Any home security camera experts here?

Well, I'm not an expert, but I do work with them professionally, to a degree. To keep the firearms-related nature of the post in focus:
-An alarm is essential to being able to start a home defense strategy. You can't start your plan unless you wake up.
-A dog is nice, but it is alive. Unless you are prepared for the dog to not be alive, don't use it as an alarm system. They are easy to shut up.
-A good camera system is tied in with your alarm. Remember, home DEFENSE relies on information NOW. Forensic information such as recorded info and license plate information help the police find the people who robbed/insert crime here later. AFTER the crime has been committed.

Ideally, when the alarm starts beeping, you should have a display of all cameras beside the bed, preferably highlighting the cameras near motion sensors or door sensors that are tripped. If there is motion at the front door, you should get a chime and pop-up video near the door, every time. Systems exist that will do this, but they are not reasonable.

Live video is for protection and prevention, recordings are for justice and vengeance. Guns legally and morally only fit in one scenario, so focus on LIVE video in your protection strategy. I would rather engage the person intent on attacking me than to have evidence so the police can catch him after I am dead and gone.

Analog cameras are nice for the price. They all go back to a central recorder, that by nature is next to the biggest display device in the house usually. Crooks know to look for a Bunker Hill by the TV. IP (network) and Wireless go to a recording device that can be anywhere (the attic is a good place) and can be redirected to the Internet for phone apps and cloud storage (which can't be tampered with.) The price goes up for this. Also, a note on cloud (Internet) storage: the company that stores the video can watch it. They probably won't, but if you are a privacy advocate...be aware. Most IP cameras can keep hours of video on a card inside it whether or not it is attached to the recorder. Analogs do not have this feature.

License-plate grade cameras are expensive, and you usually will not get plates on an attacker's car. Night-capable license plate detecting cameras are astronomical in cost. Usually these are digital (or IP, or network...all are the same generally) and I would go with 5mp or higher. Generally, just seeing the car is enough for defense. License plates are for after the crime has happened.

Smartphones are the biggest innovation in this field. Find a camera system that sends activity to a smartphone (with audible alarm that will wake you up!) and you will be doing better. Doorbell? Look at the phone. Bump in the night? Ditto. At work and get an alarm notification? The phone should have video.

I do not have home-grade products to point you at. I deal with enterprise video systems and those prices are out of reach, and tailored to officers watching the cameras 24/7. However, I hope I have given enough insight to start you on the road to planning. I know I rambled a bit, but there is a lot of ground to cover. The main point for strategizing is live video is for protection and prevention, recordings are for justice and vengeance. . People tend to focus on recording, and forget that it does not help protect their family.

If you want more info, ask. I might be able to help, might not.

The ADT pulse system allows up to 10 cameras to be installed. The cameras have many options available through the software and can be motion activate and work in the dark as well. Live video can be seen by a web based software,for both smart phones and computers. Video is stored to the cloud.

Another note. Simplisafe, a reputable self-install security vendor, has announced they will add camera capability to their system in the next few weeks.

Do you plan on installing them yourself?

I was in a similar situation about two years ago. Here is a very brief rundown of what I learned, and also info a gained from a friend who worked installing them for a while.

1) Wireless is great for convenience and ease of install, but if anything in the entire chain goes down you have no cameras. Wired are more of a pain to install and wire, but short of a full electrical failure you still have cameras (but you might not be able to view them).

2) When wiring your camera's, make sure to the run the wires where someone can't get to them (and leave a drip loop).

3) Most "home" type camera systems can be ordered without a hard drive installed. Do so, it is MUCH cheaper to purchase a high quality HD from a reputable computer parts place and install it yourself. Additionally if you are not worried about evidence collection, but merely real time info then you can skip the HD all together.

4) A "home" security camera will usually have less than stellar day time resolution and it gets worse if you're relying on IR illumination (particularly if you're using the camera's built in illuminator). I would highly recommend leaving your porch lights on at night. You can get a much better picture this way on the exterior.

5) Figure out what you want to be able to see at any given moment before you do any shopping. You may figure out that you want 8 camera's when you originally only wanted 4. I found out I really wanted 5, but I unfortunately had purchased a 4 channel system that didn't allow adding an additional camera.

6) Figure out how you're going to look at your camera's when you need to look at them. I ended going with a system that had the capability to display both video over a normal co-ax cable, and over my LAN/WAN. I ran all the cables to have a hard line of video to every TV in my house, but to be honest I normally just pull it up on my laptop as it's faster.

7) If you're not going to have a live monitor on at all times of your cameras then you have to have a way to alert yourself of what's on the cameras. The system I went with will sound an audible alarm from the main box when the motion detector on the camera trips. The camera's record all the time, but having an audible alarm sound when there's motion is what makes them useful for HD.

The actual setup of the system is actually pretty easy, and beyond hanging off an extension ladder to get a few cable's run in a way my wife could tolerate it went smoothly.

-Jenrick

Web/phone based alarm systems require that the Web/phone service to be up and running. It's not very hard to cut incoming phone wires/internet cables coming into a house.

They also require power. Not too hard to cut the seal and pop out the power meter as well.

Yellow Jacket said:

Web/phone based alarm systems require that the Web/phone service to be up and running. It's not very hard to cut incoming phone wires/internet cables coming into a house.

They also require power. Not too hard to cut the seal and pop out the power meter as well.

