Home Invasion in my Neighborhood

Grey,
With a hard wired system locate your hard drive storage in a hidden location, and put a dummy unit in plain sight. A cheap bad unit that still has indicator lights that work and dead ended wires & cabling leading out into a wall or conduit.

For running your camera wiring in the soffit/crawl space above, get several sets of disposable coveralls & dust masks. Then hire the skinniest, lightest weight relative you have to crawl around up there. This time of the year is best for that kind of work.

You could also run the wiring in conduit around the outside tucked up into the corner of the wall & soffit, then paint it to match the house.

This reminds me of something I did in a place I used to live in when I had trouble with my neighbors. I took a few old 90's web cameras, cut the cords off and mounted them up pointed right at their font porch. It worked like a charm.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheGrey

Update: all the necessary wires (within reason) come with the kit- each camera come with 60' of wire.

There's a good many videos on installing surveillance cameras on Youtube. Wired cameras are a bit more involved than I'd imagined; the spouse wants the wires hidden and somehow run inside the soffitts. I'm not sure that's feasible. We also have to figure a place for the DVR, where it will be wired into our internet router. There's some planning that we need to do here.

---

This has been my hang up with a wired system. I really WANT a wired system for various reasons but install ISNT one of the reasons. Lol. It really seems like it requires a lot more planning up front and making sure the wires are easy to get to their final destination.

You won't have to run the wires along the soffits (unless all the cameras are daisy chained or something). You should be able to just drill a hole to run the wire into the soffit, then mount the camera in place from the outside. While laying on your face in insulation at the very end of an eave is less than comfortable, it's not all that bad to reach in for the wire, and pull it back out to a more comfortable area. I would recommend investigating the eave from inside the attic first, just to make sure you have access to where you need before you start drilling.

If you know what you want, it's not super expensive to have a buddy or even a pro come out and pull the wire for you. Usually guys who have done it more than once or twice have several tools you might not have that make it super easy, even if they're crawling around in attics or need to pull something through your wall. Fish tape, glow-in-the-dark ceiling sticks/pull tools, of course the tools needed to properly terminate the ends with either jacks, plugs, etc. I've wired three houses now by myself, pulling either network/cat5 wires, security cams, or other stuff. But at this point, I have a buddy who I'm more than glad to pay to come out and do the wire work for me. If anyone needs a hand, I would be glad to pass on a reference for someone I trust. Send me a PM if so.

Side note, I'm just about done pulling out the old security system at the store with the new one we replaced it with, if anyone's interested in a second hand system. Keep in mind I'm getting rid of it for something I like better, but it might work for someone. I believe they were Northern camera domes, bnc connectors with pigtails that converted it to cat5/rj45 plus a wiring box with a 12v power injector. I will probably not be selling the DVR box given the required remote was broken and it has our old footage on it, but it might work for someone who wanted to expand a system or put up some fake / not-live cams or something.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dave_L

This has been my hang up with a wired system. I really WANT a wired system for various reasons but install ISNT one of the reasons. Lol. It really seems like it requires a lot more planning up front and making sure the wires are easy to get to their final destination.

---

Big-freaking-ditto.

I prefer to have a wired system, but with my vaulted ceilings and limited attic space....yuck.

Wow, what a wealth of information. :)

Sideshow Bob, you are my new hero. Those are great ideas!

There is a local electrician that lives in our neighborhood, and he's got an apprentice that might be willing to shimmy up into the attic. Heights horrify me. Anything higher than the second step on a stepladder is concerning, so this is one realm that I will not be personally exploring. I spoke a bit with the hubby tonight, and he was thinking about setting the wires so they go down into the basement, where things are not so easily seen from windows. We've got a beast of a flatscreen down there that would be a good monitor for the cameras.

Another thing of note for those of you interested in the remote viewing capability: you must have an upload speed of about 2.5 MB, and have the DVR plugged into the router via an Ethernet cable (I believe. I have the instruction cards packed away, and I read it this morning- and this morning was a very, very long time ago) so you'll need to look into that. I know the upload speed on a wireless connection is far different than a wired connection, so I'll need to check into what we have available to us.

