wireless CCTV system for research purposes

[bgm 0]

Hi All,

 

I read through a lot of articles, forums and spoken to various people with questionable knowledge (high street electronic brand staff) and so far I haven't find a solution yet. Well, not in my budget anyway... £2k was a bit too much for my needs, you will see why.

 

Firstly, a bit about myself and my circumstances. I live in a village in Hampshire, where there is no fiber or other fast internet service and our well known major provider gives me a 1.3MB download/0.3MB upload speed. Please don't lough, it's a torture The mobile network is one bar, so our mobiles have been re-sirected to the landline.

 

My hobby is animals and I have a bunch of them. They are in separate rooms, doing their own thing in their terrariums (snakes, spiders) or just wondering around in the house (cats and dogs). I bought a basic wifi IP camera on the web for £29.99 (720P quality) a few months ago and have been moving it around every week to a different location to see the animal activities day and night. I must say, it's pretty awesome seeing what they are up to, very entertaining!

 

I really would like to have a camera network where I can see all of the locations, rather than keep re-locating the camera weekly. So I was hoping to have 12-16 camera all over the house and if I would have 100MB broadbaand that wouldn't be an issue. Not having one limits me to a non IP CCTV system where it records the activities to a hard drive (preferably when there is motion only), but not by using my "superfast" internet and I can access the hard drive remotely (if I'm not home). Otherwise just look on the PC/laptop screen. Why wifi? Well, I just prefer to have one cable running to each camera from the mains socket, rather than 100m network cable all over the house

 

About the cameras, I really don't need super HD (would be nice, but also a holiday to the Maldives - both can't afford), the distances varies between 1ft and 10ft. Some of them are nocturnal, so night vision is essential, also it's great to see on the recording when the cat brings in a rat at 2am and let it go after getting bored of it...

 

So, my CCTV requirements are not security related at all (the german shepherd, snakes and spiders do the job lol), more research and fun, like the animal version of Big Brother

 

Please let me know your thoughts.

 

Thanks.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Ben

[51cent 8]

The trouble with wifi is interference, one camera may be fine, but the more you add the bigger the problem becomes. Plus there are so many gadgets that use wifi now, you will have problems.

Wifi is a big no-no for security cameras, but may be fine in your case.

[ShaneR 0]

So you know you can have ip cameras set up and just place them on their own internal (non internet connection) network so it doesn't overwork your router.

Ip cameras - > separate wireless router -> nvr/computer

As long as you don't hook the camera router to your main router it won't bog down your network. It would also allow a little more security for the system as it is a closed loop with no access to the internet.

 

I am not sure how long you wish to keep the recordings for but assuming you keep 12 camera recordings at 30fps 720p for 3 weeks you will need anywhere from 3tb to 10tb depending on many factors. For 11 more cameras that's about £330 if they cost £30 each. 3tb (cctv purple) hdd would cost £70. 16ch dvr is around £140

Depending on distance of the cameras you could require 2 wireless routers with a minimum of 70mbps speeds on 2.4ghz which are about £50 each. In my opinion I wouldnt think online streaming would be possible with such low speeds. Any attempt to connect that much data to the network would just tank your connection even possibly crash your modem constantly. I am by no means a professional, I only went to Google and looked up specs and recommendations from others. Others may know a better way to set this up, this is just how I am seeing it going.