Wireless Home Surveillance - Recommendations?

[Blake760]

Wife gave me the green light to install my first video surveillance system and I would like some advice / recommendations of which system to go with. A few parameters.
1) It needs to be wireless. The longest distance from camera to recorder will be about 350' straight line with power available.
2) Must be smart phone viewable in real time.

Recording - what's better, SD card or NVR? How much storage do I really need?

I've been looking at this set up from Lorax: http://www.amazon.com/Lorex-8-Channe...I2EDBBNIZWLGMY

*Edit: need 4 camera system.

[liketoshoot]

I hjave one camera from Sharx and love it, plays thru phone or computer has an sd card and works real good.

http://www.sharxsecurity.com/

[Blake760]

To be clear, I need 4 cameras. One of them will be 350' away from the house. Which puts it outside of our WiFi range. I'm thinking I'll need them to all transmit to a central receiver connected to the internet.

[TRICKSTER]

I have a Uniden Guardian G755 with four cameras. I put a 32GB SD card (something like 480 hours recording time) in it and with it set for motion sensor recording, which is tripped every time a person or vehicle goes by my house, pulls into the driveway, walks up to the front door, goes out to the garage, it is not even half full in a month and a half. Viewable online or smartphone and you can set it up to send email alerts when motion is detected. The only thing I see problems with is the range that you are looking for. Mine works fine for around the house, but the farthest out that I have a camera is about 50'.

[atc4usmc]

I would highly recommend FOSCAM: http://www.foscam.com

I have two of these and they work great! Can view from my iphone (with Foscam Pro app), pan and tilt, take pics and even record. I can also run them through my Synology server and set them to record when motion is detected, etc.

Seriously the best and most cost efficient camera I have found. I am actually ordering at least three more as we have moved and have a larger house.

Feel free to email me with any questions!

Good Luck!

[NorCal Einstein]

Originally Posted by atc4usmc

I would highly recommend FOSCAM: http://www.foscam.com

I have two of these and they work great! Can view from my iphone (with Foscam Pro app), pan and tilt, take pics and even record. I can also run them through my Synology server and set them to record when motion is detected, etc.

Seriously the best and most cost efficient camera I have found. I am actually ordering at least three more as we have moved and have a larger house.

Feel free to email me with any questions!

Good Luck!

Which Foscam models do you have? And any idea if they have an Android app as well?

[H2H]

tag for more info

[atc4usmc]

I have the 8910W: http://foscam.us/products/foscam-fi8...ip-camera.html

I will be ordering two or three of the 8921: http://foscam.us/products/foscam-fi9...ip-camera.html

These are a little better in video quality.

Highly recommend getting the 9db antenna for increased range. Not sure if they have an android app. I would suspect so but not 100% sure.

[AKSOG]

Tag

[the86d]

I assume that you are all poking holes in your firewall to view the cameras on your Android?

[D_ninja]

Tag

[jbj]

350' seems far, but a wifi antenna and booster or powerline Ethernet setup might work well (assuming the cameras power is on the same breaker box as the home router)

[Ninety]

Originally Posted by jbj

350' seems far, but a wifi antenna and booster or powerline Ethernet setup might work well (assuming the cameras power is on the same breaker box as the home router)

thats a pretty good Idea... They will work on seperate circuts as well .. just not 100% of the time..
Insteon makes a line of cameras..I think a whole home set up actually.. I just set one up one camera to check it out and it looks pretty nice..

What kind of budget are you working with?
Yugo on here does this for a living, he might be able to help..

[engi]

Tagged

[SoCal1]

If your using any DVR software to record events then stay away from the "HD" foscam cameras for now. They have a lot of problems providing the HD stream to the DVR software.

You get what you pay for with these cameras. Take a look at Axis brand cameras.

[Blake760]

So here's the system I went with. http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Outdo...=logitech+750n
In addition I purchased an indoor wide angle camera w/ nightvision and and additional outdoor camera.
Set up has been pretty easy and I can view through my iphone for free. Because the signal is carried over the home electrical system I think it will be more reliable.
The indoor camera set up in 5 minutes. Simply plugged into an outlet and searched for the camera from PC.
Right now I have one outdoor camera set on the dog kennel. This one took about 30 minutes to install. I had to drill a hole through the soffit into the attic. But, my wife always worries about the dogs when we're away. This way she'll be able to check on them through her phone app.
The second outdoor camera is giving me problems though....This was the long run I originally was planning on going wireless for. For some reason the video signal won't pass through the sub panel at the garage back to the main house.

