Security Camera / Security System Thread - Wired or wireless? That is the question.

[Rock Eater]

Finding the right security system for you to protect against Glowniggers

 

[DavidS877]

I've said this before on the farms but my current camera solution is:

Chinese POE(Power Over Ethernet) cameras. On their own subnet/vlan, blocked from reaching the Internet. I have them set to record on motion to my NAS. I then have a Raspberry Pi running some YOLO code to watch for new uploads, detect objects and flag interesting ones.
You get something like this:

I then have it filter out the cones and do an alert when it sees a PERSON!!!!! or CAR!!!!! (or BIRD!!!!)

Sure, there are better solutions you can run locally, but I'm a fan of reinventing the wheel wherever possible, this one is sort of round-ish.

 

[Rock Eater]

Something I wanted to say about wireless cameras is more and more people are buying wifi jammers. Making them inherently useless against a smart adversary.

Learning to terminate your own RJ45 cables and running them in an hard reach area is infinitely more reliable.

Blue iris is a windows only NVR that can take any IP camera and add functionality such as alerts and Ai face recognition

 

[Null]

Chinese POE(Power Over Ethernet) cameras. On their own subnet/vlan, blocked from reaching the Internet. I have them set to record on motion to my NAS. I then have a Raspberry Pi running some YOLO code to watch for new uploads, detect objects and flag interesting ones.

Do you have specific camera brands you've been working with that worked well for you?

I've discovered software this in my searches:

https://docs.frigate.video

https://github.com/blakeblackshear/frigate

It also has a plugin for faces:

https://docs.frigate.video/integrations/third_party_extensions/#double-take

Basically you can set this up, feed in a list of faces you want to see and faces which you don't want to see, and use its API to literally blare alarms.

 

[Freshly Baked Socks]

I ain't running datawires & powerlines to every camera. Fuck that noise. wireless. Even have a battery operated wireless cam.

Never seen a smart adversary tho. All I get are the teens who live next door, who no longer traverse my yard now that they know they're being recorded.

 

[Ghost of Biden]

I use a complex pulley system of bells and wires to activate a Polaroid whenever tripped.

 

[DavidS877]

Learning to terminate your own RJ45 cables and running them in an hard reach area is infinitely more reliable.

Better yet, learn to use a punch down tool. Run jack to jack cables and then use pre-made not-crappy patch cables. Most of my outdoor cameras have a jack in the junction box and then a 6" cable to the camera connector.

If you do insist on terminating your own, consider feed through connectors or ones with with load bars. Feed through may be less moisture tolerant, but you're going to give them a good soak in Corrosion-X anyway, right? And get a good crimper, I like the kind with interchangeable jaws as you can use them for many other tasks around the house.


Also, jacks use solid conductor cables, connectors should use stranded cables.

NEVER, EVER, EVER use CCA cables, it stands for Crappy Crappy Aluminium. They're bad news, worse news if you try and use POE over them. Read listings carefully, if they don't say 100% copper or similar, assume it's crap.

Rant ends.

Even have a battery operated wireless cam.

Most of those require 'cloud'. I've found one that you can hack up to record locally but they're not common. That would be the Reolink with 'neolink' from github.

Rant really ends.

 

[Rock Eater]

Better yet, learn to use a punch down tool. Run jack to jack cables and then use pre-made not-crappy patch cables. Most of my outdoor cameras have a jack in the junction box and then a 6" cable to the camera connector.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000GA6QEI?ref=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_27N3WV7VCGAFXRGMYC2F&ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_27N3WV7VCGAFXRGMYC2F&social_share=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_27N3WV7VCGAFXRGMYC2F&starsLeft=1&skipTwisterOG=1

Here is a punch down tool I use on a daily basis on my job. If you take care of it all you need to do is occasionally replace the blade.
(But thats only if you do hundreds of jacks lol)


Also buying a network patch panel terminating all your jacks is the ultimate move

 

[Kyuruma]

I ain't running datawires & powerlines to every camera. Fuck that noise. wireless. Even have a battery operated wireless cam.

