LowPowerLab Forum
Hardware support => General topics => Topic started by: Tony Weil on October 30, 2018, 01:53:06 PM
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Does anyone have a recommendation for a bullet type IP camera that can be mounted on the side of the house with the following features in order of importance:
- Ability to watch streaming video or snapshots from a browser and transmit the video over WiFi so no wires are needed
- Solar/battery powered, again no wires
- Budget is under $100
- Small and look decent looking since it will be near the front door
- Resolution not critical but 1080p color would be nice, 720p minimum
- Recording or connection with a cloud account not needed
- Motion and night vision wold be nice, but are not necessary
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I found the following ones on Amazon, but know nothing about them. It is also hard to decipher whether or not they can be accessed with a simple browser.
https://www.amazon.com/Half-moon-Uninterruptible-Weatherproof-Wire-Free-Installation/dp/B07HB7KXWL/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1540920806&sr=8-8&keywords=ip+camera+solar+powered (https://www.amazon.com/Half-moon-Uninterruptible-Weatherproof-Wire-Free-Installation/dp/B07HB7KXWL/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1540920806&sr=8-8&keywords=ip+camera+solar+powered)
https://www.amazon.com/Half-moon-Uninterruptible-Weatherproof-Wire-Free-Installation/dp/B07HB7KXWL/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1540920806&sr=8-8&keywords=ip+camera+solar+powered
(https://www.amazon.com/Half-moon-Uninterruptible-Weatherproof-Wire-Free-Installation/dp/B07HB7KXWL/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1540920806&sr=8-8&keywords=ip+camera+solar+powered)
https://www.amazon.com/Security-Wireless-Outdoor-7650mAh-Included/dp/B07G196NWK/ref=pd_sbs_421_6?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07G196NWK&pd_rd_r=0ca368f2-dc6a-11e8-a0cd-1d1942682338&pd_rd_w=hSLQL&pd_rd_wg=MVvXv&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=7d5d9c3c-5e01-44ac-97fd-261afd40b865&pf_rd_r=3Q6G35KCCRE2F28AW25W&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=3Q6G35KCCRE2F28AW25W
(https://www.amazon.com/Security-Wireless-Outdoor-7650mAh-Included/dp/B07G196NWK/ref=pd_sbs_421_6?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07G196NWK&pd_rd_r=0ca368f2-dc6a-11e8-a0cd-1d1942682338&pd_rd_w=hSLQL&pd_rd_wg=MVvXv&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=7d5d9c3c-5e01-44ac-97fd-261afd40b865&pf_rd_r=3Q6G35KCCRE2F28AW25W&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=3Q6G35KCCRE2F28AW25W)
https://www.amazon.com/Brovoz-Wireless-Security-Powered-Outdoor/dp/B07GT3YRVZ/ref=pd_sbs_421_7?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07GT3YRVZ&pd_rd_r=0ca368f2-dc6a-11e8-a0cd-1d1942682338&pd_rd_w=hSLQL&pd_rd_wg=MVvXv&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=7d5d9c3c-5e01-44ac-97fd-261afd40b865&pf_rd_r=3Q6G35KCCRE2F28AW25W&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=3Q6G35KCCRE2F28AW25W
(https://www.amazon.com/Brovoz-Wireless-Security-Powered-Outdoor/dp/B07GT3YRVZ/ref=pd_sbs_421_7?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07GT3YRVZ&pd_rd_r=0ca368f2-dc6a-11e8-a0cd-1d1942682338&pd_rd_w=hSLQL&pd_rd_wg=MVvXv&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=7d5d9c3c-5e01-44ac-97fd-261afd40b865&pf_rd_r=3Q6G35KCCRE2F28AW25W&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=3Q6G35KCCRE2F28AW25W)
https://www.amazon.com/Biback-Wireless-Security-Water-Proof-Rechargeable/dp/B07GQY2QHP/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1540920806&sr=8-6&keywords=ip+camera+solar+powered
(https://www.amazon.com/Biback-Wireless-Security-Water-Proof-Rechargeable/dp/B07GQY2QHP/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1540920806&sr=8-6&keywords=ip+camera+solar+powered)
https://www.amazon.com/Yunt-Wireless-Security-Surveillance-Detection/dp/B07FQQXH5Z/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1540920806&sr=8-7&keywords=ip+camera+solar+powered
(https://www.amazon.com/Yunt-Wireless-Security-Surveillance-Detection/dp/B07FQQXH5Z/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1540920806&sr=8-7&keywords=ip+camera+solar+powered)
https://www.amazon.com/Biback-Induction-Wireless-Waterproof-Rechargeable/dp/B07HX8XHJS/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1540920806&sr=8-5&keywords=ip+camera+solar+powered&dpID=31aSFbeHMtL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch
