Hej,
As I explained yesterday in the "New Member" part of this forum, we live in a house in Sweden in a somewhat remote area.
It might be an easy target for burglars (no direct neighbours, lots of forest around,..), so I was thinking about upgrading the security in and around the house.
Some new locks, some extra lights,... and maybe some IP camera's?
The locks and lights are no problem. I can manage that.
But the camera's? Well, that's all kinda new to me and although I know a little bit about computers... my knowledge of networks, port forwarding,.. is pretty limited.
So I have done a lot of searching and reading over the past few days, but it seems that the more I read about it, the more confusing it gets :shame:
I think the setup that I am looking for is a pretty normal one... but just the sheer amount of camera's out there is a bit overwhelming for me.
Ok, so what am I looking for?
Number of camera's?:
Currently I am thinking about 2 rooms where I want to put a camera.
The first room is the "computer room". It isn't that big and has a lot of windows... so during day-time there is a fair amount of light.
The second room is our living area. That one is rather big, but doesn't have that much windows, so it can be rather dark in the room. Especially on a cloudy/grey day.
During the night, both areas are dark.
Wired or Wifi?:
The living area isn't really close to the computer room (where the router also is) and as we just rent this house, I don't want to do much drilling or something like that. So preferably I would go for cameras that use wifi.
We have wifi covering the entire house, so I guess that shouldn't be much of a problem.
Local storage or cloud?:
Next month we will be going on holiday for about 2 weeks.
My desktop computer will be switched off during this time and I don't have a NAS or something like that, that can store the feed during our absence.
I know that there are camera's that have room for SD cards, but as we won't be home for a longer period of time, my guess is that cloud storage is a better option.
It seems that there are some options for that... Some pretty cheap, some rather expensive. So what service do you suggest?
Remote access:
During our absence I would like to check in on the house from time to time. I have an Iphone and I will be taking my laptop with me, so it would be nice if I could access the camera feed via an app or a web browser.
Also, it would be nice that I get some sort of warning (email or so) when the camera's detect something.
Motion detection:
I guess most of the camera's out there, have this option, but...
We also have 2 cats that will be staying here during that time. Don't worry, we have someone who will be looking after them during that period
The person who is looking after the cats, normally shouldn't come into the 2 rooms I mentioned, but the cats might. So preferably I would like some kind of camera where you can adjust the sensitivity of the motion detection, so that I don't get a warning every time one of the cats wanders into one of these rooms.
Easy setup:
Like I said, I am not really an expert when it comes down to networks, port forwarding,..
It doesn't have to be plug&play (if it's possible, it would be nice of course) but I don't want to be spending 2 weeks setting up this thing either.
Budget?:
Well, nothing comes for free and I am certainly willing to spend some money on it. So it doesn't has to be the cheapest setup out there.
But I don't want to spend 1000's of euros/dollars on it either. So I would say... 4 or 500 euro/dollar max?
Other optional things I am thinking about?:
- It would be nice if the camera's weren't to big. It's ok that you can see them (if you know where you placed them), but I don't want them to be the eyecatchers in the room either.
- If this thing works, then maybe I would want to add some extra camera's to the system.. so that should be an option as well.
I already had a look at some camera's out there and like I said it is pretty hard to select one from the huge amount of options that are out there.
But these are some of the camera's that had gotten my interest, but I am not sure if they are what I am looking for.
Foscam C1
Seems like this camera is getting some nice reviews. Especially for it's rather low price.
But that low price probably also means that they had to make some compromises in the design/available options of this camera. So not to sure about this one.
Nest Cam
More expensive than the Foscam. It's pretty small it seems and it's getting some good reviews as well... but it's also not without flaws it seems.
Especially the fact that a lot of people mention that the camera can become pretty hot, is something that kinda worries me.
Zavio F3215
I don't know exactly how I found this one.
It's not the cheapest one out there and I can't really find much reviews about it, but it does seem to have a lot of options that I am looking for.
So anyone here who can tell me something about this one?
Any other suggestions?
Thnx in advance!
As I explained yesterday in the "New Member" part of this forum, we live in a house in Sweden in a somewhat remote area.
