How to place sensors for new install

[j4co]

edit: changed the picture

Single garage, dual carport

I need some advise for my proposed new setup.

I drawed the house inside the environment plan.

So you see in grey and white the surrounding street. I colored the bushes on top light green (trees and bushes, now small but they will grow)
The darker green area is 80 cm high bushes that will reach that height after some time. From 1 -2 meter wide approximately

The Purple line is the fence that will be at the back side of the house (top of the picture is the back, bottum is the front)

As for the house, the light blue part of the house is 2 floors up and a roof above it (about 9 meter height).
the darker blue building parts are 1 level (about 3 meter height)

The Orange stripes are the entry doors of the house.
The yellow stripe on the left side is a gate between our house and the neighbor garage (only garage is drawn there)

The red dots are the camera's i intend to install. These most likely will be dahua mini ptz for most of the units. (this because i like my current PTZ very much)

The red open dot will be a 20-30x PTZ up heigh on the wall of the heigher part on the corner so i can keep an eye on 2 sides of the house.

The light brown/yellow lines are sensors i will use to have some reliable detection round the house. I learned my issues with the hikvisions and rain/bugs and false detects.
This also should make it possible to steer the higher up PTZ to the sector where a sensor gets an alarm.

Here is where i am looking for advise.

I did now draw a number of sectors here.

We have a pathway behind the fence, i think for to give access to back garden of the neighbors, and also us if we like to make a gate there.
As there will be larger bushes and trees there, it seems and ideal dark place to climb over an fence.

Anyone has a good suggestion what kind of sensors i can use to solve this affordable ?


It seemed to me multiple 90 or 120 degree sensors could do the trick.

Optex VXI series are about 100 euro each. They can be masked off and look nice and are 12 V DC.

Anyone did some setup like this ?

 

[tangent]

You've got a lot of choices to make.

How are you going to record things, 24-7 or only on motion? Blue Iris, other software, or a hardware NVR?

For the size of the house a 20-30xPTZ might be a little excessive and you may see a lot more of your roof than you want.

I'm not sure about some of your camera placements, better off to capture faces in a straight approach than a side view. Number of motion sensors also seems excessive for the size of the property, based on your floor plan I think most of your motion sensors should be on the first floor. Cams with features like face detection or line crossing issue far fewer false alerts, but supplementing with physical sensors isn't a bad idea. For the gate you can just use a magnetic contact to detect opening the gate.

If you use sensors how are you hooking them up? Cams with alarm i/o, NVR i/o, i/o device for BI computer, automation interface with alarm system?

The request to exit style of motion sensor @nayr used isn't a bad option for perimeter detection. GE makes one that's dual tech pir and microwave that can be had cheap on ebay.

I'm quoting one of your earlier posts for easier reference:

I am in the same situation of building a new house. So i use a layout map of the house and check where the entry points are, where the cars are parked etc. You can than measure the distances and than you would need to calculate which field of view and what pixel resolution you need at the position you need to identify persons.
after that you buy camera's with the specifications you need.

For example my home:

Text is all in Dutch as i need it for the builder later

the front is bottum and that is simple. Left side will be a gate, so needs a cam watching that. Right side is car parking garage door and house entry, so need cam there. Front of house 2 more so i can watch front of house, or closer to cars from other angle.
back of the house worries me, 2 doors so 2 cameras, but large garden, so high mounted ptz with some detectors covering the garden.

just an example..

 

[j4co]

It will be a nvr from dahua. I will record 24x7 on a number of cameras, perhaps not on all.
HDD space is not really a concirn, i have now 4 hikvisions with 2 on 24x7 and 2 on motion and exceed the allowed days of recording (15) with >50 days with 8 TB of disk space. If needed i could go for 4 bay nvr and double the hdd space.

my goal is to have reliable alerts on timeline in the nvr and limit the false ones. (Now have too many with hikvision and line crossing configured)

the main issues we face here at the moment are car break in for airbags and other things they need (they seem to steal on order) so the camera's on the front side are mostly aimed to record that.
Our 2 cars will stand under the carport (as named on the quoted drawing)
So the one camera that is under the carport will see poeple coming to the cars and the front door.
The camera on the right front wall of the house will have a different view on the cars and/or front of the house.

As for the left side gat, a contact might be better than a sensor indeed, except if they climb over it as it will be locked so not easy to open. Perhaps i should aim for both.. We have regulations that we can only built 2 meter high fences and gates so that is no real challenge for the average burgular to get over

Sensors will be connected to the NVR.

