Help choosing an outdoor wireless IP camera

[julian924s 0]

Hi - pretty much a newbie to this but something I'm researching at present. So as title says really I'm looking at getting some CCTV setup to monitor the outside of my property and would like some suggestions on possible equipment. From what I've found out I would like at least the following:

 

1 x wireless IP dome camera

day / night vision

no audio

 

I'm also looking at the possibility of recording images, I'm not interested in a dome camera with built in storage but software such as zoneminder or webcam7 does look interesting as I could knock together a low spec / low energy use PC with or gig or more of storage for this purpose.

 

After having a look around one name that keeps cropping up is Wanscam and I see they do such as camera - model is AJ-C0WA-C0D8. I'd be interested to people thoughts / experiences of these or any other recommendations they might have.

 

I'm based in the UK so obviously any suggestions would need to be items that I can actually get hold of. As for budget I'm not 100% sure, like most things in life I'll assume you get what you pay for

 

Thanks in advance.

[buellwinkle 0]

WiFi as an option is very limiting. Outdoors, having a WiFi camera usually means you need a 110V outlet nearby, it's going to have a transfomer at the end of long 6-10' of wire. On top of that, WiFi does not do well without line of site, so putting it outdoors, while you may get reception with a laptop, the cheap radios that they put in these lower end cameras may not get a strong enough signal. So what happens is frame rates are reduced and it's common to lose connectivity during the day. Simple things like turning on a microwave or walking in the path of the signal may be enough to take a weak signal and make it no signal. With that said, there are very good WiFi commercial grade cameras, but no domes. Seem my review on my block on Brickcom as they put a serious WiFi radio in their cameras but it' a bullet format, not dome.

 

The alternative most of us use to WiFi is PoE. It uses ethernet to connect the camera and also powers it. So instead of needing a 110V outlet you power the camera with low voltage and connect it at the same time. Ethernet cable is cheap, even premade cables of 100' length can be purchased for about $11 at places like Monoprice. That opens up your choice of cameras from a very small handful of decent WiFi cameras to thousands of choices in all price ranges. Allows you to have a 1080P camera that may not be possible with WiFi. Afterall, your cell phone can probably record 1080P video, why would you want a VGA camera. My monitor is 1080P, I can't imagine looking at a VGA image, it would be so small, like looking at a thumbnail.

 

Then you have the issue of how are you going to record? Lesser known or unbranded cameras from China may not be readily be supportted by NVR software. So figure that out first before buying. Zoneminder works with any camera where you can get the RTSP stream from, but consider that from lesser known brand without support, how will you figure out what the URL is for the camera that Zoneminder needs?

[julian924s 0]

Thanks buellwinkle - very much appreciate that and certainly some very good points you make! So I'll go away and take a look at what I can realistically get in terms of a PoE switch, a suitable dome camera and how to integrate it into something like webcam7 or zoneminder.

 

Thanks again - J.

[julian924s 0]

More questions I'm afraid. Not had a great deal of time to look at this but I have sorted a few things out, I can run a CAT5 cable from my adsl router into the loft and then outside. There is also power in the loft, this is used as a source of power for a security light as well. So I still need an outside IP dome camera to watch over the rear of my property. I've been googling and not really found a great deal in the UK. I either keep getting that wanscam stuff or cameras which are way over budget.

 

Are there any recommendations for such a camera suitable for the home user and compatible with zoneminder, webcam7 or something similar? I've no idea on the cost of these given that I should now have a larger choice but would £100 seem like a reasonable figure to get what I want?

 

Thanks - J.