Never seen a smart adversary tho. All I get are the teens who live next door, who no longer traverse my yard now that they know they're being recorded.

That's fine if your expected adversary consists of niggers and junkies, but law enforcement and internet autists are far more knowledgeable and will be capable of jamming wireless signals.

 

[DavidS877]

Here is a punch down tool I use on a daily basis on my job. If you take care of it all you need to do is occasionally replace the blade.
(But thats only if you do hundreds of jacks lol)


Also buying a network patch panel terminating all your jacks is the ultimate move

That's funny, I thought my punch down tool was a Paladin, but I went to check, it's a Harris... who bought Harris, Fluke. It's going on 30+ years now.

Also "a network patch panel" like, just one? I have both a fixed Cat 6 panel and 2 keystone panels. I realized too late I should have gone all keystone. A single purpose patch panel is nice, but adding connections later, especially if it's in a closet/rack is a pain in the ass. Keystone you can terminate and snap it in.

Anyway, my actual post.

For those who don't want Chinese cameras, you can build your own with a Raspberry Pi or similar. Slap a POE HAT on the pi. Maybe write/use your own motion/object detection. Can check out this place which has a great selection of camera modules: https://www.arducam.com/raspberry-pi-camera-solution/

The only real downside is you have to make your own enclosure, of course that's what the 3d printing thread is for. Also if you want night vision, you may need external illumination. Although you can get Starvis and related ultra-low-light sensors.

Do you have specific camera brands you've been working with that worked well for you?

I've had Hikvision, Dahua, Amcrest and Reolink. I think Amcrest and Reolink are the more popular ones these days.

They're all pretty much the same, just buy on specs. Reolink I don't think does NFS, just FTP, but they were the only non-cloud doorbell I could find. I think they all do ONVIF for more normal NVR/monitoring. One of the Amcrests doesn't understand timezones so during DST every couple days the time will randomly shift by an hour back and forth. But that may be the software on that one model.

And when I say the same, I mean they're all crap, but they're inexpensive, and this is not a buy it for life product, it's going to be out in the weather and will eventually cook, or corrode or something and you'll just sigh and throw it away and toss a new one in.

 

[Meat Target]

Don't underestimate simple measures, too. Doors with deadbolts, motion-activated outside lights, leaving an interior light always on, etc.

Most burglars aren't like Harry and Marv. They're opportunistic and will take the path of least resistance.

 

[Shroom King]

Better yet, learn to use a punch down tool. Run jack to jack cables and then use pre-made not-crappy patch cables. Most of my outdoor cameras have a jack in the junction box and then a 6" cable to the camera connector.

If you do insist on terminating your own, consider feed through connectors or ones with with load bars. Feed through may be less moisture tolerant, but you're going to give them a good soak in Corrosion-X anyway, right? And get a good crimper, I like the kind with interchangeable jaws as you can use them for many other tasks around the house.
View attachment 6147386View attachment 6147387

Also, jacks use solid conductor cables, connectors should use stranded cables.

NEVER, EVER, EVER use CCA cables, it stands for Crappy Crappy Aluminium. They're bad news, worse news if you try and use POE over them. Read listings carefully, if they don't say 100% copper or similar, assume it's crap.

Rant ends.


Most of those require 'cloud'. I've found one that you can hack up to record locally but they're not common. That would be the Reolink with 'neolink' from github.

Rant really ends.

Ok, I am dumb, but, what makes it better to use what you have pictured versus just using regular old ethernet cables? Stripping the 8 wires to connect them again into another RJ45 adapter seems like a lot of extra work.

 

[DavidS877]

Ok, I am dumb, but, what makes it better to use what you have pictured versus just using regular old ethernet cables? Stripping the 8 wires to connect them again into another RJ45 adapter seems like a lot of extra work.

If you're making your own cables.
If you're buying cables, then, well, no you don't need to re-terminate them*.

