External recordable security camera?

5th Sep

Performed similar assessment for relative last month, so mildly modded copy&paste below where pricing may have drifted by few pennies.

Couple of observations / assumptions:

• implied requirement of easy access to camera location for viewing "the sd card if anything has happened and been recorded" may compromise the physical safety of the camera
• wired-power will be essential for always-on recording as battery-powered devices tend to be "record on event detection only" to conserve power
• no mention if external lighting is present, so assumed not present
• no mention of distance of vehicle from camera, so assumed to be within 5 metres
• no indication of distance of cam from router (for wifi-based solution) or if cable-to-router is acceptable/practical
• minimum resolution assumed as required to be greater than "1080p full HD" to retain detail when zoomed
• decent compression to permit high detail with minimum bandwidth when using marginal networks.

Camera suggestion: Blurams Outdoor Lite 4 (A22C) at about £32.50 dlvd, but under qty 10 readily available from credible source.
Ticks all your requirements and those mentioned above, plus additional features & flexibility.
Even has free ongoing rolling cloud-based event storage, so if your cam is lifted/destroyed you will still have (time-limited) access to recent events footage after you receive the "camera offline" notification.
Usual IR nightvision and not-so-usual full colour white-light/spotlight nightvision.
Wifi and/or wired connectivity.
Supports Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, IFTTT, Apple Siri.
Has a reasonably unique feature of "always-on" recording for event notifications where it auto-includes a few seconds footage prior to the event trigger.
You may think "so what, I will have always-on recording?"
But consider in the context of the short clip of recorded footage related to an event notification sent to your device. An exaggerated example:
most cams' event clips will show a few seconds of footage commencing a few-100miliseconds after the event trigger (the time it takes the camera to "wake-up"). This means you are not shown the brick traveling through the air before it smashes your car sidewindow, and if the sidewindow is 90degrees to the camera you can't even tell the window is smashed, you just think: false trigger, rubbish camera, turn off the car alarm and go back to sleep, only to discover the smashed sidewindow when you next want to use the car.
Not so with the Blurams: your event clip will include a few moments prior to the event trigger, then footage of the event trigger itself (the brick flying through the air), and the aftermath, etc, and you can react straightaway as you see fit.

The indicated £32.50 price includes delivery and fees via Amazon US.
amazon.com/Sec…4R/
Difficult to find in UK since Amazon UK stock was depleted few months ago, and generally difficult to find anywhere at the £32 pricepoint of the credible Amazon US option.

The included 12V output power supply should be OK with a £3 dumb "UK visitor" adapter,
or if you prefer a supply with standard UK mains plug it would be under £7 for a standard 12V DC wallwart lump, example Amazon UK:
amazon.co.uk/Swi…QK/

Unless you have an internal mains socket immediately back-to-back to the intended external mounting position, consider using a DC power supply extension cable. Example £3.50 for 5 metres:
amazon.co.uk/ken…GI/

Maybe you don't want to (or can't) drill a hole through wall for power/data?
So consider using a standard flat LAN cable through the nearest window opener, plus a quasi-POE adapter each end to permit the DC power to run through same cable.
Example £7 shifted directly by Amazon UK for 15 metres length of brown flat (1.5mm) LAN cable that typically will be accommodated by rubber-sealed window-openers without issue:
amazon.co.uk/goo…BU/
Pair POE adapters £5 to "inject" "and "extract" the DC power at each end of the LAN cable - the same LAN cable that you can coincidentally use to directly connect the cam to your router:
amazon.co.uk/dp/…LQ/

Depending how you implement connections to the cam externally, you may (or may not) need a waterproof box to protect the connections. Your choice of size/type, but random £5 example:
amazon.co.uk/dp/…9S/

Even if you go nuts and buy all the items mentioned above, you still have about £50 left over from your £100 budget, and it may be beneficial to spend that on lighting, either mains high-efficiency permanently-on white or IR floodlight, or PIR sensor controlled of same, or via solar-powered sources.

13 Comments

sorted by

5th Sep
Performed similar assessment for relative last month, so mildly modded copy&paste below where pricing may have drifted by few pennies.

