Lanx
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most wifi doorcams will use the doorbell power
the 3 i installed all used doorbell power
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the 3 i installed all used doorbell power
Burns
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Many are hardwired, by taking over the existing doorbell wiring, as Lanx says, but it can depend on the camera. There are battery operated WiFi ones from Blink, Ring, and others (for various uses where taking over the hard wire wont work, like apartments), so you should make sure when buying, to confirm that it's a hardwire model.
I'm lazy, so here is another video from the same dude about various doorbell cams. You can see the back of one of them, and the two screws for where to attach the existing wires:
Also, according to that video, the Reolink, while having the best picture quality, can not activate your existing house chime, even if it's using the existing wires, which sounds a bit strange (or an oversite).
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Intrinsic
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Yeah I read in to the manual after buying and there was a mention about jumpering across the chime otherwise the cam would not have enough power. I’d have to go back and find the specific section. I’m honestly happy with that because while our charm is working today, it has been used 2 times in 2 years, and drives the dog bonkers. So no charm may be a bonus. Hah.
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Lanx
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the first one i got had to futz w/ the chime, the new ones just give you a wireless plug in speaker and you can have fun w/ 100 funny sound chimes.
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Control
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Have any of you ever checked into some less conspicuous or hidden options? I've thought about putting up some security cams outside, but I'd rather them not be super obvious to the neighbors. (And no, not for spying on them, not that I'd necessarily be opposed to that in certain cases, but definitely not in the current case...)
Lanx
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the best use of securitycams is as a deterrant, i mean obviously if a man has a mission to do something, they'll do it, but a regular thief would look for the usual security cam places and decide to hit somewhere else instead.
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Burns
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The dome type camera is fairly low profile and you can paint most of them (outside of the front face) to match the color of your house. Otherwise, to get a truly inconspicuous set up, you would need to build your house around them. There are most likely heavy trade offs in cost/quality, just to have it hidden.
I vaguely recall seeing dome type cameras that can fit into some large decorative outside wall lights, but don't know much about them. You could probably knock holes in your walls and then build a camera into them too, but it would cause some view angle issues (as in, it's set facing how ever it's set facing and almost impossible to change).
I can't think of a situation where it would be worth that much trouble.
Here are some pictures of dome camera installs (these should not be too obvious from the street):
Note: The higher the camera, the more difficult it is to capture faces. That's why a doorbell camera is so good, as it is the right height to clock faces and ID perps. Rule of thumb is the high mounted cameras show you what is going on, and low mounted cameras let you know who did it.
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Control
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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I have pretty much zero reason to be paranoid here, but I'd like to be able to be a little paranoid without looking paranoid.
Also, the paranoia (and the jogger thread) tells me that there are some things you'd catch on a hidden cam that you wouldn't on a visible one.Thanks! and ya, the first picture looks just about right. Concealed enough that you'd probably have to be looking for it, but not so much that you'd need major contrivances.
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BrutulTM
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This is true but think long and hard before you do it whether you really want to know for sure that your wife is cheating on you.
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Borzak
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I live in an area where the old people watch most of the comings and goings. Before the internet made it big and smarphones I was talking to my great aunt that lived nearby and she was saying when an ambulance goes by or firetruck the old people call down the road one at a time to see where it went and who last saw it. It has serious drawbacks but nobody has ever stolen any of multitudes of shit I have on the property, mostly outside.
Intrinsic
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I think most of us are just tech geeks and like bells and whistles and projects. In my neighborhood our 70 year old neighbors will text if an Amazon package is on our doorstep for more than a few hours and gossip about all the goings on up and down the street. They’re cute. All retired with nothing better to do than garden and gossip.
Burns
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I had acquaintances that were in the security field (mostly commercial systems) and one of them showed me how to track crime in DFW, Houston, and Austin (around 2005). For many years after that I would poke around those websites on a semi-regular basis.
Nowhere is "safe," if you are within an hour or two of a major metro. There were a decent amount of break-ins in small country towns or houses in the rural areas. A couple of those were home invasions (3 or 4 people jog through your front door and hold you at gun point). That's not to say it's a huge chance either, but it's enough that I want to be somewhat prepared and take "cheep" or easy precautions.
Obviously, being in a major metro is higher risk, and the name of the game is deterrence there. If a burglary crew is casing houses, they will work on the houses w/o cameras before ones with them.
I've tried to find the same type of crime tracking websites, a few years ago, and it's possible that many burbs and county PDs don't release that information as freely as they used to. Making it more difficult for a website to scrape the data into an easily trackable website. The cities of Dallas and Houston still make all reports public, so you can see what happened where, in the city proper, but I already know that those places are crime infested shitholes...unless you can afford a private security force to patrol your gated multi million dollar mansions golf course area.
