If you have to run power to it, you might as well run some data as well. Never really the best idea to have mission critical equipment at the mercy of a congested wifi network.
Save some trouble and go with POE. A little more expense to setup, but you only have to run one wire and everything is permanently hardwired.
Heck yeah. In addition to POE, I’ve got a power line adapter setup to the NVR so that the cams are all hardwired to the modem/router combo. It’s fast enough for remote viewing in HD.
What system do you have and how many cameras. We are moving north and I wanted to get a POE system and am looking for recommendations. Obviously Costco has some options but they are going to be pretty basic and have iffy reviews.
These are 3 outdoor cameras I helped setup for my bestie. I’m pretty sure she went with a no name brand. The UI is the same UI you see in other basic NVR’s out there. It was likely an Amazon or Costco purchase. This was a few years ago, the details are a bit hazy. I helped setup the software on a non-PoE system and it looked exactly the same. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of much help…
I’m hard pushing my family and friends to replace/install POE switches currently. Its a minor cost upgrade that will make my life so much easier
A lot of the new systems can use battery powered cameras that are motion activated - they can last for a month+ on battery because they only turn fully on when they detect motion.
You’re right though - if it’s mission critical don’t rely on wireless.
Some of them even have solar panels as well. It’s very useful if you want to DYI installation without having to run cables all over the place (data and/or power).
This Wi-Fi jamming stuff does seem like a huge issue. I was actually considering wireless down the line, but maybe a system with proper wired connections would be better.
Power over Ethernet (PoE) requires one wire for both data and power. You also need a PoE network switch, or a “PoE injector” which is basically a power brick that adds power to the network cord.
There are also poe adapters that allow you to power a non poe device. Can be useful in many situations.
Yeah, that would definitely be the way to go. You still have to run the cables all over the place, whether it’s one or two. I totally get why people go with wireless.
Trash passive IR motion detection.
Have wireless setup, works really well. If they want it that bad they can have it while I’m gone or risk their life while I’m there.
If you don’t care about your stuff, why would your risk your life to risk their lives? Lol
If it were me, I wouldn’t be as worried if I wasn’t there to lose stuff. If I was there I would be concerned with violence against me or my family. Not concerned with stuff but very concerned with safety.
That’s fair, but the other comment made it sound like they’d want to confront/attack the intruder
Literally the wet dream of every gun owner.
Entering my house without permission while I’m there is a threat.
Yeah, if someone is nutty enough to come inside, they’re getting shot. I don’t live in a fortress, but you have to make the effort, and anyone making that effort probably doesn’t have my family’s well-being in mind.
I also had a bear wander in my giant dog door, so there’s that as well.
We’ve had armed break ins near my house. One house they tried to break in ended up unloading on the group. Got away but haven’t heard of any robberies in the area for the past 6 months.
Siri, turn off all lights and play one winged angel
The version from Advent Children, by preference.
there are some things about america that i will just never understand
Electricity is already wired throughout, you just need to get to the closest plug. You have to run ethernet the whole length and it has length limitations. It’s not trivial.
I mean ethernet has a range of 100 meters in one run (including with POE), which is probably going to be longer than the WiFi range assuming the WiFi access point is at the switch and it’s a relatively straight run. If you need more range a small 4 port POE switch is hardly likely to break the bank if you have a property big enough to need over 100 meters of ethernet in one run.
Isn’t there ethernet over power or something like that?
There is indeed ethernet over power and I have been using it for almost 2 decades to connect a desktop PC in a room to the router in a different room in the various places I lived in over the years.
It used to be only 20Mb/s way back in the beginning but nowadays (last I checked) 500Mb/s was common.
I keep expecting this stuff to just come integrated in devices that are supposed to be wired to mains and also need network access to move around lots of data but I have yet to found such option built-in on auch devices: ethernet over power support usually comes in as a just a wall socket plug that also has an ethernet socket.
That said, it works better if all plugs are on the same mains network with now breaker boxes in between since the high frequency signals needed to transport data at high speeds don’t travel through inductors that well. I’m not quite sure how big houses in the US are wired, but this might be a problem if the device is trying to send lots if data across and the device and the router are in different mains subnetworks.
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If you’re in an apartment, is this like putting everything on the same switch? Could you snoop your neighbors traffic? How is that secured?
Those things need to be paired to be able to see each other’s data stream so I assume it’s encrypted.
Also there are almost certainly TWO big breaker boxes (one for each appartment) plus meters - all of which with coils, which filter out high frequency signals - between your network and your neighbours’, so your bandwidth is not going to be suffering from neighbours that are using a similar system, unlike with anything radio-based like Wi-Fi.
