into the non-working system so I think function > cost at this point. They keep having giant brawls and other shenanigans, though it kinda seems like an episode of trailer park boys over there just en espanol. I was worried someone might whack the cameras down anyways but they don't seem to care at all.

Welcome @equinox1191

"I need to set up about 14 wifi cameras in a trailer park. The owners bought Arlo cameras that require a base station and 5 pair with each one"

Are you a handyman for the owners? related to the owners? an employee? and independent contractor?

So, basically - this is the equivalent of the owners buying the cheapest "truck" from the dealer to tow one trailer out of the position it is in to a new one.

Summary: They have no clue what they are doing.

First question to ask:
What is the functional requirements?

Consumer grade equipment is probably not the answer