Ideas for motion activated home or cctv camera for my front and back yard?

[Alexx1401]

Yeah, I don't mind connecting to the internet when the internet is working, but when it isn't, then I need the system to work as much as is possible.

I have not had problems with Amazon deliveries except for USPS to say it was delivered and then deliver it the next day. Also, I get other people's mail and deliveries, but so far mine have not gone missing. Yet.

Mostly I just want to know what is going on outside while I am inside, and I want to have a recording if someone does decide they want my stuff - but I've been here 8.5 years and no one on my road has had anything stolen or their house broken into - yet.

Now when I move, it may be a whole new ball game.

The main "problem" I have had with deliveries is FedEx. This has been a problem for over a decade. I don't know what the hell happened to them as they used to be the gold standard for delivery. They have been making the USPS look gold for a long time and that is really lowering the bar. Its to the point I cringe when I see something is coming FedEx any more.
Panic before this panic I had ammo coming weekly from a couple places. One of them used FedEx. I lost track of how many ammo shipments I had to go chase down at other homes. Camera here was the best. I would see the truck drive past my house and stop somewhere else. Walk down and there would be my ammo. Couple times the truck was never even on my street. When I would call the drone would ask several times if I looked around the house or at neighbors. After the 3d or 4th time with me telling them your truck was never on my street they would start the claim. One time later that day the truck showed up with the box. Guessing they got in touch with driver and he went and found it. The best part was knowing for sure it was not stolen, that they just never delivered it. Without the camera I would always be left wondering. Did they drop it off and did some scum walk off with it while I was sleeping? It was nice to know for sure it was the carrier.
While back neighbor who lives across the street asked my wife if we had seen anyone since someone had stolen a large flower pot from her place. One of my camera's shows her drive and I invited her in to watch the car and the person who showed up and did it. Turns out the damn woman did it while the people where home. A few minutes after the theft the garage door opens and they drive off to work. They just did not notice the thing gone till they got home.
With me working nights its great that the Wife can see whats going on too. If dogs start raising hell while she is in bed she can pick up her phone and see what is out there they are barking at.
I noticed they have at least one camera at their home now too

 

[SrMachoSolo]

People steal flower pots? Desperate times man.

-Robert

 

[Alexx1401]

People steal flower pots? Desperate times man.

-Robert

It was a HUGE one. Woman who took it had to really struggle to get the damn thing to her vehicle which looked like I describe as "a methmobile". Older sedan, mismatched wheels, ect. Wife who knows far more about this stuff than me said the pot was several hundred bucks if you go to buy one like it. Woman probably sold it for enough for one more high. Neighbor later told Wife that she bought another and put a bunch of rocks in the bottom. So at least next time it would take 2 meth heads to pick it up now

 

[The Heretic]

FedEx has been good to me - so maybe it is the driver that has the route? They have occasionally delivered the wrong thing to the wrong place, but more often it has been USPS that does that.

No theft up here, so I am not too worried about that yet; when I sell, I plan to do some traveling, so if I get a new place, I would want to have something setup because I may not be around anywhere near as often as I am now - unless I can convince the kids to build on my land and occupy it while I am gone, which is what I would prefer.

I may have a period of time where I store my furniture & personal goods in a container, preferably somewhere secure. I think if I did that, the guns would go in a large safe in the kids garage, buried under their loads of junk they have in their garage (literally full to the top and door full of stuff).

 

[Aero Denezol]

It was a HUGE one. Woman who took it had to really struggle to get the damn thing to her vehicle which looked like I describe as "a methmobile". Older sedan, mismatched wheels, ect. Wife who knows far more about this stuff than me said the pot was several hundred bucks if you go to buy one like it. Woman probably sold it for enough for one more high. Neighbor later told Wife that she bought another and put a bunch of rocks in the bottom. So at least next time it would take 2 meth heads to pick it up now

I've seen people steal plants too. One time some tweakers stole a gargoyle that was bolted down. The morons had to break it to remove it. The cameras see all. Probably the most unnerving thing is the number of nosy neighbors looking through our garbage, riding bikes in our driveway, taking pictures of our patio, etc. The camera has even caught a couple people come up to the front porch and stare in the windows. The audacity of people is astonishing.

