- Jun 30, 2004
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I've had this on the back-burner of my project plans since before 2000. In 1999, I tried some IBM X-10 home security and lighting kits. Those things came in a blue and black box for about $100 each. Soon, I had my entire house programmed for lights on-off-and-dim by schedule, and I had wireless security cameras. The security cameras had a weak signal, and the X-10 wireless dongles and transceivers could be thwarted depending on which side of the metal computer case they were deployed. But it worked well enough to play with.
I think I pondered seriously the general idea of it for years after I recycled the X-10 cyber-junk. I was confused by the "Home Security Kit" bundles you could buy for a few hundred dollars. They came with their own DVR device. If I was only making quick web inquiries for clues like "Windows PC," "home network" and "LAN," I could never be sure that the outlay of a few Franklins was supported by assurances for building your own computer-based security system. But now, Moms has taken two falls this year with month-long detours to the nursing home for physical therapy. When she's back on her feet, I have to attenuate the risk that she might get up at night and head for the bathroom again without her walker. The last time, she forgot it. Basically her short-term memory has taken a dump this year, but she can still engage in lively conversation and is her old annoying, nagging, impatient and impractical self.
So I decided to start executing my plan gathering dust for the last decade or more.
I bought an internal wireless/IP robotic security camera -- an Amcrest -- forgot the model #, but it was maybe 803-something:
Amcrest and Foscam are the same
I bought the Amcrest twin of the unit in the link. Instead of POE, it requires an AC power source running through a two-prong AC-to-USB adapter. The camera must be initialized for wireless network access by first attaching a twisted-pair Ethernet patch cable connected to either the internet router-switch or a switch on the network.
The "Pro" software is slick enough to satisfy. You can view several cameras onscreen at a time -- the standard scenario that prevails in crime-dramas like "The Score" with Brando and Edward Norton. How else would I describe it? I never bought a kit; unlike my friend, don't own a small strip-mall store with a need for it.
You can have real-time viewing of a single camera's captured video via INternet Explorer (but not EDGE), after installing a web-plugin. I suspect there is a problem with the Pro software and the internet add-in, such that the surveillance software will not install and function properly on a Windows 7 "Home" version of the OS.
NOW -- THE TOPIC AT HAND.
You will find individual cameras marketed as "PTZ" (robotic) in combination with POE versus wireless. "POE" nails down the wired nature of the product, and obviously "wireless" seldom if ever appears with "POE." Most of the "outdoor"/"external" cameras are "fixed" with manual adjustment of cam angle; most all of the "indoor"/"internal" are well-represented in the "robotic"/"PTZ" category (pan-tilt-zoom).
I live in Southern California. I have a back-patio with a great panoramic view, and an area under the second-floor deck which is mostly in the shade throughout the day. If I could put one robotic camera on the patio and mounted on the bottom of the deck above, there shouldn't be a problem with direct moisture in the weather -- which mostly occurs depending on El Nino seasons. The temperature has been known to drop as low as 32F, but I never lost any of my tomato plants up here. Those days seem distant in time by about two decades.
It dawned on me that you could maybe weatherproof an interior robotic camera with due attention to electrical weatherproofing with something like a clear plastic grocery-store cake-box. You could probably seal it so that the only moisture that could condense on the inside was the water in the air when you seal it. If that were ever an issue, I would think that it -- too --could be resolved: just put the assembly together on a hot day in mid-July. Between the rainstorms and blizzards -- to be sure (smiley here).
So are there any opinions or ideas about this? I already have the electrical connection solved, with leftover hardware and its cobwebs from the X10 experiments.
CAN YOU TURN AN INTERIOR ROBOTIC CAMERA INTO AN (ESSENTIALLY) WEATHERPROOF OUTDOOR/EXTERNAL CAMERA -- with something like a cake-box, or a Lexan cylinder? The latter materials are expensive. Tomorrow, I'm thinking to buy a couple cakes. I even have an empty plastic bottle used to sell pretzel-rings I bought on sale last week . . . .
I think I pondered seriously the general idea of it for years after I recycled the X-10 cyber-junk. I was confused by the "Home Security Kit" bundles you could buy for a few hundred dollars. They came with their own DVR device. If I was only making quick web inquiries for clues like "Windows PC," "home network" and "LAN," I could never be sure that the outlay of a few Franklins was supported by assurances for building your own computer-based security system. But now, Moms has taken two falls this year with month-long detours to the nursing home for physical therapy. When she's back on her feet, I have to attenuate the risk that she might get up at night and head for the bathroom again without her walker. The last time, she forgot it. Basically her short-term memory has taken a dump this year, but she can still engage in lively conversation and is her old annoying, nagging, impatient and impractical self.
So I decided to start executing my plan gathering dust for the last decade or more.
I bought an internal wireless/IP robotic security camera -- an Amcrest -- forgot the model #, but it was maybe 803-something:
Amcrest and Foscam are the same
I bought the Amcrest twin of the unit in the link. Instead of POE, it requires an AC power source running through a two-prong AC-to-USB adapter. The camera must be initialized for wireless network access by first attaching a twisted-pair Ethernet patch cable connected to either the internet router-switch or a switch on the network.
The "Pro" software is slick enough to satisfy. You can view several cameras onscreen at a time -- the standard scenario that prevails in crime-dramas like "The Score" with Brando and Edward Norton. How else would I describe it? I never bought a kit; unlike my friend, don't own a small strip-mall store with a need for it.
You can have real-time viewing of a single camera's captured video via INternet Explorer (but not EDGE), after installing a web-plugin. I suspect there is a problem with the Pro software and the internet add-in, such that the surveillance software will not install and function properly on a Windows 7 "Home" version of the OS.
NOW -- THE TOPIC AT HAND.
You will find individual cameras marketed as "PTZ" (robotic) in combination with POE versus wireless. "POE" nails down the wired nature of the product, and obviously "wireless" seldom if ever appears with "POE." Most of the "outdoor"/"external" cameras are "fixed" with manual adjustment of cam angle; most all of the "indoor"/"internal" are well-represented in the "robotic"/"PTZ" category (pan-tilt-zoom).
I live in Southern California. I have a back-patio with a great panoramic view, and an area under the second-floor deck which is mostly in the shade throughout the day. If I could put one robotic camera on the patio and mounted on the bottom of the deck above, there shouldn't be a problem with direct moisture in the weather -- which mostly occurs depending on El Nino seasons. The temperature has been known to drop as low as 32F, but I never lost any of my tomato plants up here. Those days seem distant in time by about two decades.
It dawned on me that you could maybe weatherproof an interior robotic camera with due attention to electrical weatherproofing with something like a clear plastic grocery-store cake-box. You could probably seal it so that the only moisture that could condense on the inside was the water in the air when you seal it. If that were ever an issue, I would think that it -- too --could be resolved: just put the assembly together on a hot day in mid-July. Between the rainstorms and blizzards -- to be sure (smiley here).
So are there any opinions or ideas about this? I already have the electrical connection solved, with leftover hardware and its cobwebs from the X10 experiments.
CAN YOU TURN AN INTERIOR ROBOTIC CAMERA INTO AN (ESSENTIALLY) WEATHERPROOF OUTDOOR/EXTERNAL CAMERA -- with something like a cake-box, or a Lexan cylinder? The latter materials are expensive. Tomorrow, I'm thinking to buy a couple cakes. I even have an empty plastic bottle used to sell pretzel-rings I bought on sale last week . . . .
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