Surveillance system

[LuchoTurtle]

I got a call from Ricardo and he wants to install a few cameras for surveillance and a few "fake cameras" to scare onlookers away in case they want to do anything "not legal".

Apparently, there's suspicion that there's something going on during the night, ticking dogs off and some "clues" that are being left behind which are raising the alarms to Ricardo & Co.

Don't tell "Tias" just yet, this is an "off-the-books" side-project for now.

He wants cameras not connected to wifi. He wants a set-and-forget system to have video evidence of stuff that's going on. So basically, a camera that records video at whatever FPS and erases the contents of the SD card every two weeks/one month automatically.

I've never done anything of the sort and wasn't really sure that it was possible. But it seems that there are alternatives in the market 👀.

Looking at https://www.reddit.com/r/homedefense/comments/dnzvh7/cheap_nonwifi_cam_that_i_can_stick_a_sd_card_in/...

Wyze cameras, with some configuration, can be used without WiFi. They have 1080p recording, night vision, audio recording, motion detection, micro SD, and corded, and are like $25 or something. I got 4 for $20a piece.

@nelsonic had experience setting up cameras. In fact, he built an awesome surveillance system that has all kinds of 007-type stuff in https://github.com/dwyl/home/issues/130. You can give any suggestions if you so wish. But we want an easy, cheap, offline system that is "set-and-forget so Ricardo, if he notices anything suspicious, can easily check the microSD and watch the video footage.

[LuchoTurtle]

Looking at https://www.smarthomepoint.com/wyze-cam-no-internet/#can-you-use-wyze-without-the-internet, they're outdoor friendly and waterproof. They actually need internet connection but only for the initial setup (to connect to the Wyze app). The camera seems to be able to record offline after that.

However, from https://forums.wyze.com/t/sd-card-expected-behavior-when-card-is-full/5095/2...

“Your Wyze Cam will overwrite the oldest footage when it runs out of room on the microSD card. You can view the amount of memory remaining on your microSD card by entering the Camera Settings and scrolling down to the microSD card section.”

> So while the camera can do offline recording, it is not its optimal purpose.

I wonder if there are better alternatives 🤔

[nelsonic]

When planning a security camera system you there are several considerations:

1. What is the [perceived or real] "threat model"? i.e: is there a high value area/item you are trying to protect? Have thieves already attempted to enter the property? If so was anything stolen? e.g. some piece of high value art/furniture etc. Are you trying to protect the belongings of patrons to the venue when an event is on?
2. Existing Infrastructure - are there electrical points e.g. lights in the places you want to monitor?
3. Cost - what is the approximate budget?
4. Ease of use - who needs to observe the captured footage and with what frequency?
5. Ongoing Maintenance burden - a Set-and-forget system requires power. Batteries are fine but they run out and require more work.

Our system in Braga is reasonably hands-off because everything has power - either PoE or AC. All motion detection events are recorded to an SSD and nothing is "leaked" outside of our internal network. The only maintenance required is checking the cameras are still capturing. e.g. recently a spider spun a web over one of the cameras and it was triggering the motion continuously. If the camera was battery operated it would have drained the battery in a matter of days. 💭

The premium we paid to use the Unifi Protect system was steep but we believe they have the best privacy. 🔒

If you don't inform the "Tias" then the "budget" is basically Zero ... 🙃

While I tend to agree that Landim due to it's size/scale would benefit from having a few offline cameras. I think it very much depends on the Threat Model (see point 1 above). Because if you're dealing with a reasonably sophisticated threat and relying on SD cards to store the captured events, the malicious people will just take the cameras with them.

As for "decoy" cameras this implies you are dealing with very unsophisticated people ... Most of the dummy cameras are garbage and they don't look real at all. They don't provide much of a deterrent. And if you're going to spend the money and crucially time to install them you might as well be investing in something that works ... https://www.safewise.com/au/do-fake-cameras-work/

Most minimally competent thief can spot a fake security camera a mile away. The Crim's "One Job^TM" is to not get caught so they are savvy to dummy cams. @iteles and I worked in retail a few years back and the dummy cams did nothing to stop the crims.

For reference: we have a couple of these G3 Instant cameras: https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-protect-cameras/products/unifi-protect-g3-instant-camera in the places where we couldn't use CAT5 (PoE) and they work well. But they require WiFi ... So this might be a no-go for Landim. 💭

Very curious to see what you come up with on this. It will be relevant to Geres too. 💭

[nelsonic]

https://www.a1securitycameras.com/blog/4-solid-reasons-not-to-buy-dummy-cameras/ Basically if you have dummy cameras and something does happen you don't have the recordings. 🤷‍♂️

[LuchoTurtle]

Going over your points:

1 - This is not related to any events/weddings. We currently have 0 security or any feedback on what occurs in Landim during the night. So we need surveillance on places outside "wedding areas", those are generally safe. I'm talking back entrance, "eira", "casa da pela" and garden.

2 and 5 - Power won't be a problem in the places he wants to install the cameras. There's a grid to connect the cameras to.

3 - No budget because this is an idea he has and "Tias" aren't aware of this. So we're still in the ideation/research phase. But as cheap as possible without compromising on mandatory requirements: offline and compatible with MicroSDs that are wiped montly/biweekly.

4 - Ricardo will check the footage the day after if he believes someone was roaming during the night.

I'm aware that with offline cameras, people can just take them off. But if they're properly hidden and by using in conjunction with fake cameras, it's still a much better security system than having absolutely none (or dogs, in our case). We don't have wifi in Landim nor we won't in the near future, so this is non-negotiable, unfortunately.

In fact, we shouldn't even have this conversion here because it poses a security risk. But by the time someone sees this on Github and travels, we'll already have a security system setup.

I'm leaning on just getting 3/4 cameras from Wyze (or from Zosi) because they fill all the requirements:

• they're fairly cheap for what they do.
• outdoor-friendly.
• has offline capabilities and automatically deletes the oldest footage whenever MicroSD is full.
• if in the future Landim has wi-fi, we just connect to the interwebs and we got motion detection and all the goodies it provides through the app.

[nelsonic]

Continuous recording to an SD card without motion detection will require sizeable SD Cards. If you use decent quality e.g. 1080p so that you can actually distinguish the faces of people. You will rapidly exhaust basic cards such as 32gb ... At a 5mbps bitrate (relatively low) you use 1gb every 50 minutes. That comes out at 28.8GB per day ... The worst part isn't even the file sizes it's the effort of searching for video without a good interface. But if this is the route you want to take I would highly encourage you to Ask someone for feedback before sinking any cash into a "solution" ...

[nelsonic]

But yes, something is better than nothing.

[iteles]

I think the assumption is exactly that we are dealing with very unsophisticated individuals for now.

The motion sensor point is an excellent one in terms of storage space though and worth considering @LuchoTurtle

Other than that, cheap, cheerful and somewhat hidden is the pilot plan. It should at least give us material for debate on whether more money should be spent on security.