[ThemBastards]

Any solutions out there that offer cloud based DVR solutions for a good price?

[stonith3901]

Originally Posted by SoCal1

If your using any DVR software to record events then stay away from the "HD" foscam cameras for now. They have a lot of problems providing the HD stream to the DVR software.

You get what you pay for with these cameras. Take a look at Axis brand cameras.

I have several Axis cameras. p3301 and a p5534, +1 on axis cameras. Support on them are great.

I also have trendnet IP422w which is the wireless model which is ok for the money. Indian technical support that is 24/7, surprisingly i would say their support is great as well. They actually helped me with a firmware update that went awry.

[Blake760]

Originally Posted by ThemBastards

Any solutions out there that offer cloud based DVR solutions for a good price?

The Logitech system I installed offers a cloud based storage servce for a subscription. Rate based on the amount of storage used.

[Blake760]

Originally Posted by jbj

350' seems far, but a wifi antenna and booster or powerline Ethernet setup might work well (assuming the cameras power is on the same breaker box as the home router)

I ended up going with the POE. The wireless systems all had relatively low ratings for reliability.

[Ninety]

Originally Posted by Blake760

So here's the system I went with. http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Outdo...=logitech+750n
In addition I purchased an indoor wide angle camera w/ nightvision and and additional outdoor camera.
Set up has been pretty easy and I can view through my iphone for free. Because the signal is carried over the home electrical system I think it will be more reliable.
The indoor camera set up in 5 minutes. Simply plugged into an outlet and searched for the camera from PC.
Right now I have one outdoor camera set on the dog kennel. This one took about 30 minutes to install. I had to drill a hole through the soffit into the attic. But, my wife always worries about the dogs when we're away. This way she'll be able to check on them through her phone app.
The second outdoor camera is giving me problems though....This was the long run I originally was planning on going wireless for. For some reason the video signal won't pass through the sub panel at the garage back to the main house.

The bold part is your problem.. We used to use power line adapters in my last line of work .. whenever you plugged one into a surge protector they would stop working.. same thing with the sub panel... AFAIK The usage is supposed to be on the same circuit but I've had not problems with them working on different circuits but in the same panel.. Not sure of a good solution for you except a wifi repeater .. can you put one at the kennel? To boost the signal to get it to work wifi back to the house?

[welldriller]

I am in the process of setting up a Swann8-3000 system from Frys.
Had to go through 3 of them to get one that everything works. The first two had the same problem with the dome camera, it wouldn't move one of the had a intermittent camera. Swann technical service is OK epically if you speak Tagalog. 10 to 40 minute wait to get to them.
they do a good job of setting up the home system, but not much help on getting the Android going. Having problems with the picture that is sent out with the alarm. The video is compressed on the Android so there is not as much detail as with the local monitor. But it's sufficient to see what is going on.
I tried a Night Owl system and the video quality was so poor that you couldn't make out someones face. The Swann with 600 lines looks pretty good.
My system is all wired, I need a camera out at 300' I think I am just going to run coax out there. At that distance any noise on the video will set off the alarm and wireless will probably not work too well.
I asked customer service for a connector that was missing for the tilt and pan control, probably costs .10, after 3 days they emailed me back requesting a proof of purchase before sending the part. That seemed really chintzy to me. I emailed them back, told them that I would return the system and get another one rather than waiting for the connector. I hope it pissed them off. Actually there was the problem with the tilt but I didn't tell them that.
When you get your system, set it up with a couple of cameras and get everything working before you set it up at its final location and let it run for a couple of days. You have to have the DVR, local computer and phone all together when working with customer service.
Swann tells you right in the manual that you don't have to have a monitor hooked up to the DVR to program it, but you cannot set the alarm zone except by using the local controls. It doesn't work from the local computer. Also it looks like I cannot control the pan and tilt from the Android.
And I am 7 days into getting this going.