That excessive amount is on the backside to detect someone in the back garden. I found the optex redwall which can detect in zones, but at $2600 it is bit too much.
So it seemed logical to split the total fence line in left side, left part of back, right part of back and right side.
if i than get a sensor to detect reliable a fence crossing i can turn basically the larger ptz to a preset for that area and have a top down view. The first floor ptz unit(s) could turn also to that sector. They will be installed about 230 cm heigh.
if someone than moves through the garden i hope the alert of one zone will fall away and another will trigger. This is than a sort of tracking.

All but two sensors will be 1st floor level. I thought of using 2 to keep eye on the 1 level high part of the house (right side) That is about 3 meter high, and gives only access to windows (which can open but have multi point lock and 3 layer glass)

The larger PTZ would be for checking multiple things, but 20-30x might be overdone in the zoom part indeed.
But the strong ir which moves with the ptz is an advantage.

to give an idea of distances. The total property area where the house is on is:
front side 17.5 meter wide, back side 16.5 meter. Depth is 25 meter.
front side house to public walking path is 3 meter.
from back of the house to the fence line is 6 meter.


But i am open on suggestions for placement of both camera and sensor.
IR can follow later if i know the camera positions.

i need to know this before i start building, as i want tubes running through the structure and exit hous with small piece where the dahua mount fits over. So no external wires needed.

 

[tangent]

A couple of cheaper cams may do more good than the high ptz and would cost less.

The current placement seems somewhat improved over the drawing with red and green. I see that in that one you were planning on the green being external IR. That much external IR seems excessive.

You may want to put a second camera in the carport on the other side.

A single outdoor motion on the back side of the house is probably enough. As you noted, good outdoor sensors are a little pricey. DSC makes some that are microwave and pir: http://cms.dsc.com/download.php?t=1&id=16364 somebody on here did a review of a bunch of different models, something else was their favorite, but I can't remember the model or their website offhand.

Other types of sensors to consider:
Outdoor curtain detectors, for long skinny spaces
photoelectric detectors, detect someone crossing an ir beam. could be used a few feet from the back fence or at the entrance to the carport. Most are just a single beam someone could step over if they knew it was there. There are some with multiple beams.

The request to exit style of detector is good for a relatively tight detection pattern near a door. The mounting height determines the width of the detection area in combination with sensitivity adjustments. It's hard to guarantee if one of these would adequately cover the entire entrance to the carport. The veranda and carport may be well enough sheltered to use an indoor motion detectors.

Are there 2 doors to the veranda or just 1?

 

[j4co]

For the veranda is only 1 door from the main part of the house. The part where the table is, has only windows.

We were today at the desing person and we changed some things. Smaller garage for 1 car and front of the home. (need to save some money as it is too much now)

Edit: i like this sensor from optex: vxi-dam. It needs to be installed not too high on the wall, so a cheap uggly one is not ok with my wife.

 

[tangent]

For the veranda is only 1 door from the main part of the house. The part where the table is, has only windows.

We were today at the desing person and we changed some things. Smaller garage for 1 car and front of the home. (need to save some money as it is too much now)

Edit: i like this sensor from optex: vxi-dam. It needs to be installed not too high on the wall, so a cheap uggly one is not ok with my wife.

@CamFan Did some reviews of outdoor motion detectors on his website: Search Results for “motion” – DIY Security Guy
It's worth a look. For your house, I'd honestly only use 1 or 2 detectors like this and then a few other types. I think something like the GE RCR-REX (a dual tech request to exit type detector that would be mounted up by the soffit and many people wouldn't even notice it's there) could work well near some of the doors or the entrance to your carport. This is similar to the Optex OP-08 @nayr used to automate his PTZ, but might be a little bulkier.

I made a mock up of what detection patterns for a few motion sensors of this type might look like (blue). The green would be something like an LC-171. I'm assuming the right side of the carport is enclosed. The pink would be a second cam in the carport. I made it before you clarified the location of the veranda doors but for got to post it

 

[j4co]

Thank you.

I will follow the advise to put another camera onder the carport. Most likely 2 of the starlight turrets nayr did review.
Will have to see how much light there is, i recently changed one of my hikvisions to no ir for the night and the image is much better than with the reflections of the ir into the lens. (Mini dome type with or around lens)

As for the sensors, the lc-171 seems ok in that test, but hard to find locally and on ebay just as expensive as the optex for me, which i can have without import costs (EU based and i get 13€ Paperwork costs, like 8% import duty over the goods and transport and paperwork and than 21% VAT) so 100$ + 15$ shipping becomes 115+13 = 128 x 8% = 138 x 21% = 167)

I hope this will not be your future with import tax on goods from china..