Nowhere is "safe," if you are within an hour or two of a major metro. There were a decent amount of break-ins in small country towns or houses in the rural areas. A couple of those were home invasions (3 or 4 people jog through your front door and hold you at gun point). That's not to say it's a huge chance either, but it's enough that I want to be somewhat prepared and take "cheep" or easy precautions.
Obviously, being in a major metro is higher risk, and the name of the game is deterrence there. If a burglary crew is casing houses, they will work on the houses w/o cameras before ones with them.
I've tried to find the same type of crime tracking websites, a few years ago, and it's possible that many burbs and county PDs don't release that information as freely as they used to. Making it more difficult for a website to scrape the data into an easily trackable website. The cities of Dallas and Houston still make all reports public, so you can see what happened where, in the city proper, but I already know that those places are crime infested shitholes...unless you can afford a private security force to patrol your gated multi million dollar mansions golf course area.
Lanx
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It's my understanding that most modern burglarism won't be discouraged by cameras. My buddy in Atlanta had his entire TV/gaming/enternainment system jacked. They wore masks, smashed a bay window, cut the wires on everything, and were gone in 45 seconds. It's either stuff like this or methheads who are too high/desperate to care.
Probably more effective vs porch pirates, which are far more likely anyway.
Probably more effective vs porch pirates, which are far more likely anyway.
Burns
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A site like that, yea. That one looks like it scraps data from more places, so it's probably the best you are going to get now days. The old ones used to allow you to filter out crimes, the dates they occurred, and then search over a wider area. Also, on spotcrime, sexual assault and murder are all combined under the assault icon. I am not convinced that all the crimes are showing up in some areas. There are a few places in South Dallas like Ovilla and Red Oak which have 0 crimes listed.
The best site I found was the site that a few various Dallas area cities report direct to, but it was only a map for Dallas county (LexisNexis® Community Crime Map). It is very detailed and auto updates as you move around. Too bad it's not a standard thing for all police departments to do.
Yea, cameras should do well at discouraging porch pirates, vehicle break ins (often done by kids), and vandals. Our cameras actually caught, what looked to be a teen, window shopping cars, at our previous address. I called the police when it was happening, but I think he saw the light on one of the cameras and took off after looking into the car in the neighbors drive.
On burglary, I would assume it's how well they can see what they want to steal from the front of the house, when they are picking places to burgle. If they cant find a target with items in plain sight, and instead decide to chose between two houses with unknown contents next to each other, why wouldn't they pick the house w/o cameras or an alarm system? It's not like every team of burglars are of the same intelligence or skill.
There was a burglary crew that got caught in a burb I used to live in, where the one white dude would ride his bike around, looking for places to break into. When caught, they still had various items, waiting to get pawned/fenced/ebayed, from around 30 houses in storage.
As for Methany and her crackhead boyfriend, popular media has people aware that cameras are everywhere, and since drugs make people paranoid, they are probably looking for cameras too. All they have to do is notice that one house has cameras, while a house 100 feet away does not. It's the same process used in cyber security of trying to not be the easiest mark, so that the criminals pass you by for easier pickings.
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Borzak
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I don't have porch pirates. All my deliveres go to the closest UPS store and they accept and store it and then give them to me all at once. Very few people know how to open the bump gate I have on the property and the few that have tried normally lose a mirror or a lot of body damage when the gate closes automatically as they try to drive through it. Even the electric co op calls ahead if they need to look at something on the line and such. Best thing I ever picked up on ranches in South, TX. Never have to get out to open or close the gate and defers a lot of people. Like I said rural living has it's pros and cons. Definetly a pro in this one.
Guy I've done some work for works at the office and has cameras all over his property/shop. He runs a lawnmowing company and can keep track of the guys he hires picking up the mowers and such while he sits in the office. Kind of surprised he doesn't have a camera via the phone uploading from the mower.
Guy I've done some work for works at the office and has cameras all over his property/shop. He runs a lawnmowing company and can keep track of the guys he hires picking up the mowers and such while he sits in the office. Kind of surprised he doesn't have a camera via the phone uploading from the mower.
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Intrinsic
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The Reolink doorbell went in, mostly, without issue. The speaker on the thing won’t work at all. At first I wasn’t sure if setup was working because it guides you with audio prompts from the doorbell. But just continuing through the process it worked fine. App set up and everything was about 15min.
Went ahead and ordered the 8ch NVR too for fun.
Went ahead and ordered the 8ch NVR too for fun.
Lanx
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Intrinsic
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yeah, tried talking through it and using the "sound alarm" feature and nothing comes out. I can hear clearly audio coming in to the doorbell.
Checked all the setting in the app volume wise, etc, and no joy. Didn't feel like fiddling with it any more today b/c it isn't something that really interests me. I could see a use case or two but it isn't deal breaking for me to send it back or anything.