Couple of observations / assumptions:

• implied requirement of easy access to camera location for viewing "the sd card if anything has happened and been recorded" may compromise the physical safety of the camera
• wired-power will be essential for always-on recording as battery-powered devices tend to be "record on event detection only" to conserve power
• no mention if external lighting is present, so assumed not present
• no mention of distance of vehicle from camera, so assumed to be within 5 metres
• no indication of distance of cam from router (for wifi-based solution) or if cable-to-router is acceptable/practical
• minimum resolution assumed as required to be greater than "1080p full HD" to retain detail when zoomed
• decent compression to permit high detail with minimum bandwidth when using marginal networks.

Camera suggestion: Blurams Outdoor Lite 4 (A22C) at about £32.50 dlvd, but under qty 10 readily available from credible source.
Ticks all your requirements and those mentioned above, plus additional features & flexibility.
Even has free ongoing rolling cloud-based event storage, so if your cam is lifted/destroyed you will still have (time-limited) access to recent events footage after you receive the "camera offline" notification.
Usual IR nightvision and not-so-usual full colour white-light/spotlight nightvision.
Wifi and/or wired connectivity.
Supports Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, IFTTT, Apple Siri.
Has a reasonably unique feature of "always-on" recording for event notifications where it auto-includes a few seconds footage prior to the event trigger.
You may think "so what, I will have always-on recording?"
But consider in the context of the short clip of recorded footage related to an event notification sent to your device. An exaggerated example:
most cams' event clips will show a few seconds of footage commencing a few-100miliseconds after the event trigger (the time it takes the camera to "wake-up"). This means you are not shown the brick traveling through the air before it smashes your car sidewindow, and if the sidewindow is 90degrees to the camera you can't even tell the window is smashed, you just think: false trigger, rubbish camera, turn off the car alarm and go back to sleep, only to discover the smashed sidewindow when you next want to use the car.
Not so with the Blurams: your event clip will include a few moments prior to the event trigger, then footage of the event trigger itself (the brick flying through the air), and the aftermath, etc, and you can react straightaway as you see fit.

The indicated £32.50 price includes delivery and fees via Amazon US.
amazon.com/Sec…4R/
Difficult to find in UK since Amazon UK stock was depleted few months ago, and generally difficult to find anywhere at the £32 pricepoint of the credible Amazon US option.

The included 12V output power supply should be OK with a £3 dumb "UK visitor" adapter,
or if you prefer a supply with standard UK mains plug it would be under £7 for a standard 12V DC wallwart lump, example Amazon UK:
amazon.co.uk/Swi…QK/

Unless you have an internal mains socket immediately back-to-back to the intended external mounting position, consider using a DC power supply extension cable. Example £3.50 for 5 metres:
amazon.co.uk/ken…GI/

Maybe you don't want to (or can't) drill a hole through wall for power/data?
So consider using a standard flat LAN cable through the nearest window opener, plus a quasi-POE adapter each end to permit the DC power to run through same cable.
Example £7 shifted directly by Amazon UK for 15 metres length of brown flat (1.5mm) LAN cable that typically will be accommodated by rubber-sealed window-openers without issue:
amazon.co.uk/goo…BU/
Pair POE adapters £5 to "inject" "and "extract" the DC power at each end of the LAN cable - the same LAN cable that you can coincidentally use to directly connect the cam to your router:
amazon.co.uk/dp/…LQ/

Depending how you implement connections to the cam externally, you may (or may not) need a waterproof box to protect the connections. Your choice of size/type, but random £5 example:
amazon.co.uk/dp/…9S/

Even if you go nuts and buy all the items mentioned above, you still have about £50 left over from your £100 budget, and it may be beneficial to spend that on lighting, either mains high-efficiency permanently-on white or IR floodlight, or PIR sensor controlled of same, or via solar-powered sources.
Author
5th Sep
Superb reply, I've read over it once but will read again when I get time and until then many thanks for this
4th Sep
I've got a couple of these which appear to tick all your boxes....

amazon.co.uk/Sec…1-3
Author
4th Sep
Thanks I'll take a look at them
25th Sep
Tapo Cameras work well in my experience, The (Tapo C310) fixed camera can be externally mounted and requires an SD card for £15 to save recordings amazon.co.uk/Tap…NBY The recording can be accessed via a mobile phone with an app.

If you wanted a camera that can follow movement my father in law has Tapo 1080p Full HD Outdoor Pan/Tilt Security amazon.co.uk/Tap…500 this works fairly well for what he needs.