* Unless you're like me and don't keep outdoor rated patch cables on hand so just buy a 100' one and chop it up as needed and slap new ends on it since buying a full 1000' would have been dumb.

 

[Rock Eater]

Ok, I am dumb, but, what makes it better to use what you have pictured versus just using regular old ethernet cables? Stripping the 8 wires to connect them again into another RJ45 adapter seems like a lot of extra work.

You’re buying the cable without any connectors so it’s cheaper. It’s to allow you to have any length of cable you need.

You beat me to it.

 

[Badungus Kabungus]

I've said this before on the farms but my current camera solution is:

Chinese POE(Power Over Ethernet) cameras. On their own subnet/vlan, blocked from reaching the Internet. I have them set to record on motion to my NAS. I then have a Raspberry Pi running some YOLO code to watch for new uploads, detect objects and flag interesting ones.
You get something like this:
View attachment 6147362
I then have it filter out the cones and do an alert when it sees a PERSON!!!!! or CAR!!!!! (or BIRD!!!!)

Sure, there are better solutions you can run locally, but I'm a fan of reinventing the wheel wherever possible, this one is sort of round-ish.

I used to run a Raspberry Pi with an Intel Movidius stick doing that, it wasn't ideal. Try a Jetson Nano instead.

 

[DavidS877]

I used to run a Raspberry Pi with an Intel Movidius stick doing that, it wasn't ideal. Try a Jetson Nano instead.

Yea, but you wouldn't put a Jetson in every camera. Especially once you hit more than 5 or so. You'd centralize detection somewhere if you want higher performance. A raw Pi 5 can do YOLOv8s in about 500mS. If you really wanted to detect at the edge there's probably some Rockchip boards out there with NPUs at a better price point than the Jetsons. I think the original 2GB Nano is gone anyway so the remaining models go from expensive to really expensive.

I really liked the NCS2 in my central object detector. Until Intel totally dropped support.

 

[Badungus Kabungus]

Yea, but you wouldn't put a Jetson in every camera. Especially once you hit more than 5 or so. You'd centralize detection somewhere if you want higher performance. A raw Pi 5 can do YOLOv8s in about 500mS. If you really wanted to detect at the edge there's probably some Rockchip boards out there with NPUs at a better price point than the Jetsons. I think the original 2GB Nano is gone anyway so the remaining models go from expensive to really expensive.

I really liked the NCS2 in my central object detector. Until Intel totally dropped support.

Ah, that's why. I ran multiple feeds into one RaspPi so my performance was obviously quite shit. At this point I gave up on that whole idea and just rely on the built-in detection in the Chinese cams I use.

 

[Rakovnik]

I use a wifi mesh system at the farm for cameras and getting Internet into steel buildings. They're the TP-link omada outdoor acces points, $0 monthly costs if you run the controller locally which is available as either a hardware or software version. Right now I'm reaching close to 0.1mi coverage unobstructed and around 350' diameter obstructed from the main building using 3 access points set up as a mesh. The also recently added a point to point kit that works under the same controller. Cameras are lorex fusion 4k, wired and wireless.

 

[Hweeks]

If you are not into doing the crazy camera stuff I've found Reolink makes fairly good security cameras.

No stupid subscription plans, and the cameras record onto an SD card so you don't have to worry about storage. Of course the thief can jack the whole camera and you lose the recording, but it's a chance you take.

Otherwise they are pretty cheap and able to detect people vs cars vs animals. Lots of custom features as well. I've used stuff like Ring and it's terrible compared to some of these other companies.

 

[Badungus Kabungus]

If you are not into doing the crazy camera stuff I've found Reolink makes fairly good security cameras.

No stupid subscription plans, and the cameras record onto an SD card so you don't have to worry about storage. Of course the thief can jack the whole camera and you lose the recording, but it's a chance you take.

Otherwise they are pretty cheap and able to detect people vs cars vs animals. Lots of custom features as well. I've used stuff like Ring and it's terrible compared to some of these other companies.

You can get an NVR with an external drive and have the cameras write to it instead of having SD cards.