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Does anyone know anything about "security" cameras?

Mike G

Mike G

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My mother in law is in a care home, and we would like to fit a camera in her room. It won't be a covert/ hidden camera, and everyone will know about it. There have been a number of odd happenings in the room over the last few weeks, and the presence of a camera would immediately end any suspicion of these activities being nefarious.

So, we need a camera which will record activity in the room. There is a suggestion that there is no wi-fi at that end of the building, and we don't really want a camera which will trigger an alert on someone's phone each time she scratches her nose. Does anyone have any experience to share?
 
I don't have a lot of experience of them, but I have one permanently in the workshop and a couple more that we leave in the house when we go away (mainly so we can check in on the cats!). The ones we have are cheap wifi cameras, so I can't help with how to deal with no wifi / ethernet availability.

Regarding the alerts, I have the alerts all turned off. The cameras I have can detect movement and automatically send a video to a preconfigured email address. I set up a dedicated gmail account to receive the videos. The gmail account is set up to automatically delete the videos as soon as they arrive. That might sound like a strange thing to do, but gmail keeps deleted items in the "bin" for 30 days before fully deleting them.

If anything happens that needs me to go and look at the videos, then I can look in the gmail "bin" and retrieve the relevant videos. If nothing happens, the videos get deleted, preventing the gmail account hitting its storage limit through having lots of large files sent to it.
 
You can get cameras that record movement to an SD card which if you can't use wifi, you should be able remove and read every now and then. There is no obvious technology to provide a nefarious activity detection. However the presence of the camera and the knowledge that it is recording should put off all but the most brazen of miscreants and only then do you need to read the card.
I have had good results with a basic TAPO camera in my rodent tracking activities.

indoor one here for example https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tapo-Secur...ue&qid=1728031574&sprefix=tapo,aps,117&sr=8-5
 
9 fingers nailed it really. I use very similar as our wi fi is patchy in a couple of places where I want cameras. It's easy to steal the cards obviously. Deterrent value more than anything. Camera quality varies a lot.
 
9fingers said:
You can get cameras that record movement to an SD card which if you can't use wifi, you should be able remove and read every now and then. There is no obvious technology to provide a nefarious activity detection. However the presence of the camera and the knowledge that it is recording should put off all but the most brazen of miscreants and only then do you need to read the card.
I have had good results with a basic TAPO camera in my rodent tracking activities.

indoor one here for example https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tapo-Security-Required-Definition-C110/dp/B08ZNRFQBM/ref=sr_1_5?crid=30BEZFTQNW8VB&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.BUkpkfN1op9JtI-WHLcvNlaQrW2O0ebzr6XzkBg2K6XL_vPZD2ZjkuZ55laD4eqnpo44DC_B3wWy-8pZTwiF9lbMlvQmmikVqGSiF8hDpXQEUQujcN7lWAAEMDihG9CPBpH8WGOEIpEyhI-XmUitaCsCuhuUIz6CDgXTwS2LbyEQTFk2nPZSFBPeyDkhQZ7oTATMGWgE7jNlN_RKyHQfmidUpaIw3iOgwt2go7DHU9A.zSzRpgAxWWvrLrN50CFQzWU9Iu9FsvZS9mGGeBSV8GM&dib_tag=se&keywords=tapo+camera&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1728031574&sprefix=tapo,aps,117&sr=8-5
Click to expand...
Thanks Bob. It does call itself a "wifi security camera". Are you saying that it will still work without wifi, just recording everything on the SD card?
 
Mike G said:
Thanks Bob. It does call itself a "wifi security camera". Are you saying that it will still work without wifi, just recording everything on the SD card?
Click to expand...
If it's anything like mine, you'll need wifi to set it up, but once configured, it'll record to an SD card if one is fitted and you've told it to do so.
 
Mike
I thought that you had purchased a trail camera some time back, if you still have it then it should serve your purpose.
 
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Mike, that camera Bob linked to will do the biz and is a damn sight cheaper than a trailcam ...especially if the camera went 'walkabout' ! Don't forget to order a SIM card as it's not included.
 
There are free wi-fi measurement apps that will run on either iOS or Android phones and that will give you an indication of wi-fi strength.
 
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