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IP Camera Security

MartinD

MartinD

Retired Staff
Verified Provider
Retired Staff
Does anyone else run IPCameras for security? Particular with motion detect?

I'm looking to set something up (running of a linux) box that can monitor multiple cameras. It would be good to have motion detect capabilities and, if possible, the ability to send SMS alerts (or at least output to a bash script or similar).

I've worked with iSpy before and I'm aware of zoneminder.

Any other recommendations?
 
KuJoe

KuJoe

Well-Known Member
Verified Provider
Any IP camera + Synology. The built in software automatically does motion detection and e-mail notification (it'll e-mail you a picture when it detects movement and their app lets you watch the camera in realtime or watch the record video).

Personally, I use an RPi with my Synology NAS. :)
 
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MannDude

MannDude

Just a dude
vpsBoard Founder
Moderator
I'm running (4x) 720p IP cameras around my house right now, though the Zmodo DVR software is pretty poor in my opinion. Motion detection works, but I've come to find that it doesn't always detect motion if say... someone is walking through the backyard slowly or if a car is driving by in the alley even with the sensitivity turned on high it won't always detect motion which concerns me. Image quality is great though. Really can't complain about that. DVR software is meh and the reviews of the phone app are bad enough that I've not even tried it myself yet.

Check out http://blueirissoftware.com/though. If I get around to cobbling together a dedicated solution and ditch the Zmodo DVR I'll probably use BlueIris.
 
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JahAGR

JahAGR

New Member
Using iSpy myself with four standard-def IP cams. Unfortunately my cameras adjust their iris/shutter/whatever in pretty big steps so I always have false motion detect triggers due to the sun no matter how the sensitivity is set.

One feature of iSpy (and probably others) that I've come to like is that I can have constant 1FPS long-term recording, and then if motion is detected it will start a new file and jump up to 15FPS.

Blue Iris always gets really good reviews
 
R

RHServices

New Member
Verified Provider
We use Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I bullet cameras with Blue Iris, you can pick them up for around $100 on ebay new and Blue Iris runs $60, simple to setup and bulletproof so far. Gave zoneminder a shot, but it's just not as good as BI nor as stable. For the time you will spend setting up zoneminder even though it is free, it will end up costing you much more if your time is worth anything!
 
KuJoe

KuJoe

Well-Known Member
Verified Provider
Just saw a nice hack that will turn my RPi camera into a night vision camera with some IR LEDs, might give it a shot or buy one of the pre-made ones online for $30. :)
 
MannDude

MannDude

Just a dude
vpsBoard Founder
Moderator
KuJoe said:
Just saw a nice hack that will turn my RPi camera into a night vision camera with some IR LEDs, might give it a shot or buy one of the pre-made ones online for $30. :)
Click to expand...
They have a camera for the Pi that is cheap that will pick up IR.

I've got a couple of nice IR illuminators that work great:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AO84FKO/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 this lights up the back yard very nicely. I am very impressed with how well it works.

I also have this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M3MQL9W/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It's a bit more focused and not as wide of an area, but that makes it good for how I am using it.

PM me if you want to see any before/after examples with those products VS the built in IR on the cameras.

I suspect with the Pi you will need to use a pretty good IR light for it to pick it up well.

I've opted for infrared light for security around the house instead of visible light. This way it doesn't bother neighbors, I can still see the night sky when outside, and these use practically no power at all. The big uses like 6.5 watts when it's powered on. I'd imagine a flood light would use more.
 
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KuJoe

KuJoe

Well-Known Member
Verified Provider
MannDude said:
They have a camera for the Pi that is cheap that will pick up IR.

I've got a couple of nice IR illuminators that work great:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AO84FKO/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 this lights up the back yard very nicely. I am very impressed with how well it works.

I also have this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M3MQL9W/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It's a bit more focused and not as wide of an area, but that makes it good for how I am using it.

PM me if you want to see any before/after examples with those products VS the built in IR on the cameras.

I suspect with the Pi you will need to use a pretty good IR light for it to pick it up well.

I've opted for infrared light for security around the house instead of visible light. This way it doesn't bother neighbors, I can still see the night sky when outside, and these use practically no power at all. The big uses like 6.5 watts when it's powered on. I'd imagine a flood light would use more.
Click to expand...
I was reading a DIY for making your own night camera using the RPi camera that I have, they did a comparison of a $10 IR light and some cheap IR lights off eBay from China and they both performed about the same. The DIY uses 2 IR lights for their setup and it works nicely from the pics I've seen. For about $40 it's a pretty nice HD camera for night.
 
K

KMyers

New Member
I run a few DLink cameras but I have the DLink Cloud Software turned off and do not have the cameras directly exposed to the internet. I need to access them via a VPN to a Raspberry Pi on the same network. This is because many consumer grade cameras view security as an aftersight.

I run a custom software stack on the Raspberry Pi that allows me to do things that the built in software does not do such as store photos and do some other analytics.
 
V

VPS4LESSDE

New Member
I was also running a very cheap chinese WLAN Cam with motion detection.

It worked, but sent me also a lot of "wrong motions" so i turned it off.

So I think you should spend a little more money for this :)
 
KuJoe

KuJoe

Well-Known Member
Verified Provider
J

joepie91

New Member
Friendly advice; put all your IP cameras on an internal, fenced-off network of some sort. Firmware security of IP cameras is notoriously bad.
 
Jonathan

Jonathan

Woohoo
Verified Provider
We run 8x 1080p network cameras with BlueIris.  It works absolutely wonderfully.

I couldn't find anything comparable for Linux a few years ago when I set this up.
 
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