New House - Camera Placement Feedback

[gwong86]

Hi all,

Buying a house and planning some security cameras once I'm closed and moved in. Looking for feedback on my initial thoughts for placement.

• House is on a corner lot
• Primary points of entry are front door, garage, bulkdoor/basement, and sliding door.
• Primarily concerned with situational awareness of exterior (camera locations in blue w/ arrows showing rough field of view)
• Front door will likely be covered by some type of doorbell camera (i.e. Ring, etc.). Alternative is to mount a mini dome at 5-6ft level. I've seen the "you want to know who did it, not what happened" guidance throughout the various posts.
• Interior cameras (in green) focusing on primary entry points.
• There are two windows on the porch to the right of the front door that'd I'd like coverage of
• I understand that I may not be able to do everything with a single camera, but am trying to minimize the amount of cameras used.
• Cameras 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 - IPC-HDBW4231F-E2-M
• Cameras 6, 7, 8 - IPC-HDBW4231F-AS
• House exterior is vinyl siding
• There are lights on both sides of the garage door so mounting these above them

Please let me know your thoughts or suggestions. Appreciate the feedback.

 

[catcamstar]

Hi @gwong86, welcome to the forum!

Have you discovered the Cliff Notes already? They give you a head-start on terminology and technology (eg DORI distances etc). For doorbell, there are IPCam technologies outside RING who perform the same (or even better) capabilities.

But without having to fall into repetition:
- better to have 2 cams covering an important area (eg 2 cams to cover cars/garage door): now someone can sneak in, go low behind the left car and go to the right door.
- lightning is important: the more light (ir/ambient), the crisper the images. IR is good for "hidden footage", but if you want to film in the open, normal lights will do. But note that a cam looking at any light source, is troubled.
- also think about the management of these cams (BI/NVR/.. )

Good luck!
CC

 

[SouthernYankee]

my standard welcome to the forum message.

Please read the cliff notes and other items in the wiki. The wiki is in the blue bar at the top of the page.

Read How to Secure Your Network (Don't Get Hacked!) in the wiki also.

Quick start
1) Use Dahua starlight cameras or Hikvision darkfighter cameras or ICPT Night eye cameras (https://store.ipcamtalk.com/) if you need good low light cameras.
2) use a VPN to access home network (openVPN)
3) Do not use wifi cameras.
4) Do not use cloud storage
5) Do Not use uPNP, P2P, QR, do not open ports,
6) More megapixel is not necessarily better.
7) Avoid chinese hacked cameras (most ebay, amazon, aliexpress cameras(not all, but most))
8) Do not use reolink, ring, nest cameras (they are junk)
9) If possible use a turret camera , bullet collect spiders, dome collect dirt and reflect light (IR)
10) Use only solid copper, AWG 23 or 24 ethernet wire. , no CCA (Copper Clad Aluminum)

Read,study,plan before spending money ..... plan plan plan


Test mount camera placement with a bucket of rocks and a 2x4 8 ft long. test camera placement by having friend wear a hoodie, baseball cap and sun glasses, if you can not identify then then the camera is to high and in the wrong spot.

mount two cameras one the garage one on each side, no higher than 7 ft.

I have two cameras covering each door outside. I also have an indoor camera pointing at the doors. I have a indoor garage camera.

 

[aristobrat]

For me, I'd be worried that the dual 4231s aren't going to have enough PPF to ID anyone unless they pass damn close to those cameras (13ft or closer), but you specifically mentioned your primary concern was situational awareness, so it sounds like you're OK with using them to get a general heads up that someone is outside, and then you'll use one of the indoor 4231 mini-domes to try and get an ID if they inside of the house (as well as whatever you decide to go with for a door cam)?

Will you always be parking inside of the garage?

I use the IPC-HDBW4231F-AS mini-dome wedge outside on my back porch, pointing towards the house. At night, that reflects enough IR back to the camera that I have to set the IR levels to manual and keep them pretty low, otherwise the IR bounce back will wash the image out. I'm not sure if if you'll run into the same problem using these in your garage and front hallway. If you do, just keep in mind you can manually lower the IR to help out.

 

[mat200]

Hi all,

Buying a house and planning some security cameras once I'm closed and moved in. Looking for feedback on my initial thoughts for placement.

• House is on a corner lot
• Primary points of entry are front door, garage, bulkdoor/basement, and sliding door.
• Primarily concerned with situational awareness of exterior (camera locations in blue w/ arrows showing rough field of view)
• Front door will likely be covered by some type of doorbell camera (i.e. Ring, etc.). Alternative is to mount a mini dome at 5-6ft level. I've seen the "you want to know who did it, not what happened" guidance throughout the various posts.
• Interior cameras (in green) focusing on primary entry points.
• There are two windows on the porch to the right of the front door that'd I'd like coverage of
• I understand that I may not be able to do everything with a single camera, but am trying to minimize the amount of cameras used.
• Cameras 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 - IPC-HDBW4231F-E2-M
• Cameras 6, 7, 8 - IPC-HDBW4231F-AS
• House exterior is vinyl siding
• There are lights on both sides of the garage door so mounting these above them

View attachment 41958

Please let me know your thoughts or suggestions. Appreciate the feedback.

Welcome @gwong86

While I like the IPC-HDBW4231F-E2-M and IPC-HDBW4231F-AS cameras, I think you would be better off with 2 larger turret cameras outdoors instead of 1 dual lens mini-dome camera. The mini-domes are nice, however they are best imho indoors and by the doors of the house, especially if the entrance has enough light to keep the cameras in color mode and avoid IR mode.

As I like the IPC-HDBW4231F-E2-M by the frontdoor at about eye level - I think you should buy only ONE of those and test it before you decide to buy more and place them outdoors. Remember domes do have issues eventually due to UV / heat exposure degrading the plastics and foam as well as IR reflection issues.

• Cameras 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 - IPC-HDBW4231F-E2-M
• Cameras 6, 7, 8 - IPC-HDBW4231F-AS