Outdoor wireless cameras

[drvnbysound]

Anyone here using any wireless cameras outdoors?
 
I'm interested in installing a couple to areas where I can't run any wire (multi-story home with no access from above or below most of the walls) to but they do have 110V power somewhat nearby. It would be fairly easy to extend those close enough to the camera location(s), but then that also makes defeating the cameras pretty easy. Looking for any suggestions...

 

[Del91574]

What kind of house siding is there? Style house?

 

[drvnbysound]

What kind of house siding is there? Style house?

 
Some of the exterior walls are brick, the others are hardieplank lap siding or similar.
 
Here's a shot of the front of the home:

 
As you may be able to tell from the locations of the windows and such, there is practically no attic space on this side of the home. There are a couple of access panels in the room above the garage.

 

[tmbrown97]

Wifi and Cameras are absolutely not designed to go together... the very nature of both is polar opposite of what they're designed for - for a lot of reasons when you get down to the technical details...
 
That said, I've done it on a large scale.  My advice - use a dedicated wireless router on non-conflicting channels dedicated to the cameras.  Tweak your frame rate down so that the frames/quality are balanced between what can actually make it vs. hoping for the world and dropping half the packets and getting jittery.
 
You can use any camera - plenty don't support wifi but can be made wifi with a $20 TP-Link pocket router or other bridge.  In fact I tried some of those garbage Foscams and the built-in wifi implementation was so bad I was forced to put them as wired and use another bridge to make them work.  It's perfectly viable.  You can also run multiple cameras to a POE switch then back to the NVR/Internet via a single wifi link.
 
I wouldn't waste any time at all looking for wifi cams and would just find the cams that work best and bridge the network separately.

 

[pete_c]

Maybe using powerline networking.  I tried it a few years ago and wasn't happy with it. 
 
One end burned up after about 6 months (not a good issue).
 
I tried it again between two homes on a friends farm (300 feet) going to same electric and it didn't work.
 
Ended up trenching between the two homes and using cable (entered a wireless bridge too) right around 300 feet.
 

 
That said it is powerline networking is supposed to work better these days.
 
Here I ran LV / HV / HV switched lines to my malbox and utilize one of two catxx cables for POE.  The wires do run under the front walk and chases go in / out of the cement base.
 
Here too played with a few wireless built in SD cams.  Panansonic, Foscam, et al.  Panasonic was OK.  I modded a few of the Radio Shack Schlage cams and they did OK.  Never did try any of these outside though.
 
An Ubiquti one wireless bridge per camera set up might work. (a bit overkill though). I have made tiny very directional 802.11X antennas that work well.

 

[Del91574]

Some of the exterior walls are brick, the others are hardieplank lap siding or similar.
 
Here's a shot of the front of the home:

 
As you may be able to tell from the locations of the windows and such, there is practically no attic space on this side of the home. There are a couple of access panels in the room above the garage.

Can't see the pictures.

 

[drvnbysound]

Anyone else having issues seeing the picture?
 
I uploaded and hosted it here, so it shouldn't be an issue WRT album permissions or anything of that nature...

 

[sda]

Maybe exterior conduit and POE cameras?  1/2" EMT is easy enough to work with, is smaller than PVC, doesn't warp in the heat, and can be painted.  You've got enough angles and corners that you should be able to camouflage it fairly well.

 

[michealbroza]

Alarm.com have some good wireless cameras

 

[Del91574]

There's enough to work with, although access to certain points may be difficult and require some thinking outside the box, but nothing that is exceptionally crazy for anyone with enough motivation and time.
 
For a flat rate job, it'd be tough for me to justify, but if the party wanted cameras, it's definitely doable

 

[drvnbysound]

There's enough to work with, although access to certain points may be difficult and require some thinking outside the box, but nothing that is exceptionally crazy for anyone with enough motivation and time.
 
For a flat rate job, it'd be tough for me to justify, but if the party wanted cameras, it's definitely doable

 
That's the rub... it is a really good friend of a family member, they certainly want it done but I think they also want something fairly turnkey as well. I'm going back tomorrow to take a more detailed look to determine what parts are accessible and what is not. The LARGE majority of the homes I usually work on are ranch style, single story, usually with full attic access above - in those cases, it's pretty straight forward.

 

[Del91574]

Lots of access in the garage area, usually not a huge deal to run exposed inside there. Just comes down to where the head end is and what else needs to be done. I can only judge via the picture.

 

[drvnbysound]

So, I stopped by today and was there for about 3 hours investigating and planning out the installation.
 
Basically, this will end up being a 6 camera system with cameras that cover pretty much all of the entry points (doors/windows). There will be only 2 cameras placed in locations that you'd be able to see from the picture above. Others are on the other sides of the home.
 
There are a few access panels in the home, but there is no way to run cabling from inside the home from one end to the other via the attic - the path just doesn't exist. What I found is that the home owner is already using a number of power line adapters and stated that they are reliable (and fast enough) enough for their needs. So, I will be adding one of them myself, at one end of the home, which I will be tying into a POE switch and adding cameras from there.