 

[Alexx1401]

I've seen people steal plants too. One time some tweakers stole a gargoyle that was bolted down. The morons had to break it to remove it. The cameras see all. Probably the most unnerving thing is the number of nosy neighbors looking through our garbage, riding bikes in our driveway, taking pictures of our patio, etc. The camera has even caught a couple people come up to the front porch and stare in the windows. The audacity of people is astonishing.

In laws had to get one for their trash of all things. City sent them a bill a couple times about their trash can being over loaded. They at first could not figure out what was going on. They go to bed early. Turned out neighbor across the street was coming over and loading stuff in their can to the point it was over the top and lid would not close. They did not want to pay for a larger can so they were just jamming stuff in the old peoples can. First time camera caught it one of my Wife's siblings went to talk to them. At first flat out denial till she pull out her phone and shows them tape of them doing it. It did stop of course.

 

[Nick Burkhardt]

We bought a wired power RING doorbell, wired power RING stick-up cameras (for the driveway, carport, laundry porch and rear patio) and wired power RING floodlight cameras (for the front and side yards) on sale for $660. You will need to pay the $100 a year fee to retrieve non-live videos. If you go the RING route get the subscription first as it will give you 10% off your hardware purchases.

We had to run a new wire to the doorbell because the existing one did not have enough juice and all RING suggested attempts to boost power to it failed. We then had to buy a RING doorbell chime to plug-in inside our house because the existing chime was now disconnected.

The Good: Great for knowing when packages are dropped on your front door. You can set precise zones for the floodlight to turn on. Homeless guy thinking of stealing that tarp on your front lawn? Zap the floodlight kicks on as soon as he steps one foot off the sidewalk. Raccoons in your side yard coming to steal your grapes? Light em up, but they don't give a care. Also, good you can set motion detected on one camera to trigger recording on another camera. All of cameras we got are hard wired so there are no batteries to change.

The Bad: Lag. Maybe it is just my phone, but it takes a while to connect when you are way from the house. Six cameras and the door bell appear to be the max. It will record cars driving by all day long, but always seems to miss when anything interesting happens. 1080p is not enough to capture license plate numbers. Needs your home WiFi to work. If your WiFi goes down, so do the cameras. Video storage is held by RING, which is now owned by Amazon.

Would I go with RING again? No, well maybe just the doorbell. Get motion lights and a better 4k system with a hard drive instead.

 

[Certaindeaf]

 

[JohnnyMac]

FedEx has been good to me - so maybe it is the driver that has the route?

FedEx ground here in my town is a Ukrainian husband and wife. Husband speaks zero English and wife speaks a hair more than none. The delivery service is borderline sketchy and calling in issues is fruitless.

 

[The Heretic]

I've seen people steal plants too. One time some tweakers stole a gargoyle that was bolted down. The morons had to break it to remove it. The cameras see all. Probably the most unnerving thing is the number of nosy neighbors looking through our garbage, riding bikes in our driveway, taking pictures of our patio, etc. The camera has even caught a couple people come up to the front porch and stare in the windows. The audacity of people is astonishing.

That's what I like about where I am; my neighbors respect my privacy because I respect theirs

 

[coop44]

A mobile camera mounted on one of these

 

[clanhanson]

I'm a fan of Simplisafe but mostly because I like sticking it to the big home security chain companies and I don't have a large property to watch over.

 

[Alexx1401]

I'm a fan of Simplisafe but mostly because I like sticking it to the big home security chain companies and I don't have a large property to watch over.

When we finally had to get a system here I went with them, Simplisafe, due to how damn easy it was. ordered the stuff, sick up the stuff, set up account and away it goes. If we want to add on or change anything I can just do it. When we move the last thing I will do at this house is take the stuff down and move it all to new place. They were a GREAT invention.

 

[Jonnyuma]

The Ring doorbell cameras work pretty good, are rechargeable, have good NV and give immediate alerts to your smartphone via wifi connection.

The house l just bought has a Ring doorbell already installed. How easy (and $$$) is it to add cameras? I'm thinking that 3 or 4 would give me sufficient coverage. A couple more would be even better.

ETA:
Having just read @Nick Burkhardt 's accounting of Ring, I'm less likely to expand the current system. It seems like an additional setup with minimal overlap of the existing setup might be ideal.

 

[n8train]

DEFINITELY 2nd @JohnnyMac on the Wyze cameras!! VERY inexpensive and very reliable!! I started with a single Wyze camera and have since added multiple, plus their doorbell camera, their smart door lock, their smart thermostat, and they even offer a monitoring service for less than $5/mo

 

[Alexx1401]

The house l just bought has a Ring doorbell already installed. How easy (and $$$) is it to add cameras? I'm thinking that 3 or 4 would give me sufficient coverage. A couple more would be even better.