I actually suspect this is even better suited for appartments than for standalone dwellings when your objective is bandwidth, because the signal will basically stop at the breaker box so you don’t really interfere with each other whilst with Wi-Fi what stops interference is distance (and big thick walls or large metal surfaces) so appartment buildings are pretty nightmarish for it because everybody is so near everybody else.
My own personal experience with this is all in appartment buildings and I actually first tried it back in the day when everybody and their dog started getting Wi-Fi and routers had become smart enough to automatically search for a less constrained Wi-Fi channel on setup (before that they all just used a default channel, so for a few years manually reconfiguring my router to use a different channel other than default would put me in a clean area of the spectrum few neighbours used) because Wi-Fi bandwidth by then had become was so bad whenliving in an appartment because of ther being so many people with their own networks in such close proximity.
Doorbell cameras are tricky there. They’re designed for the lowest common denominator and expect you to use the existing wiring for power, but nothing else. No PoE connections for that.
My other cameras are PoE, though. Madness not to.
I use a reolink poe doorbell camera. It’s a bitch to replace your doorbell wire with Ethernet but it’s really worth it for the zero lag and camera still working during a power outage because my server is on a UPS. plus the wires can be used for a traditional doorbell if I sell the house, I just pick a pair and power them.
Just because they are popular and cheaper doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
See also: Bathtub inserts, countertop veneers, cheap EIFS stucco, overlay roofing, etc.
Ring has a PoE doorbell. Expensive though
Solar/battery cameras.
Use POE Ethernet. Problem solved.
Any recommendations for PoE cameras?
I’ve set family up with a lorex system, setup was pretty straightforward and it works well. No monthly subscription fees rock.
I’ve been happy with Hikvision recording to my Qnap NAS. I’ve heard some bad ethical things about their company, but the cam works well.
UniFi Protect is outstanding. You need to buy one of their NVRs or cloud gateways to use it, but it’s incredible & wouldn’t want another system for our house/family business
So, vendor locked.
Yes. If that’s not for you, that’s fine! If that isn’t a dealbreaker, it’s an exceptional platform
Didn’t they accidentally send supposedly private video to the wrong users recently?
Yes, there was an incident where ~1k people received push notifications that were intended for other accounts
Shitty, but they addressed the issue within 24hr, notified impacted users, and published a sitrep. They handled it extremely well imo, but also you could disable the cloud connection if it concerns you
I use hikvision and the quality is great in low light. I haven’t connected them to the internet since I use Frigate and Home Assistant to monitor the feeds.
I put mine on an unconnected network attached to a connected desktop. Videos are written and uploaded to the cloud when motion is detected. ISpy is a good open source video system even if it is written in C#.
Check out Reolink, they have a lot of package systems and lots of deals. Watch some videos on the installation process.
Quick question: What advantages do PoE cameras have over offline CCTV cameras?
They’re essentially the same, but you only need to run one wire to them instead of two. The PoE means you don’t need to worry about getting power to the camera, which historically has been one of the more expensive parts of installation; It usually means tying into existing electrical boxes if they’re nearby, or pulling new lines if they’re not. But with PoE, everything is on that one cable.
There’s also the advantage that a networked system can be controlled remotely. Things like pan/tilt/focus/etc can be remotely controlled via Ethernet. So if you have configuration options with the camera, you don’t need to physically access it with a ladder just to make those adjustments.
As for the actual video, it’s not much different; Everything lands at a centralized hub, which then records the video or streams it to a remote server, which then records it. There are advantages and disadvantages to either, and it’s typically advised to do both. Because with a local server, once a thief gets physical access to it, they can do whatever they want with it. You were relying on that video footage, but now it’s useless because the thief took all of your hard drives. With a remote system, the big disadvantage is that it’s reliant on your internet connection. So all a potential thief has to do is cut the line going into your house.
For a truly “secure” system, the general consensus is two local servers and a remote server. Have one local server accessible, in something obvious like a server rack. Then have another redundant server somewhere else, which is more hidden and more difficult to access. And put power backups on those local servers, so they can’t simply cut the power at your breaker panel. The hope is that even if they cut your internet and/or power, and destroy the first local server, you still have the second local server. This is notably easier to do with a PoE system, due to the aforementioned lack of power runs to the cameras. Just put your network on the power backup, and the cameras will continue to function even after the power is cut. But that’s hella expensive, and would typically be reserved for enthusiasts, paranoid apocalypse preppers, and/or rich people.
Bookmarking this comment for future references. Thank you!
Easier and cheaper to install and maintain.
Only needs a single cable that can come from any PoE switch.
CCTV is just out-dated.
