Camera to watch over garden

K

Keizer

Getting comfortable
Jan 3, 2023
284
562
Wa
Garden season is coming up and this year I'd like to try something new. We have alot of deer roaming around the property and they love to destroy gardens. In the past I would drag hoses everywhere and connect them to motion sensor sprinklers to scare the deer away. The problem is the summer sun really wreaks havoc on the hoses swelling them up and sometimes they burst and waste water.

So, I was thinking. I have underground sprinklers in the garden which are controlled in Home Assistant. I was thinking I could get rid of all the hoses and motion sensor sprinklers and replace it all with a wifi camera. I would need one that is capable of being brought into Home Assistant. I could then set up a routine that when it detected motion it would turn the garden zone of sprinklers on for a few seconds to scare the deer away........or rabbits.

Has anyone else tried a set up like this? What would be a good wifi camera for this? I don't really need it to be part of my Blue Iris setup as long as everythiung can be done from its app and Home assistant. It just seems like this would be way easier then the hose/sprinkler setup.
 
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I finally resorted to a 7 foot high fence to keep the deer out. A few years back we had seedlings disappearing from the greenhouse. I put a temporary cam in there and fairly soon found out it was a mouse who quickly got acquainted with a mousetrap. I ran a temporary wire for this to the greenhouse, for both not trusting wifi, and I would have run a power line out there anyway. The fence doesn't help with the rabbits. A 4" wide rabbit can walk right through the 2-inch-apart wires in the fence. Watching it looks like a scifi move where somebody walks through a wall. We finally gave up on landscaping plants that the deer like.
 
tigerwillow1 said:
I finally resorted to a 7 foot high fence to keep the deer out. A few years back we had seedlings disappearing from the greenhouse. I put a temporary cam in there and fairly soon found out it was a mouse who quickly got acquainted with a mousetrap. I ran a temporary wire for this to the greenhouse, for both not trusting wifi, and I would have run a power line out there anyway. The fence doesn't help with the rabbits. A 4" wide rabbit can walk right through the 2-inch-apart wires in the fence. Watching it looks like a scifi move where somebody walks through a wall. We finally gave up on landscaping plants that the deer like.
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Last year I used my skidsteer and pulled out all my landscape shrubs. I was sick of them looking like crap because of the deer. I have found that the dwarf Alberta spruce trees are very prickly and the deer don't touch them.

As far as a fence that wouldn't look good because of the shape and location of the garden area. It is 4' wide and about 70' long and boarders the yard. The motion sprinklers actually worked really well for scaring the deer away. It's mostly the noise they don't like. So I'd still like to research the camera idea.
 
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A Reolink? Then it's a good thing you stated in your OP "I don't really need it to be part of my Blue Iris setup...." because it will likely not play nice with BI.

Note also in the Amazon listing "Frequently returned, See product details and customer reviews." :wtf::confused:
 
TonyR said:
A Reolink? Then it's a good thing you stated in your OP "I don't really need it to be part of my Blue Iris setup...." because it will likely not play nice with BI.

Note also in the Amazon listing "Frequently returned, See product details and customer reviews." :wtf::confused:
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Right......I don't want this camera as part of my main BI setup. Just something cheapo that I can use for three months out of the year. By posting a Reolink cam I was in no way saying it was a quality camera for my setup. I was saying my setup does not require a quality camera. I just need a glorified motion detector.
 
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Well I am going to try this cheapo Tapo cam.
It actually has a pretty good sized sensor and is full time color. I have plenty of lighting around that is set up for my color 4KT cams. It has animal/human/vehical detection so I'm hoping I can dial it in for deer/rabbits. If not.......it will go back. This cam also integrates with home assistant so I can create the routine I need to turn on the sprinklers when motion is detected.

This whole plan is actually my ladies idea. This is her setup for her garden. I was just pulled into to help out.
 
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If it is a small garden, I think you can just buy a motion activated sprinkler. But the camera approach is more fun especially when your wife bends down and gets mistaken for a deer.
 
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Keizer said:
Well I am going to try this cheapo Tapo cam.
It actually has a pretty good sized sensor and is full time color. I have plenty of lighting around that is set up for my color 4KT cams. It has animal/human/vehical detection so I'm hoping I can dial it in for deer/rabbits. If not.......it will go back. This cam also integrates with home assistant so I can create the routine I need to turn on the sprinklers when motion is detected.