ETA:
Having just read @Nick Burkhardt 's accounting of Ring, I'm less likely to expand the current system. It seems like an additional setup with minimal overlap of the existing setup might be ideal.

Depends of course on what you want but, simple cameras that will all work together with Amazon can be had for around $35 each. We bought a few while back when we were going out of town for a few days. Scattered them around the place to keep an eye on the dogs and bird while we were gone. We did not set them up with cloud. Just wanted to be able to see with them. Even they can be set to notify if we want them to work as an alarm. They are not made to be weather safe of course at that price but, not hard to get protection for them. They are simple plug and play.
We don't have Alexa but if we wanted to get one we can then use that to control the cameras too. Tell it to turn them on or off and arm them and such. Even can set up timers where they arm and disarm on a time line.

 

[Jonnyuma]

We don't have Alexa

Me neither.
Also, have no interest in bringing it in. With the amount of data being collected just from our phones, I'm not too interested in paying them to gather more.

A few weeks ago l was researching a new grill/smoker on my phone. Later, my GF logged on to her Chromebook and was instantly deluged with ads for grills and smokers. Different device, completely unconnected to my phone... I thought.
I knew they were keeping tabs, but daaam... that was wake-up call.

BTW, l ended up with a Green Mountain smoker. It's pretty great, l use it whenever possible.

 

[Alexx1401]

Me neither.
Also, have no interest in bringing it in. With the amount of data being collected just from our phones, I'm not too interested in paying them to gather more.

A few weeks ago l was researching a new grill/smoker on my phone. Later, my GF logged on to her Chromebook and was instantly deluged with ads for grills and smokers. Different device, completely unconnected to my phone... I thought.
I knew they were keeping tabs, but daaam... that was wake-up call.

BTW, l ended up with a Green Mountain smoker. It's pretty great, l use it whenever possible.

Yep Wife finally noticed this a short while ago. I had been telling her for years that the ISP sells the info. This is a lot of why. She was just not really paying attention. Then one day she finally saw it when she was looking for something on her phone and then ads popped up on her PC for the kind of stuff.
The only thing that I do try to be careful of is my WiFi. When Broadband first really got going there was an article about some poor guy who's neighbor was using his WiFi to look at kidi porn. Bunch of Fed Cops kick in the door in the middle of the night to "raid him". After reading that it did always try to make sure I use some form of keeping that from happening. The rest of it? Could care less if the boys from google and amazon are selling my info on what I buy.

 

[Jonnyuma]

an article about some poor guy who's neighbor was using his WiFi to look at kidi porn. Bunch of Fed Cops kick in the door in the middle of the night to "raid him".

Holy cow!
I'm password protected, for what it's worth, but l don't know what to do beyond that.
My WiFi is so weak that l can't even get my aforementioned grill connected to it from the back yard so l doubt there's anyone close enough to pirate it... but you never know.

I thought the WiFi connected smoker was gimmicky and wasn't too interested. Now l have it and I'm mad that l can't get it to work!
Talk about yer First World problems.

 

[Alexx1401]

Holy cow!
I'm password protected, for what it's worth, but l don't know what to do beyond that.
My WiFi is so weak that l can't even get my aforementioned grill connected to it from the back yard so l doubt there's anyone close enough to pirate it... but you never know.

I thought the WiFi connected smoker was gimmicky and wasn't too interested. Now l have it and I'm mad that l can't get it to work!
Talk about yer First World problems.

When I first read about this poor guy it was soon after we got Broadband. I bought a cheap WiFi Router and it was protected with the low end password protection. I had been reading about going with the better one they had come out with but was not interested until I read about this poor guy. I that day ordered a new router with the better lock down.
We had to get extenders just to make sure the WiFi would work on the 2nd floor of the house. I guess the bad guys have easy to use boosters to help them of course. What got me was them kicking in the damn door in the middle of the night over this. Like what was the guy going to do, flush his computer down the toilet?
The cities that no longer want Cops are going to find this out the hard way. When they get the Fed Police and this starts to happen? Hope they remember this is what they wanted. When Fed Cops do something stupid there is no one to do anything about it. The locals will just shrug and say they had no control over it.