Digital. Can use regular computer as recorder.
as tech becomes cheaper and easier to acquire
I didn’t know an improperly sealed microwave oven was such a difficult thing to get ones hands on.
I think they’re talking about it from the other end: more cheap tech like wifi security cameras means more people are vulnerable to “an improperly sealed microwave”
No. They’re talking about the jammers getting cheap and easy to get. Cheap wifi security cameras have been a thing for over a decade now. Then got stupid dirt cheap in 2017 when wyze started selling one for $20.
2.4GHz wifi is vulnerable to even lower power attacks: Just spamming de-auth packets is enough to render a network useless.
They’re not, but a little cumbersome to carry around and find power on a heist.
There are loads of little pocket sized battery powered jammers available now.
no one likes roasted nuts
More of a boil situation. Nothing’s getting golden brown and delicious in this scenario.
My work has those. Very versatile. Works with door open AND closed!
I’ve been saying this since the Nest and other similar bullshit came out. In the electronic security industry, we’ve been installing hardwired PoE cams for over a decade and a half. High resolution, high bandwidth, no batteries or separate power adapters, centrally managed LOCAL video storage. And not vulnerable to RF jamming/hacking. Stop buying the shitty Harry Homeowner equipment.
In the 80s and 90s stores used to put up signs that read “monitored by CLOSED CIRCUIT television” because even back then they didn’t trust wireless and they made sure you knew it wasn’t.
oh, sweet, sweet ethernet. how I love you.
As long as it’s not 100mbps ethernet on unshielded cable, that’s the absolute worst for RFI.
then don’t do that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As long as it’s not two children with cups attached to a shoestring, that’s the absolute worst.
Sure, but still harder to do than wifi
The issue with 100mbps ethernet is than it interferes with HF and VHF radio.
It would certainly be possible for radio to interfere with ethernet, but I’ve never knocked mine out even with 100 watts.
Sure, but the topic is “rf interference of your camera feeds”
You CAN interfere with Ethernet, but it’s much harder to do, as evidenced by your 100 watts
And that’s why hardlining is still by far the best option available.
- Hardlined cameras need to be physically accessed and the cables snipped in order to disrupt them, and most cameras offering hardlining now feed Ethernet through their bases, providing additional protection.
- Most sub-20 camera systems can run for up to an hour or two on a 500VA UPS, and up to a week or more with PowerWall backups, defeating intentional power outages.
- A fully airgapped system can defeat any sort of direct Internet intrusion.
- Shielded Ethernet can help protect from crosstalk attacks provided they are correctly grounded with the appropriate switches.
- Hardware auth between cameras and the DVR can help defend against direct attacks via an unplugged cable or an open wall jack, in that only approved hardware can make the needed connections with either end.
- Encrypted communications between cameras and DVR can enhance the security of data across the wire.
- A brace of identical dummy cameras - similarly powered, if they have external indicators - alongside real ones will waste the time and effort of attackers who conduct physical attacks, while keeping recording-infrastructure needs to a minimum.
- Bonus if identical but “dark” Ethernet is similarly spoofed throughout the building, as not only will it confuse physical attackers, but it’ll also be already in-place for future communications-infrastructure improvements.
- DVR needs to be in a secured location, ideally fireproof. In combination with № 7 and № 8, a dummy DVR (with live screens showing actual content) can exist elsewhere to distract any physical attackers.
Sure, this list isn’t 100% coverage, but it gets you nearly there with a minimum of effort.
minimum of effort
yeah, nah, they can just have my stuff.
Right, and always remember they’ll go for the easy win first. First choice is likely walk in an unlocked door, then kick in one not visible from the street, or if you really want in, break a window.
The thing is, even if you get a good shot of the person doing it, it probably can’t help find the person, only prove that it was them, if you find a suspect.
A better use is to get that early warning of what is happening as soon as it happens, and get a response going, but what’s the response time from your local police department? A smash and grab gets them on their way with your valuables, with very little chance of police getting there on time
That’s when we’re back to physical security and it may not be what you think. Can you reinforce your lock plate and door jamb to make it difficult, noisy, and time consuming to kick in a door? Are there windows they can easily get in and what can you do about that? Are there hidden places where they can break in without being seen? If a light suddenly comes on or alarm goes off, will they leave in case someone looks?
You have some interesting ideas about what a minimum of effort looks like
If you are in the middle of a frame-off gut of a home, as I currently am, much of this is trivial to implement.
Even my parent’s 1978 home, with it’s drop ceiling in the basement, would not make most of this all that much more difficult.
If you are in the middle of a frame-off gut of a home, as I currently am, much of this is trivial to implement.
A notoriously low-effort endeavor in itself.