It always boils down to the planing, doesn't it? We have an idea of where we want the cameras to go on the outside, but I'll admit that I didn't really give the inside layout a second thought!

I'm up to my a$$ in alligators for the next two days at least, so I'm not sure when I'll have time to work out cable placement on the inside, but I'll keep you updated. Brian, I may be PMing you for your friend's information

I can tell you now, that 60 feet of wire per camera will not be remotely enough!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheGrey

Wow, what a wealth of information. :)

Sideshow Bob, you are my new hero. Those are great ideas!

There is a local electrician that lives in our neighborhood, and he's got an apprentice that might be willing to shimmy up into the attic. Heights horrify me. Anything higher than the second step on a stepladder is concerning, so this is one realm that I will not be personally exploring. I spoke a bit with the hubby tonight, and he was thinking about setting the wires so they go down into the basement, where things are not so easily seen from windows. We've got a beast of a flatscreen down there that would be a good monitor for the cameras.

Another thing of note for those of you interested in the remote viewing capability: you must have an upload speed of about 2.5 MB, and have the DVR plugged into the router via an Ethernet cable (I believe. I have the instruction cards packed away, and I read it this morning- and this morning was a very, very long time ago) so you'll need to look into that. I know the upload speed on a wireless connection is far different than a wired connection, so I'll need to check into what we have available to us.

It always boils down to the planing, doesn't it? We have an idea of where we want the cameras to go on the outside, but I'll admit that I didn't really give the inside layout a second thought!

I'm up to my a$$ in alligators for the next two days at least, so I'm not sure when I'll have time to work out cable placement on the inside, but I'll keep you updated. Brian, I may be PMing you for your friend's information

I can tell you now, that 60 feet of wire per camera will not be remotely enough!

---

If necessary, you can plug any Ethernet device lacking wifi into a gaming wifi adapter. I'd personally use one of these over a POe setup.

I used one of these and a small 5-port switch to get a few older non-wifi HT devices without running CAT5. There are newer models, and certainly loads of off brand and cheap stuff, but this has served me reliably. https://www.amazon.com/Cisco-Linksys.../dp/B001QVQ7JU

ETA: I wasn't thinking this through. PoE cameras would be the way to go. I was only thinking in terms of networking and access and NOT powering the device.

Grey, you might consider proposing to the electrician guy that his apprentice work with you on planning also. It will allow the apprentice to get some experience in planning with customer input and will relieve the weight on your shoulders to dictate placement.

Remote viewing is usually configurable. You definitely have to connect it to a router and usually set up a firewall or NAT rule. But on the bandwidth side, most of the cameras or DVRs are configured by default not to push full quality video over a remote connection. Usually it's converted to refreshing jpeg snapshots or a downgraded video stream appropriate to mobile. But every system is different. Mine's usually fast enough to where I can grab my phone and see who's ringing the doorbell before I decide if I'm home or not. :)

Since this thread is turning into an advice thread, I'll throw out a few more things to think about:

- If you're pulling anything other that cat5/5e/6 cable for cameras, then take the time to also pull at least one cat5e or cat6 cable to future-proof yourself
- Leave loose slack cable in each run, so that you can move it around later if needed (or if you screw up on one end when you're trying to connect something and have to cut it back). Cable is cheap.
- Bulk cable is cheap online (monoprice, amazon, etc.). Make sure to get solid copper cable and not CCA (copper clad aluminum) cable. Solid wire is better than stranded.
- There are regulations for cable that spans floors. Look for "riser" or "plenum" rated cable, it's usually not too much more expensive. That being said, I know some guys skip it, though I wouldn't.
- Label your cables immediately on both ends, even if you're just using masking tape, it'll save you a ton of effort later.
- Don't yank/pull cables too hard (when stuck, etc), or let them bend/kink much when you're running them. This can cause major issues later that will be almost impossible to track down.
- Wiring everything to terminate in a central location (basement, closet, etc.) is almost always the best way to go, if you can. Attics are ok, but are usually not humidity/temp controlled, so that makes them less than ideal.