It might be an easy target for burglars (no direct neighbours, lots of forest around,..), so I was thinking about upgrading the security in and around the house.
Some new locks, some extra lights,... and maybe some IP camera's?
The locks and lights are no problem. I can manage that.
But the camera's? Well, that's all kinda new to me and although I know a little bit about computers... my knowledge of networks, port forwarding,.. is pretty limited.
So I have done a lot of searching and reading over the past few days, but it seems that the more I read about it, the more confusing it gets :shame:
I think the setup that I am looking for is a pretty normal one... but just the sheer amount of camera's out there is a bit overwhelming for me.
Ok, so what am I looking for?
Number of camera's?:
Currently I am thinking about 2 rooms where I want to put a camera.
The first room is the "computer room". It isn't that big and has a lot of windows... so during day-time there is a fair amount of light.
The second room is our living area. That one is rather big, but doesn't have that much windows, so it can be rather dark in the room. Especially on a cloudy/grey day.
During the night, both areas are dark.
Wired or Wifi?:
The living area isn't really close to the computer room (where the router also is) and as we just rent this house, I don't want to do much drilling or something like that. So preferably I would go for cameras that use wifi.
We have wifi covering the entire house, so I guess that shouldn't be much of a problem.
Local storage or cloud?:
Next month we will be going on holiday for about 2 weeks.
My desktop computer will be switched off during this time and I don't have a NAS or something like that, that can store the feed during our absence.
I know that there are camera's that have room for SD cards, but as we won't be home for a longer period of time, my guess is that cloud storage is a better option.
It seems that there are some options for that... Some pretty cheap, some rather expensive. So what service do you suggest?
Remote access:
During our absence I would like to check in on the house from time to time. I have an Iphone and I will be taking my laptop with me, so it would be nice if I could access the camera feed via an app or a web browser.
Also, it would be nice that I get some sort of warning (email or so) when the camera's detect something.
Motion detection:
I guess most of the camera's out there, have this option, but...
We also have 2 cats that will be staying here during that time. Don't worry, we have someone who will be looking after them during that period
The person who is looking after the cats, normally shouldn't come into the 2 rooms I mentioned, but the cats might. So preferably I would like some kind of camera where you can adjust the sensitivity of the motion detection, so that I don't get a warning every time one of the cats wanders into one of these rooms.
Easy setup:
Like I said, I am not really an expert when it comes down to networks, port forwarding,..
It doesn't have to be plug&play (if it's possible, it would be nice of course) but I don't want to be spending 2 weeks setting up this thing either.
Budget?:
Well, nothing comes for free and I am certainly willing to spend some money on it. So it doesn't has to be the cheapest setup out there.
But I don't want to spend 1000's of euros/dollars on it either. So I would say... 4 or 500 euro/dollar max?
Other optional things I am thinking about?:
- It would be nice if the camera's weren't to big. It's ok that you can see them (if you know where you placed them), but I don't want them to be the eyecatchers in the room either.
- If this thing works, then maybe I would want to add some extra camera's to the system.. so that should be an option as well.
I already had a look at some camera's out there and like I said it is pretty hard to select one from the huge amount of options that are out there.
But these are some of the camera's that had gotten my interest, but I am not sure if they are what I am looking for.
Foscam C1
Seems like this camera is getting some nice reviews. Especially for it's rather low price.
But that low price probably also means that they had to make some compromises in the design/available options of this camera. So not to sure about this one.
Nest Cam
More expensive than the Foscam. It's pretty small it seems and it's getting some good reviews as well... but it's also not without flaws it seems.
Especially the fact that a lot of people mention that the camera can become pretty hot, is something that kinda worries me.
Zavio F3215
I don't know exactly how I found this one.
It's not the cheapest one out there and I can't really find much reviews about it, but it does seem to have a lot of options that I am looking for.
So anyone here who can tell me something about this one?
Any other suggestions?
Thnx in advance!
). I use a 229 Euro QNAP TS-231+ that comes with the very useful Surveillance Station app on it (2 free camera licenses included). I considered a PC but the NAS uses just 11W of power which a PC cant match. ANother good option is an NVR, match the brand to the cameras you buy. Eg. Hikvision NVR for Hikvision cameras is the best combination.
)