“It’s doable with a minimum of effort as long as you have your house gutted down to the foundations” isn’t exactly the shining defense of “a minimum of effort” that I expected to read
Go in your attic for 20 minutes. Throw some Ethernet around. You don’t even have to plug all of it in lol
I had to buy almost $500 of mdf to get around my attic well enough to pull cable for backhaul. It’s not as easy as you make it sound in a lot of cases.
You only need 2 pieces and some creativity.
Not all attics are that accessible. Mine is basically an above-house crawlspace full of insulation such that you need a mask.
It’s 2024, do you not have a mask
No, I’ve used them all up in the last 3 years
Requires a different type of mask, but yes, I have many masks of different types.
The simple solution here is to record to flash when wifi dies. Yes wired stuff is nice but half of these are consumer installed.
certainly record to flash, but you need to have notifications when the camera can’t be contacted/when storage would be theoretically getting full
that does open you up a little though: recording on device means the attacker can just destroy/steal the camera which is pretty easy because they, by definition pretty much, are in a place that’s trivial for an attacker to access
Another reason to buy PoE cameras.
As a gamer, I can only wonder what Path of Exile has to do with this. What does PoE stand for here?
Power-over-Ethernet
I never understood wifi cameras, because yes of course it’s super easy to jam them. You need a power cable there anyway, is a data cable then really such a hassle?
I think a lot of them, like the Google doorbell camera use rechargeable batteries. So you don’t even need the power cable. Just take it off of the mount every few weeks to charge it back up.
Then throw it in the trash in 2-3 years once the battery sufficiently degrades and buy a whole new one of course.
More like throw it in the trash when gooogle decides it’s obsolete and bricks it for “security concerns”
Painful how true that is. It’s awful.
At least some doorbell cameras power themselves off the doorbell power supply, so it’s not all devices with battery. Still more than should exist though.
I have a wifi camera. It saves locally to sd card. When it’s jammed, it won’t be accessible, but it’ll still record motion, so recording will be accessible as long as camera itself isn’t stolen.
Yes. With WiFi cameras you don’t need to run any cable, just plug in to the nearest power outlet. That’s very appealing to people.
Surprised they haven’t got them based on powerline (running a slightly worse ethernet though the electric lines). That way you’d still only need the one cable, and be able to lock people into your own powerline ecosystems.
Power line Ethernet is actually more similar to wifi than Ethernet the way it works, it uses your power cables as an antenna. Probably won’t be jammed as easily though, you may need to plug the jammer into an outlet.
I just power all of my cameras with POE
My cameras are wireless. Some I recharge every 3-4 months, the others are powered by solar.
Lol, there’s even 2 solutions that do both. Power over Ethernet and power line networking, so you only have to drag 1 wire across the house/attic
My video doorbell takes power from the existing doorbell wiring, but there’s no reasonable way to use that for data, so it’s WiFi (I really should see if I can pull Ethernet through but then I need to pay for a new camera)
Other models are battery powered and supposedly last as long as half a year.
I’ve seen WiFi cameras you can hang anywhere: battery powered and kept charged with a small solar panel
You can get POE(power over ethernet) cameras that dont require a separate power source. Closed circuit cameras are the only way to go.
I really like those “Protected by Xfinity/AT&T” signs in the windows.
Tells me what wire to cut.
/s
Maybe, but if there’s no specific reason to choose your house, some may decide it’s less risk to break into your neighbor’s who don’t have that sign
Putting up a sign or window decal is the cheapest option, and supposedly does work some of the time
And if there really is an alarm monitored by one off those companies, they are supposed to see and respond. You’ve just wasted a little time giving them early notice and you’re no closer to your payoff. Better hurry
Sounds like a good way to get the feds interested in your otherwise not very notable property crime.
Idk if it’s worth trusting articles from this site after the fake ddos toothbrush article.
Nonetheless, I can’t imagine crime not getting more sophisticated as time moves on.
POE cameras are the way.
The picture shows a bullet cam, and PoE is readily available.
Wired network doorbell cameras are much harder to find, and they are double the cost
Running wires is expensive. That’s why most people opt for wireless, and on top of that, the convenience systems like Ring offer with their app, no NVR/DVR, none of the typical security system hardware cluttering things up.
Running ethernet is pretty cheap
Depends on where and how far. Once youre trenching and cutting into your walls, it’s only cheap if youre spending your time.
No one should ever need to cut into your walls. A good tech will run down from attic or up from crawl space. The most you should ever have is a new plate where a box may be placed. If someone is cutting frivolously into your walls they should be fired. Hopefully they had contractors insurance too. Probably not if they were that incompetent.
