Doorbell cams?

I recently signed up to a neighbourhood group and it seems that people are 'catching' images of miscreants trying to steal garden Xmyth decorations on their (Ring typically it seems) doorbell cams.

Having a look at some Youtube reviews seems to suggest that it's currently a minefield and what's 'best' varies with a mix of what you might want to initially spend, the particular conditions (lighting, near a pavement etc), if you are happy to pay for cloud storage and if you already have other home automation gadgets, like Alexa / Google etc?

For me, any alerting would need to have user settable trigger zones as I'm EOT so there is a reasonable level of movement. I have several storage options (including a Synology NAS) that could be used if possible and I think I would like a real internal doorbell, along with any 'smart' doorbell / video etc.

I can see there are loads on the likes of eBay but I'm not sure if something ready to go might be more realistic than adding a doorbell-cam (if they make such a thing, a functional doorbell with a std analogue or i/p CCTV camera in it) to my existing CCTV system?

Anyone here running a doorbell cam that you would recommend?

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m
Loading thread data ...

<snip>
Reply to
Richard

Lucky old them. A lot of them are likely to be carnivores as well, so that's more potential converts to the cause. Maybe its time to start dowloading those turkey videos ready for your first presentation.

and it seems that people

Hiding in the shrubbery with a baseball bat seems a much better idea to me.

It might also help get rid of some of that pent-up aggression as well.

michael adams

...

Reply to
michael adams

I've helped a couple of people already so yes.

Statistically yes.

'Cause'? Oh, not being cruel to animals you mean? Yes, many of them are similar to some here who either, DGAF about animals and think it's ok to do anything they want to them (including killing them to eat their flesh, even though there is no need (most would consider them 'in need of special attention' in 2020)) and then there are those poor confused souls who are living with their logical inconsistency who have been conditioned since they were children (as were their parents etc) to on one hand, 'be kind to animals', (generally teaching their own children to do the same) probably whilst eating the limbs of the animals that they had killed (or paid to have killed more like, much easier that ...) that didn't want to die?

I'm not sure. See, I know that most people here are old men and if they aren't old they are probably younger trolls or at least sad (spending time on Usenet <weg>) and so likely to be:

1) Most conditioned to consider (some) other animals to be 'just food'. 2) Reasonably intelligent and so (try to) put up an argument. 3) Unlikely to do all the shopping / meal planning (so even if they were to change their lifestyles to one that respected animals more, I doubt they would try to educate the wider family). 4) I doubt do much / any of the cooking so have little idea what that involves. Therefore: 5) Ideal for me to better understand how to respond to the worse case scenarios. ;-)

I never mentioned any of it here with the thought of 'converting' anyone to a less cruel lifestyle, it's just good practice for me for when dealing with open minded people with any compassion. ;-)

On the neighbourhood groups there are a higher proportion of women and you have to be careful not to upset them highlighting the consequences of their food choices, especially between them reporting their lost cat or dog (oh the irony).

<snip>

Of course it would. <rolls eyes>

I assume you are talking to Rod there?

If not, you are likely the one with the aggression, sufficient that you will happily kill hundreds of animals a year, *just* because you like how they taste!

Personally, I have too much compassion for that.

But what did I see on the news earlier, 16% of the pollution was caused by air flight and meat production and one is easier to deal with than the other.

But if you want to learn more about it why we should care for animals (and I know you don't), you can here:

formatting link
(watch that during the day and before your tablets and Cocoa).

Or the shorter Brian May version:

formatting link
Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

Don't know about eBay, but Amazon's Ring doorbells and Blink XT cameras use the same technology, and it is quite neat. I have Blinks on my front and back doors, the former high enough to be out of the way of casual miscreants while giving a good view out to the front gate.

The Blink is self powered (lithium battery supposed to last three months). It talks to a powered box inside the house connected to the wifi. When it senses movement it starts videoing, and streams to the cloud (free, not a subscription service). Then it fires a notification to your smartphone or other wifi device. After a bit of latency the app gives a live view of the camera, and also opens up a duplex audio channel to the camera. A normal delivery driver will be gone before you get the notification, but you can talk to someone who hangs around long enough at the door.

You can subsequently view the video clip, I currently have clips going back a week or so and have supposedly used 20% of my storage. If you catch a miscreant in the act you can download the clip for whatever purposes you see fit. You can adjust the sensitivity, length of clip, and dead time in the app. There is a 5x5 grid of "activity zones" in the view that you can set on or off so as to exclude trees that move in the wind, etc.

For me, the good thing about it is that I get a ping if I don't hear the doorbell, or if someone leaves something without ringing. It has IR as well, good enough to differentiate between cats, foxes, and badgers from about 20 feet. I live in a reasonably low-crime area, but the rear camera would warn me if someone is around the cars, which are parked on a drive at the back of the house.

The latency means the doorbells don't *quite* deliver what the adverts promise, but for what it does for less than £100 for a camera and the necessary interface box, I'm very happy. (There's also an indoor Blink camera available now for security when you are away, or I guess for talking to your pets).

Reply to
newshound

Is that when they start throwing things at you ? Or do they settle for hissing and booing ?

No, you.

Obviously you have to keep your gob shut at home, and do, and eat what you're told. What with that and all these women hissing and booing you at these neighberhood get-togethers, its clear you need an outlet for your frustration somewhere

Actually I'm rather surprised that *only* 16% of pollution is caused by air flight and meat production. I would have thought it was a lot more what with the impact of deforestation ( i.e cutting down trees) to raise beef cattle etc.

michael adams

...

