Where would you put cameras on this home's front porch?

Ira

Active Member
New home under construction. Trying to figure out where to put security cameras. Having a difficult time because I've never used them. Also need to figure out what type (not brand) of cameras for each location, e.g., bullet vs PTZ dome. I expect that all will be PoE cameras. First project is the front porch, as shown by the circled area on the attached drawing.

The front porch is about 54' wide and 8' deep. Floor is about 4' above ground level. Ceiling is 10' high. All three French doors are 8' tall. The bottoms of the beams around the perimeter of the porch is about 9' above the porch floor. The drawing doesn't show it, but all doors will have shutters on both sides, so where it put a door bell or something like a Ring is an unanswered question. First thought is to put one wall mounted camera above the main/center door, and one camera on each end pointing towards the middle of the porch. Is that overkill, or insufficient? What type(s) of cameras?

Also, keep in mind that there will be other cameras pointing away from the house, but not sure what or where.

Comments please.

Thanks,
Ira
 

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Personally, I always try to make sure there's an overlap in camera coverage to avoid blind spots, and to catch any tampering of the other cameras in view.

For just the porch/door area, I would place cameras in both corners as you suggested, 1 camera pointing back at the front door, as far out as possible (great for detection presence without too many false positives), and a camera which can see the faces really clearly for face detection based automation. Depending on the quality/lens, you could even trigger automations based on detecting logos on shirts/hats (UPS/FedEx/Amazon).

There's so much to it, you need to start with figuring out what your requirements are, such as day/night performance, 24/7 recording vs motion recording, video analytics, local vs cloud (try to stay local), PC vs appliance NVR, figure out how sunlight & trees may create complicated lighting conditions, etc.

You definitely want PoE cameras, take a look at The Hook Up YouTube channel for some really interesting videos/benchmarking. Also check out this IPVM calculator which helps you plan your camera locations. And don't forget to plan your network, you want to be able to isolate these cameras on a dedicated network segment, and make sure you have a switch capable of powering all of it.
 
Last two story I lived in I installed cameras facing out from the house and facing the house from the edges of the property.

Every camera looking at the house saw the cameras on the house and vice versa. It was more related to tinkering with first generation IP cameras then security at the time. Main 1st floor level cameras were all Optex Combo camera / PIR sensors wired to OmniPro panel. Later modified the analog Optex cameras to IP (very easy to modify these modular cameras at the time). Other cameras were Grandstream.

During the time of installation of the irrigation had the irrigation installers install PVC piping used for chases fan shaped in the back and front of the house. In those chases ran catxx cables, LV 12 V landscaping wires, HV 120 wires (always on and switched power) and 2 runs of 22/4 alarm cable.

Their were multiple attics that were connected. The main attic was high at 8-9 foot so built a catwalk in the attic and I was able to install the eave cameras at the second floor level easily. Built a wire chase from the attic to the basement to the comm closet area. Not camera related put a chandelier lift in the attic (size of a garage door opener). At first floor level installed cameras on to the brick putting 1/2 duplex boxes in the brick and used conduit to the inside walls.

I did this post construction (2 years old) using the original contractor drawings and surveys of the property.

In another home in FL being built penciled in my LV stuff on the drawings pre construction. Alarm company prewired much of it. I personally had 3-4 days in the house before walls went up and added speaker cabling and more catXX cabling everywhere. This was a 1 story elevated ranch on the water. Got a quote at the time from the contractor for installation of the extra LV cabling after showing me couple of new home he had built with some LV cabling. I could tell he knew nothing at the time of construction of doing LV cabling so did it myself. (~2000 or so).

I frequent a forum called IP Cam Talk lately which has much information and discussions relating to installation and types of cameras to install.
 
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I second the ipcamtalk suggestion, but avoid a user named 'Fenderman', who is very controversial & controlling IMO.
 
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