Car Stolen The Links

[Dainey]

Just wanted to raise awareness to another car theft in our village, our car was stolen last night between 9pm and 12.30am from the Links. Guards think they they could have checked many houses/ cars before targeting ours, not a nice experience whilst sleeping safe in our home. If anyone did see or hear of anything please let me know, thanks

[Vlad the Impaler]

Sorry to hear that. A friend of mine had a similar attempted break in while they slept last week in Turvey.

Everyone remember to set their alarms going to bed. I'm setting up a web security cam for my front yard. They can be got for 40 euro on Amazon, with night vision and cloud recording motion sensitive.

[claned]

Hi vlad,

I've been looking at the IP Cams - just wondering which one you got that records to the cloud as well?

Thanks

[Vlad the Impaler]

This is the one I had in mind.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tenvis-JPT3815W ... rds=tenvis

Says it: Supports motion detection alert via email or upload image to a specified FTP server. Says you can view and control via an app on your mobile phone. Not bad for the price.

[Bill_Lumbergh]

640X480(VGA) is it's highest resolution though, that isn't great.

I installed some of these;
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ESK3LKY/ref ... 1_ST1_dp_1
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C9X252C/ref ... 1_ST1_dp_2

and they're great. I have them cabled back to a POE switch, and use Blue Iris software running on a Windows machine I always have switched on. I get alerts to my phone and can view motion recordings / live footage on my phone.

[Jed]

Are these hard to install? Im quite handy so is it just a case of mounting them and then linking them to a pc? Also are they any good in the dark?

[Bill_Lumbergh]

Are these hard to install? Im quite handy so is it just a case of mounting them and then linking them to a pc? Also are they any good in the dark?

They're fairly easy to throw up, but you need to run Cat5/6 ethernet cable from the camera to a POE (power over ethernet) switch or else you also need to plug them in. They're great at night for short distances.

[Vlad the Impaler]

yeah, the cheaper ones can be mounted in a porch, but are not out-door per-se, unlike Bill's more expensive ones.

Night vision is good to about 6 meters on the cheaper ones, but if inside against a window, then might get glare-back off the infra-red lights, so need to position. Can be viewed and rotated on mobile phone.

[Jed]

Are these hard to install? Im quite handy so is it just a case of mounting them and then linking them to a pc? Also are they any good in the dark?

They're fairly easy to throw up, but you need to run Cat5/6 ethernet cable from the camera to a POE (power over ethernet) switch or else you also need to plug them in. They're great at night for short distances.

I don't want to record whats going on down the street, just with in the boundaries of my garden. Can you watch "live" on iPhone/iPad and are they mac compatible? Thanks for info.

[Bill_Lumbergh]

I don't want to record whats going on down the street, just with in the boundaries of my garden. Can you watch "live" on iPhone/iPad and are they mac compatible? Thanks for info.

As long as you have an internet connection at home yeah. If you want to store footage you'll need either a computer that's on all the time or what's called an NVR (network video recorder).

[Jed]

Does that mean there are wires running everywhere?

[Bill_Lumbergh]

Does that mean there are wires running everywhere?

? The camera needs to be connected to a power source and an internet connection somehow. I'll try and summerise my setup plus alternative solutions;

- IP cameras that can be powered via the network/ethernet cable that is connected to them
- These cameras are cabled back to a switch that can deliver power over ethernet (like this one
- That switch is cabled back to your standard wireless router (this is needed to give all your devices an IP address)

At this stage the cameras can be viewed live from a browser / smart phone (with some configuration). If you want to store the footage, there are multiple options but the most straight forward are;
- a network video recorder (like this one); these are pricy but a lot of them also have POE ports that you can connect the cameras too, i.e. you then do not need the switch mentioned above.
- if you have a computer anywhere on your network that is always switched on, you can use software like Blue Iris (for Windows) or EvoCam (for Mac) to do the recording for you (in this case you still need the POE switch above)

This is all for IP cameras. If you want to go down the standard analogue route, there are multiple kits out there that include pretty much all of the above, but IMO the quality of the images is not as good;
http://www.maplin.co.uk/c/cctv-and-security/cctv-kits

Hope this all helps.

[Vlad the Impaler]

Ok, so the one I linked to above connects to your network wirelessly. I had to connect it with a lead to the router during set up, but maybe I just didn't follow the instructions properly. Anyway, I got it going wirelessly in the end, so I just have to connect it to a plug and now can view it over my mobile, and turn it etc.

[Bill_Lumbergh]

Yeah, I've used wireless cameras in the in-laws house, but personally I found it easier to run network cables than figure out how to plug external cameras in somewhere (I can run ethernet myself and don't know much about power cables - and didn't want to pay an electrician).