Remote internal surveilance?

Afternoon....

In another madcap (ad)venture, it has been decided that we'd like to get a camera set up at home to watch what the dogs get up to, so I'd like to ask some advice from them that know best, here...

• I need something that can be accessed (maybe controlled?) remotely, via web page or phone app, preferably both.
• The ability to record video on SD card or to my PC would be nice, though not strictly essential.
• I know nothing about routers, web pages, networking or any of that, so I need it to be fairly idiot-safe to set up. No Arduino things with half-hour tutorial videos and loads of soldering.
• At this point I'd like a fairly cheap system to start with, see if we like it, rather than dropping hundreds on a fancy thing we'll never use. Doesn't even need to be 1080p I expect, though it'd be nice - Budget maybe £75?

So... what cameras/systems would people recommend? What do I need to do/know for setting it up?


TIA,
Tasky.

Simplest set up would be something like a Nest camera, but there is a subscription cost if you want to store images for any length of time. Not sure they are steerable. hive also do a similar system

Quite a few IP cameras on Amazon, I have tried a couple and they were a bit hit and miss, mainly with connecting outside my own network, but I did go for the cheaper options

I believe you can get security camera apps, so if you have an old smartphone laying about you could use that. Would need a USB power supply and some sort of mount like an old car mount.

Edit: In fact a cheap smartphone is on par with the cost of an IP camera these days.

Unless things have changed since I looked, "controllable" (if by that you mean either motorised pan/tilt, or physical zoom, or both)will up the csmera cost a LOT.

As for the rest, I can't help. I have been thinking about it, but in my case, primarily or exclusively external, evidence-standard and IR-capable. A different ball game.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Saracen

Unless things have changed since I looked, "controllable" (if by that you mean either motorised pan/tilt, or physical zoom, or both)will up the csmera cost a LOT.

As for the rest, I can't help. I have been thinking about it, but in my case, primarily or exclusively external, evidence-standard and IR-capable. A different ball game.

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Oh you can get cheap ones off Amazon. I have one that does tilt and pan, but it doesn't compress the video at all well and most of those units are so poor on security they were used to create one of the biggest Internet botnets ever. Mine's behind two firewalls, so that's OK for me.

My camera has a Linux server running Zoneminder that streams from it, does motion detect and stores clips where something was seen. It's open source, but not trivial to set up specially if you want outside access so probably not what Ttaskmaster wants. Might work for you though.

The one I had off Amazon was like £25 or something, remote IP and pan, tilt, zoom etc. But problems connecting to it when out the house made it hit and miss

I stand corrected, then. Last time I saw motorised cams they were more like £150 and more. Then again, they were 'proper' external cameras for business systems.

Personally, I'd rather have something less .... ummmm .... overt. I don't want the house to end up looking like a CIA station or something.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by peterb

Simplest set up would be something like a Nest camera

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Ouch... £150 for the camera and £240 for the subs.... and I don't even get to store footage on my home system.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay over budget, I'm afraid.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

I believe you can get security camera apps, so if you have an old smartphone laying about you could use that. Would need a USB power supply and some sort of mount like an old car mount.

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I did try a few of those, including some paid apps, but either they sucked, or my camera-phone was too old to handle the app.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Saracen

Unless things have changed since I looked, "controllable" (if by that you mean either motorised pan/tilt, or physical zoom, or both)will up the csmera cost a LOT.

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P&T is not essential...

Hikvision do one, but it's about double the budget.
I also heard Xiaomi cameras were reasonable... No idea how to set them up though, whether they're plug & play or anything like that.

I've seen IP cameras for £25-ish, but don't know if I need a control box or extra software, or... or what, really.
I have mains power or USB power available and the router will be just 10' away so easy to plug into.
Beyond that, I have no idea what to even look for.....

Just so you know, a friend bought a system off ali express and it was DOA.

One of these days I will convince him that it's not a good place to buy.... anything from. And that includes plug and play ABS kits for bikes....