This whole plan is actually my ladies idea. This is her setup for her garden. I was just pulled into to help out.
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Ageed....IMO, that Tapo is a better choice than the Reolink. Just have to accommodate the 9VDC wall wart. If that is an issue, maybe a passive POE injector and splitter setup can supply enough of the voltage over CAT-5e if not too far. I used this to send 12VDC to a camera 60 feet away in a bluebird box for almost 2 years. Unfortunately, the connectors on the 9VDC are most likely NOT the same size as the 12VDC on the splitter/injector set.

Passive PoE Injector and Splitter Kit with 5.5x2.1 mm DC Power Adaptor Connector,Black​

 
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bp2008 said:
If it is a small garden, I think you can just buy a motion activated sprinkler. But the camera approach is more fun especially when your wife bends down and gets mistaken for a deer.
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She was using motion sprinklers before. They were spendy too and one only lasted one season. Plus all the batteries. I personally didn't like the hoses sitting in the sun all summer. They would swell up from the water in there cooking. Plus when you went out to work in the garden you had to sneak up on each sprinkler and turn the dial to turn them off and hope they didn't see you.

The camera has a privacey setting you can trip so it will be way more convenient. Or just toggle off the routine in HA when working in the garden.
 
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You can also just search amazon for poe to 9v power and find plenty of 802.3af standard PoE compliant splitters, like this one:


(if you prefer to use a standard PoE switch to power the cam)
 
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Update: Got the camara and learned a few things I didn't know. First of all it seems Tapo is kind of stingy when it comes to exposing its motion sensors......at least on this model. I tried adding it to my TP link smart home integration in Home assistant and it would only give you the switch to turn motion detection on and off. I couldn't find a binary sensor anywhere. I then tried the Tapo camera control from HACS and although it gave me alot more control there was still no binary motion sensor anywhere. I ended up adding it to my Blue Iris setup and using BI motion detection. I then installed the Blue Iris integration in Home assistant and set up MQTT in Blue iris as well as Home assistant so the camera can send motion alerts to HA. This seems to work great and I did a mock automation using my bedroom light as a test.

Getting back to the Tapo motion sensors, I did try another test. I set the camera up in Blue Iris to use ONFIV trigger events. I then turned off the Blue Iris motion detection. Home assistant would not register any motion at all from BI. Again I guess it's Tapo protecting their sensors so you have to pay them a montly fee to use their recording cloud service. That isn't happening.

Oh by the way, I blocked internet access to the camera in my router. It works perfectly fine with Blue Iris this way.
 
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Thanks for the update! I need to act on this, sooner than planned ...
Late last night I spotted a fox on a front yard camera - headed toward the back (where the chickens are).
The front is fenced from the back & the cat and dog didn't react - so, I'm guessing that it smelled the dog and changed course.
(I need to learn how to find the clip (on the NVR) of the fox from last night ... but, meanwhile, I need a camera for the chicken area.
I went outside and checked on the chickens & walked the back yard area - no sign of the critter. I'd rather look via a camera. :cool:
 
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I got the new camera installed out by the garden. I'm finding out that the on board motion detection is better than what BI can give me. I have tried all different levels on the motion sliders in BI and it just won't detect motion very far away. The on board motion can detect motion almost at the other end of the garden.

I may have to abandon the BI motion. That means not using the motion signals in Home assistant sent from BI. What I did as a test is set up an automation for the camera in the Tapo app to turn on one of my spare Tapo smart plugs when it detects motion. And of course all my Tapo smart devices are in Home assistant. I then created an automation in HA that turns on the garden sprinkler zone when the camera turns on the Tapo smart plug from its automation in the app. Then after 5 seconds both the smart plug and garden sprinkler zone turn off. It seems to work pretty good.
 
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wittaj said:
The camera AI has got so good and most camera AI will beat BI at distance, as you are seeing.

The benefit is less CPU usage on the computer.
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I'd still like to get ONVIF triggers to work using MQTT and receiving them in Home assistant. When I check the "Get ONVIF trigger events" box and do the find/inspect, that all goes fine. I then check the "ONVIF/camera events" box under the trigger heading. When I go to configure, it shows an error that you see in my screen shot.
 

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I take it that there's no way to set up the Tapo other than installing their app?
I try to avoid adding apps to my phone as much as possible.
(I didn't find a UID anywhere - so the Reolink app on a laptop didn't work.)
Do I understand that once the app has been downloaded - the info becomes available to do this "I blocked internet access to the camera in my router."?
Thanks.
 
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