 

[tangent]

on second thought I'd probably push the second cam to the entrance of the carport and maybe do away with the one you numbered '2'.

Who's going to be running the cable / conduit (you or the builder)? Depending on the cost, just run it to a few extra locations/pull 2 cables to each location and decide exactly what you want cam wise after it's built.

 

[j4co]

Builder will do conduit I will have a cable guy do the cabling. He does it far cheaper than the builder. Also 1 side factory terminated RJ-45 connector so I can add all the sealing things over the connector (need to move them full length of the cable over it, but that is not to hard) so I have a very good water resistant connection there.
So I need to decide every point of camera, IR lights, sensors before the building starts.
The garage under the carport is simple, I can drill myself holes on the correct position. The house will have 42 cm thick walls.

As for the extra connections, i would only need a conduit coming through the wall for the camera's as i will use the dahua mounts with room for the cable connections.
Sensors could be done that way also, need 4 wire cable there i think.
My IR units need POE so i need some kind of wall box there. But i could use a back cable entry there and mount the ir unit on that box. That way i need only the conduit to stick few cm out of the wall. Or i use also a dahua mount like the pfb200 type and connect the ir unit to it and seal it off. That way i will have simular Looking mountings and i can swap ir for a camera if needed.

Edit: ordered the pfb200w and pfb203w as is it 10-20% cheaper totday in China.
Will just test it, amd than order more if it is working for me.

Edit: ordered a Optex VXI-DAM to test with

Edit: revised plan

The back side of the house with 2 90 degrees sensors.

The sides of the house behind the gates with a sensor like the optex BX-80N. This will scan 2 sides and can be mounted against garage and house wall.
Than the front of the house 2 pir/radar sensors to avoid false alerts.

 

[j4co]

That optex vxi-dam arrived, and it is quite large. So it will stick out on a wall and will be in full sight when installed at 120 -150 cm height.

 

[zero-degrees]

We use those Optix sensors on our access control doors. The sensors trip the magnetic locks so you don't have to swipe your keycard to exit the building. These sensors are LARGE, ours are mounted 10' high on the ceiling and have a minimal coverage area pointing straight down. They only trigger when you are about 3' from the door.

Two things to be aware: What is truely your coverage area? Assure the sensor you order has the distance/coverage you need in order to trigger the event. Second is assure these are certified outdoor sensors as all ours are mounted inside and they don't look like something I'd want to put outdoors.

 

[j4co]

Yes this one is ip55 so outdoor version but not waterjet proof.

It is this one: Optex Europe - Optex

It is 12 meter max, and distance is adjustable.

For door opening we have at work also optex, but that type looks straight down.

 

[tangent]

It is 12 meter max, and distance is adjustable.

Distance may be adjustable but don't assume the adjustment is precise. PIR can be temperature dependent. Dual tech pir & microwave models can be less error prone. I would have chosen a different sensor. IP55 isn't a very strong outdoor rating, IP65 is the minimum I usually look for.

Pulling pre-terminated cable can be trouble. It's geneally stranded and more fragile and the rj-45 plug is easily damaged.

 

[j4co]

The single ended pre-terminated cable i have is massive core. So no other than normal installation cable, but has one side a rj-45 connector which is sealed.

My cable guy uses this for work where the have hard to reach spots so they do not have to terminate cable there i assume. He suggested these and i use them now for current install which works fine.

The first digit in the IP rating is for dust, so 55 is for water as good as 65, just not for dust.

 

[j4co]

I did buy some 2nd hand optex AX-100 units from the UK, 3x transmitter and 3x receiver for like 140€ so that can do the 3 sides of the back garden. I intend to buy some hollow square poles where i can feed a wire through.
The garden will need like 30-40 cm of ground fill so before that is done i can put conduit from pole to garage where i will have 3 x an curved conduit going from tech room through floor and bend out through wall, so i can pick it up from there.
Saves me sensors on the house for the whole garden, and than i can use the alrms to trigger preset of ptz units to turn in one of 3 directions.

picture:

so the orange lines between the little square blocks along the 3 sides will be the AX100 devices covering the 3 sides.

Also marked the cameras with P for PTZ, and T for Turret.
I hope in the time I have before I have to install them the new exmor sensor comes to a affordable mini ptz.