Neighborhood-wide monitoring

[mustangcoupe]

gair,

I have noticed every one of your posts is related to TenM3. Are you a representative of this company? If so you must disclose this in your posts. I recomend you add it to your signature so you do not have to type it every time.

 

[CollinR]

This is reviving an old discussion but the problem mentioned (neighborhood monitoring and security) is relevant for a lot of neighborhoods and worldwide. Coordinated action taken by the HOA or neighborhood watch will definitely help in such cases. I hope you found a solution and if so please share.

The TenM3 Internet service http://www.tenm3.com will be a good DIY solution for such situations - and very simple to use.

At each house (or location), only an IP camera with an Internet connection is needed and setup in the TenM3 account. As many or as few cameras as needed can be deployed. View, Share, Record is then all done over the Internet - so no DVR or other local equipment is needed. Recording can be 24x7x365 or just for the time periods of interest e.g. a specific 5 minute each day.

The neighbors can cooperate in keeping an eye on the neighborhood - from their work or home. Many people can simultaneously monitor each live feed. The live feeds can be shared with the neighborhood (via email) for this purpose. If needed, each Share can be a time-based share.

The Panasonic IP cameras (BL-C, BB-HCM series) are good for home use and widely available. Models with different price-features are available -- wired/wireless, indoor/outdoor, night vision etc. Prices range from $80 (entry-level) to $800 (full-featured). A few popular models are Panasonic BL-C1, BL-C131, BL-C140, BB-HCM527 and BB-HCM581.

The overall solution is inexpensive - one-time setup costs (buying the camera) and TenM3 usage costs (only when used)

A monitoring solution for a office, office-complex is below. Similar steps can be taken for the neighborhoods.
http://www.tenm3.com/blogs/?p=385

A few TenM3 live-feeds in use can be seen here
http://www.tenm3.com/blogs/?p=522

and sample recordings here
http://www.tenm3.com/blogs/?p=243

Thats either spam or a joke or both.

Further it's a misreprentation, you are showing clips from the cameras not clips captured from the web service you discribe. Although the framerate is low it's not as low as it will be once bounced off a remote webserver.

 

[cbass377]

I'll throw this idea out see if it'll fly:

Each participant has:
- one IP camera.
- a residential broadband connection.
- a router able to support VPNs.

You have a DVR.
Create a VPN common to all participants.
Each participant's camera dumps its data to your DVR via the VPN.

Let me throw the first few bricks:
Your ISP may have something to say about this arrangement.
Your ISP may not care because of the money raked in from everyone exceeding their monthly bandwidth.

One way around the "residential broadband" issue is to "go commercial". Do a cost/benefit analysis of setting up a wireless infrastructure versus outfitting all households with commercial-grade broadband connections. There may be an ISP in your area that would love to strike a great deal to acquire 50+ new commercial accounts.

Each participant has:
- one Wireless IP camera.
- one Wireless Mesh AP
- Is close to, or has line of sight to the next Wireless mesh AP.

Utilizing something like mesh wifi networking, where the access points communicate with each other to relay the signals, then your participants would only be providing power for the devices. Since the information would be sent from AP to AP, using wifi cameras or bridges to connect the cameras, you could configure them all to be on their own private network. Encrypt the traffic with VPN as suggested.

Since the Access Points are only communicating with themselves, there is no broadband needed, no terms of service violated, and no bandwidth caps exceeded. Effectively, you are taking the whole camera network peer-to-peer.

Mesh Wifi Access Points are relatively cheap, $40 - $50 each.
Check out

Information
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2...relessmesh.html
http://www.sensorsmag.com/articles/0203/38/main.shtml
http://research.microsoft.com/mesh/

Hardware Vendors
http://www.ubnt.com/
http://www.open-mesh.com


I haven't used any of these vendors. So Buyer beware


Another Idea
1) Use the Mesh Wifi for your camera to dvr connections.
2) Add the T1 or business class DSL
3) Set up a billing portal.
4) Become a wireless hotspot like starbucks.

You probably won't make money (the first few years anyway), but if you commit long term with a good maintenance plan, you could offset some of your costs and maybe break even.