Reply to
michael adams

Why a doorbell combined with a cam? An ordinary X,Y, Z IPcam could be used with the likes of iSpy. iSpy allows you to set up zones of interested in the scene, with remote record, both triggered and pre-trigger recording, plus manual recording. An IP cam can be run from the mains, or battery backed.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield, Esq.

Until they decide they didn't make enough cash and shutdown the cloud service leaving you with a streaming device and nowhere to stream to.

Reply to
mm0fmf
<snip>

Erm, neither, because I don't do it?

<snip>

'Obviously'? Projecting again, you seem like the type?

I do? No, I'm pretty sure I don't as 1) I draw up the shopping list,

2) I put it all away when daughter delivers it, 3) I decide what we have and 4) I cook it.

Tonight for example we didn't want anything much so I used the 4 wholemeal baps daughter got us with some vegan burgers, fresh onion cut into rings and fried, some sliced fresh mushroom, sliced gherkin and some slices of Applewood smoked vegan cheese and some burger sauce. I had a mug of tea with mine and it was very nice for a treat (if I say so myself).

I've not heard of them doing that, the get together's or the noises? Did you hear the noises in your head?

Ah, 'it's clear', like your 'obviously' means you have you don't have a clue and are making stuff up again.

<snip>

It was on the news, who knows ...

I believe cattle produce more greenhouse gasses than all transportation and the animal manure washing off the fields and out of the holding ponds is killing thousands of square miles of river, estuary, sea and coral around the world and as you say, shipping most of the soy that's grown in the deforested forests around the world to feed livestock can't be good, considering how poorly they convert it into protein, compared with us eating it directly ourselves.

I won't bother mentioning the cruelty to the animals you pay to have killed, or what the people you pay to do it have to suffer whilst doing your 'dirty work'. ;-(

formatting link
But hey, we are all just animals right (they kill and eat other animals so we should) and the only reason you don't kill and eat people is because it's illegal (assuming you don't ....).

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

formatting link

michael adams

...

Reply to
michael adams

Also many NAS boxes include ipcam recording capabilities...

Reply to
John Rumm

Because:

1) Most people have a doorbell and see the solution as an extension of that, not as a combined doorbell and CCTV solution.

2) Some can install the themselves, they wouldn't (think) they could do so with a conventional CCTV system.

Yup, I have that on an RPi Zero W. I also have a 3D printer and so could probably design / download and print a case and I might be able to link it to my Synology NAS or OMV NAS ... 'might'.

Which means someone running or paying someone to run 'mains' to the cam somehow, no need with a battery powered doorbell-cam.

And why the likes of the Ring doorbell-cams are so popular.

One of the pieces of footage posted on the Neighbourhood group was two lads throwing stones at the front of a cottage until they spotted the Ring doorbell-cam and you could hear one announce, 'Watchout, they have one of those doorbell cams!' and they both ran off.

I wonder if they would have noticed or been bothered by conventional CCTV cameras ... are they now like 'High Vis' work wear where they now make people invisible?

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

Now *that* actually made me chuckle. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m
<snip>

Cool.

I *think* I like the idea of the two way communication, especially for the Mrs if I'm out, but I think it would need to be though a doorbel-cam, rather than using a security cam as a form of auto-doorbell etc.

Seems to tick most of the features / flexibility boxes. ;-)

Would a Ring doorbell-cam do that would you know? I think it does because I was helping an elderly friend with her laptop (pre Covid) and I think when her phone was pinging she said it was people walking past the house. If they also have a detection mask then you should be able to limit the area to your property etc.

Gdgd.

Sorry, does yours come with a doorbell or is that built into the camera? I watched this review:

formatting link
... and that wasn't mentioned but it may be a different model or he didn't use the feature?

From the review I think the outdoor camera becomes an indoor one once you power it externally (nothing some silicone wouldn't fix though I imagine).

For something easy to fix and setup they do look good though ... and I'm wondering if something like that might be good for my Mum to use with her old iPad, for both monitoring who is at the front door before she goes to it and the back garden, or us doing the same when she is away?

Do you know if you can have multiple devices connected to it at once and so work where both she and I could monitor at the same time?

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

I have a couple of IP cams that have triggered and pre-triggered recording, ability to select sensitive zones, and blanking of private areas. They use FTP to send files to a server - rest is done on board.

Reply to
Bob Eager

Sure, if you happen to have that hardware (and know how to make it work). The point is, Blink gives you that functionality out of the box, you only have to screw the camera to the wall and know how to install a (pretty friendly) app on a phone. The most technical part is entering your wifi password.

Reply to
newshound

A risk with a lot of things. I'm inclined to believe Amazon will be around for a while. If I understand correctly, they made Ring their "own brand" and then bought out Blink to get their remarkably good "low power" capability that lets it run for months on a lithium AA.

Reply to
newshound

There used to be a number like that, which could only be configured via an activeX control used by the management web page. Which meant having to use IE to set the zones!

Reply to
John Rumm

You need PoW or Power over Wifi :-)

(their probably ought to be a Tesla reference in there!)

Reply to
John Rumm

Decent software (I am aware there is a lot around that isn't) would allow you to configure the cloud service of your choice - Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft. Or even roll your own from a home server.

Reply to
Jethro_uk

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.