Click to expand...

This is something to be aware of. More modern systems (like Simplisafe) use a 3g Cell connection (included in monitoring costs.) They also have internal battery backup so if you lose power, it sends you an alert as well as keeping the protection going. Those are definitely features to have. Another is to make sure the keypad is only an accessory, and not integral to the alarm. On a breakin, thieves will often bash the box or go for the thing making noise. The alerting box should be silent and hidden in what I would call a good system.

Wire telephone lines can be covered with a conduit, making them harder to cut. Wireless systems are, after all, radio systems, which are subject to radio interference. It is not difficult to build, and much more simple to buy from Fleabay, a radio jammer that works at the appropriate cellular frequency to make your wireless system inoperable. It is Simplisafe's biggest flaw.

Receivers can also be built or purchased that will receive your wireless camera transmissions. An electronics-capable crook is capable of seeing what's going on inside your home. Digital security helps a lot, but it is not foolproof.

Splattergun, I have the Simplisafe system and your comment made me question the worth of my posting a sign on my lawn telling the world what system I use. I think I should pick up an ADT sign on fleabay.

maxxhavoc said:

Another note. Simplisafe, a reputable self-install security vendor, has announced they will add camera capability to their system in the next few weeks.

Click to expand...

+1.

splattergun said:

Wire telephone lines can be covered with a conduit, making them harder to cut. Wireless systems are, after all, radio systems, which are subject to radio interference. It is not difficult to build, and much more simple to buy from Fleabay, a radio jammer that works at the appropriate cellular frequency to make your wireless system inoperable. It is Simplisafe's biggest flaw.

Click to expand...

Simplisafe also has a phone jack in the base station for backup. But phone lines can be cut too. Of course, if your system goes off-line for more than 15 minutes, they call you, then start calling the cops.

I am impressed by the system so far, and I went through a lot of paranoid what-ifs before I bought it. Of course, their motion sensors are unusable if you have pets. Don't believe the "50lb dog or smaller will not set it off" bit. My 6lb spastic cat sets it off no problem.

Police do NOT respond to your alarm system not communicating with a monitoring station if your line is cut. If you were told that they lied to you. No wireless system is very good. Sometimes you have to have wireless devices but they should be paired with a hard wired system for obvious security reasons. If you have a wireless system I can disable it within seconds of entering your home if I was a scumbag intruder. I have 19 years experience and counting in this field. I'm sure some burglars are experienced as well.

Great thread! Eventually I'll be looking into this same thing, great to get some information in advance.

Let me amend my last post further... Without a sign proclaiming that a system is present in the house, an intruder would assume none and unknowingly trip the sensors. Bam.

never understood the point of the sign in the yard. the surprise element of the alarm is worth the broken window, vs any fanciful notion that criminals are scared of signs, as safetouch commercials imply. the sign just lets the criminal know that a few extra steps are needed to rob you, and that you have something inside worth protecting with an alarm.

If your yard has a sign and your neighbor doesn't, whose house do you think they are hitting? Ive been involved with many thousands of home security and home video surveillance systems. I can count on one hand the number of times a burglar was caught in the house by the police. 3 times! Most of these guys are just lazy thugs looking for a quick score. Not organized with all the latest gadgets you see on TV and movies. A bullhorn in your attic going off will make the majority of them take off after breaking in and hearing it alerting everyone within a half mile radius. At the end of the day, if someone wants in they can get in. You just have to make it as unattractive for them as possible.

I put up two HomeMonitor cameras, one facing each point of entry. Before leaving the house I can use an app on my phone to turn on the 'alerts', thus if the camera detects motion I get a notification and can view either recorded footage or live view.

They start sending video to a cloud server upon detecting motion, and the recording starts a few seconds BEFORE the motion that caused them to activate, so you don't get a recording of the blur walking away.

Even if the burglar steals the camera, the recording is on the cloud for download later. You get seven days of archive footage for FREE, you pay if you want more than that. Seven days is plenty for me.

The cameras are inexpensive and easy to set up, and they have indoor and outdoor models. They send the footage via your WiFi so the only wire is the power cord. Connect them, your router, and your modem to a UPS and even if the power goes out you're protected.

http://www.y-cam.com/

I believe there are several camera companies doing this same thing, so don't feel like you must use that one. I just saw these cameras come up on woot.com one day and tried them out- six months or so and no complaints.

Yellow Jacket said:

Web/phone based alarm systems require that the Web/phone service to be up and running. It's not very hard to cut incoming phone wires/internet cables coming into a house.

They also require power. Not too hard to cut the seal and pop out the power meter as well.

Click to expand...

The three year old ADT system we had came with cellular wireless and a battery backup for the main alarm. I think this,is reasonably standard now.

We've got the ADT pulse system with cameras, cell back up, some other stuff I won't mention and one big A$$ honking horn installed in the attic, pointed outside. I've got it set so that if a mouse farts when armed, i get text alerts. The cameras record once it's armed. We got broke into a few years back, got video of the car in driveway, video of him coming basement, video of him coming into dining room, the horns are on ?? Second delay, he almost crapped his pants when they went off, he made a quick exit.
I told sheriff that I'd handle it on my own, put out the word that I knew who it was in the hood and we'd settle up "one day of my choosing", he evidently couldn't handle the stress of wondering when that day would come, they found him, "expired" from self induced overdose at home about 3 months later.