One of the discussions the DW and I have been having about our recreational property is monitoring it while away.
Things we thought of for solutions to keep tabs on things so far are too dependant on humans to follow through with their commitments, not to mention require actual year round access (snow and a mediocre road in the thawing season don't always allow that).

I've noticed alot of webcam sites like weatherbonk.com that show traffic in major cities in real time along with current weather conditions. Not sure on the reliability of this for an individual, but is it feasible to configure a web accessed monitoring system for our place? Hopefully without a huge expense to install and maintain?..

I realize even exterior rated hardware is prone to weather fouling over time and during storms, but could we count on a few webcams, a desktop computer, and a VZW aircard to provide us with streaming video consistently enough to let it be unmonitored for months at a time?


For a little background on our place, we have landline service on it, but no DSL available yet. We do have cel service in range with an ext antenna. I can hold 3 bars with my Wilson trucker, both EVDO and 1X signal. We are with Verizon. Maybe a remote access computer setup to download recordings once a day/week?

I don't want to get stuck with a continual contract or a bunch of equipment that will be outdated as soon as I buy it, so if a few weather proofed webcams and some software could be enough, that is our preferred choice. We had a first alert security system on a rental home a years back, which was a huge mistake due to the local turnover of their reps. Not really wanting to repeat that again.

The monitored location is going to require internet access in order to upload any video images. Doesn't look like there is any cheap way to do that, based on your description of the location.

With a landline you could set your computer up to answer the phone and connect to your local computer using a direct (no ISP) link. I've done that from time to time and it works.

The down side is your computer eats a bunch of power and if it is a Windows system it is going to need rebooted from time to time.

Could an air card provide the internet connection? I was hoping for a cradlepoint router to be the network hub. Don't know how viable this is?.....

It could but it is going to cost for the hardware and for the service so it isn't going to be cheap.

Don't know about long term running with no user input, that could be a problem. If it is you could schedule a daily reboot with a timer.

dave, these guys are 3gstore customers and get all their verizon evdo from us to make their magic happen:

http://watchthedeer.com/camera_packages.shtml

it may give you some ideas?

-- alex

Dave,

There is no big issue in setting this up. But it will be relatively costly. You do not need a computer - only an ethernet webcam and a router/aircard. I'd run it off a battery bank and charge that with a solar panel, with a backup trickle charger on shore power. That way you have images with a power outage which is likely in your location. A simple 350 cellular router would be ideal. Put it in a lockbox, string some ethernet to the camera from the LAN port (configure the port in LAN mode), mount your external antenna/amp and you are in business. All will run directly on 12-volts. Probably for under $1000 and your monthly fee (depends onthe solar panel cost...it might be more if the panel requirement is great). Put it all up in a tree where you have some sun in the winter and it will be pretty safe and invisible...or on a pole somewhere.

I'm probably going to put in a webcam here in the next few months. I'll let you know what I get.

I have set up and tested one of these in Brazil. The only question I had at the time was the temperatire and humidity specs.

http://www.toshibasecurity.com/products/prod_camera_detail_ikwb15a.jsp

Jack,
I am hoping to have a minimum of 4 cameras installed at various angles and locations, would this be an issue? I had planned to run Cat 5 wire in the underground conduit between the trees. I have a few flood lights already nestled in some of the large trees.

Dave, I have run a lot of cables under ground and have found that in conduit soon everything is under water due to condensation. If you could find some direct burial cable it would be better.

Direct burial cat5 is available. Cable in a buried conduit will be wet.
Four IP addressable cameras would have to be connected with a router.

If you have any amount of lightning in the area, forget running Cat 5 between the trees. You will blow Ethernet ports like crazy as the trees will not share a common ground during a thunderstorm. Ask me how I know this...

Better to hook it all up on a WiFi network if you are able.

Be careful of your bandwidth requirements, if you are considering provisioning over Cell data services it could get very expensive if you are doing more than say one frame per minute.

From the lightning capital of Ontario,
George

With more than one camera you'd need some fancy port forwarding on the router to get to all of them if they are accessed from outside the local network. If they are configured to send the pictures somewhere as taken then that wouldn't be a problem.

What are you thinking about times you can't be on line to monitor the cameras?

quote:

Cable in a buried conduit will be wet.

Well, guys, that depends. If you bury it in EMT it will cause some condensation, for sure. If you bury it in schedule 40 electrical conduit, and properly join the sections (using primer, etc.) then you will not have much if any moisture in the conduit. I had the "opportunity" to dig up a line I ran from a pedestal to a tree (where the antenna/AP is) just a couple of days ago. This was in the ground in CO for 2.5 years. There was not a drop of moisture in that line. Of course, this is not in the humid south.

That said, running direct burial will cost about the same. Just put it in conduit when you surface (to protect it). The only issue with this to me is that the holes have to be deeper, thus more labor.

You can use something like the D-Link webcam to set up your own 'amateur' system. 4 of these and a wifi access point connected to the I'net would do it.

I have one I got for under $200. It will detect motion and send an e-mail if it detects any. You can access it via the web if you follow the directions. The client will support up to 4 cameras.