That’s a bit of a blanket statement. It depends on the house and where you want the cable to go.
Yep. With the solid walls I have, if you’re not chasing into the plaster/brick, you’re putting trunking on the outside (which looks pretty awful, imho).
I’ve run mine under the floorboards. CAT6e flat-band cables with multiple redundant outlets. Not a great solution in a finished house, but when redoing the floors, it’s great. From room to room just drill through the wall below the floor level and pop the cable through. I’ve crimped mine myself so the hole is literally tiny, but even for a regular connector you don’t need all that big a hole.
In case I ever need to replace them, I hope I’ll be able to attach a new one to the old cable and just pull it through slowly.
cries in flat roof and slab foundation
The cost of the cable maybe, not the cost of all the ancillary work.
Most people have or want cameras in places where it won’t be particularly easy to run wires, like door frames for door bells, and outside walls with insulation and various utilities in the way.
Other people live where they can’t do it at all (an apartment)
I think he meant relative cost (including time)
Sorry for being that guy but if possible you should always refrain from using Wifi for applications in production, safety and security. Too many known and unknown vectors to its reliability.
But yea, I get it. Most people don’t know the details and on the overall market most affordable devices and services for security systems are some semi-“smart” products which are simple to set up. The extra work and cost that come with professional equipment aren’t really appreciated, eapecially by those who don’t know any better.
I think the most primary thing of all is that, most people don’t have the means to run Ethernet cables to places that typical cameras are installed (doorbells and garage floodlights)
It’s a catch 22 though. Ok one hand, every single person in my neighborhood has multiple cameras on their property now and even when I lived in an apartment complex, everyone had a camera at their doorbell, but they all are usually ring or some other subscription based, phone home type.
Do WiFi cameras present a new attack vector, yea for sure. Is having a WiFi camera that could be disabled better than not having a camera at all (what was the reality 5 years ago), hard to say.
Every single person in your neighbourhood has multiple cameras?! Where do you live?
While it may not be strictly true, this is not difficult to imagine. Doorbell cams are ubiquitous, alarm companies push more and more each year, spotlight cams, solar cams, and other cams are cheap and have been at time “the new hotness”.
More importantly, the widespread use of motion detection even means you can monitor and respond to events.
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That’s like a third of nextdoor posts.
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You’re right that you should try to make yourself a less appealing target for thrives, but some of your methods don’t really hold up to scrutiny. Beeping motion sensor lights and secure locks and doors are great ideas. They will absolutely deter casual thrives and addicts.
Advertising that you have guns is just advertising that you have something to steal that is valuable, easy to sell, and easy to carry.
Warning signs for dogs aren’t much better. If you don’t have a dog, that will usually become obvious to anyone close enough to read the sign. If you do have a dog, then the sign is just an invitation to have them murdered the next time you have to interact with police at home. It will also expose you to liability should any trespasser be injured by that dog. Yeah, even the person robbing you, but also children, other pets, and well meaning innocent people just doing their jobs (and not breaking the law by entering your property without permission) like meter readers, mailmen, land surveyors, emergency response, etc. When I see a dog warning sign, to me it just says that a dumb asshole abusing a dog lives here.
Broken furniture sounds clever, but that just says trashy, not poor. Actual poor people take better care of their shit. HOAs would also limit the places you could actually do this without fines in the suburbs. Broken outdoor furniture is as common as weeds in more rural areas.
WiFi Cams just mean that you can afford Internet. EVERYBODY has WiFi cameras. They are ridiculously cheap to buy and easy to install. Cameras (WiFi or not) aren’t a great deterent anyway.
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Have dogs. Also have a firearm in the house my mother has only pointed at me, while loaded. once.
The cats would likely be the ones to save us.
You’re confusing opinion and facts. My opinion is not fact (regarding dog warning signs) and I never said it was. Your feelings also are not fact.
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DO NOT put gun signs/stickers up. It’s an ongoing joke that a Glock sticker on a truck means “free gun inside”.
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Same principle applies; if you have a sign up warning people that you’re armed, that means that there are free guns inside, as long as they wait until you’re away or asleep.
It’s like, don’t put the empty box for the $5000 television set out with your trash, put it out with someone else’s trash, so that people don’t know you just bought a brand new expensive piece of electronics.
Nah. Just glocks. I can barely see over the pile of guns now.
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With an fpv headset for aiming?
That’s an interesting take, and I think I might agree with you.
Solid-looking boring lock, everything looking like it would last decades, looks like someone who sorted the security confidently.
Plastic looking wifi cameras everywhere have a “curtain twitchy granny” vibe.My mom says the neighbors can’t see her looking.