(https://www.amazon.com/Biback-Induction-Wireless-Waterproof-Rechargeable/dp/B07HX8XHJS/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1540920806&sr=8-5&keywords=ip+camera+solar+powered&dpID=31aSFbeHMtL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch)
https://www.amazon.com/FREECAM-Wireless-Security-Rechargeable-C310/dp/B07736TDVF/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540920806&sr=8-1&keywords=ip+camera+solar+powered&dpID=31E1%252Bz5k7fL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch
(https://www.amazon.com/FREECAM-Wireless-Security-Rechargeable-C310/dp/B07736TDVF/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540920806&sr=8-1&keywords=ip+camera+solar+powered&dpID=31E1%252Bz5k7fL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch)
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A lot of the IP cameras out there are not secure. I would check to see if any of them support username and password that is encrypted. Also check the manufacturer web site for recent firmware updates.
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The LOREX cameras brand looks pretty nice and their documentation is very decent, and there's a large offering of various types of cameras. I don't know how secure they are but they also sell whole security systems with NVR and everything as well as other things.
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i think your requirements are very demanding and sometimes contraddicting
so first of all forget about "under 100$" if you want more than just a crappy, unsecure, not really waterproof ip camera permanently connected to the external world
1080p will need a LOT of bandwidth, a fast router and an excellent wifi link
will require lots of disk space for storing video/snapshots.
wifi transmission needs a lot of power and that will require a large solar panel/battery and electronics to handle that. not sure solar powered camera exists, i have never seen one.
most cameras are inherently not secure as video transmission protocols are not encrypted
i have a few ip cameras and they all come with very questionable default setting regarding upnp, ddns, cloud storage and access, and sometimes is very hard or impossible to disable these features.
in the past ip cameras have been used as nodes for DDOS attacks so looks like many chinese cameras (arent all of them chinese nowadays) have backdoors or very bad security.
cloud cameras are, from this perspective, even less secure
what i would do is the following:
get an IP camera that more or less satisfies your requirements, set it up at a reasonable resolution that will still allow video transmission at an acceptable frame rate and that will not kill your wifi network. for surveiilance purpose you dont need HD
set up a rpi with a usb disk to store video stream, you can find online a lot of info on how to do it. this will have to be inside your home network, so is secure and is a very cheap solution.
set up door knock on your router, so the camera port forwarding will not be active all the time (believe me, you dont want ports always forwarded to the external world) and noboody will be able to access the camera from the ext internet. not sure there are routers with this feature as standard, i use custom router firmware (dd-wrt)
to do all this you need knowledge on networking, router firmware, linux, and how to set up a rpi
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I was just given a LOREX camera and its so so. I would forget about solar and wi-fi and wire it directly to your network. As others have stated, you will be using lots of bandwidth, security issues, etc. Just my 2 cents. Its easy to provide power over ethernet.
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@brasskey4u
That type of Lorex do you have? 1080p, 4k? any special features on it? stable? Does it have an easy way to grab snapshots (ex snapshot URL)?
IMO 1080p is enough, and much less bandwidth.
Are you happy with the lorex?
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Hi Felix,
Sorry, I just saw this, haven't been on in a while. I actually sold the camera. It didn't have Infared, so I didn't really mess with it too much. Someone gave it to me and I got it working on my network. He couldn't get it to work, and I was able to find some info online and got it working in a few minutes. It had an ok picture, the pan/tilt/zoom really worked well, but it was pretty old. It also had a webserver built in, so you just HTTP'ed into it with a browser and all the controls were on the web page. Sorry I don't remember the model.
Dave