A camera to record your garden or drive? 29 July 2018 at 3:35PM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Techie Stuff 26 replies 2.4K views

AquaGirl

To keep things short & sweet i'm looking at some sort of device to record out of my living room window or upstairs window to record the drive and fence while i'm away from the house. I'll be gone for around 10 hours so it'd need to be something that records that long.
I'm really not interested in recording beyond my drive and i'm aware if you do record other peoples property then it can land you in bother but then i'm not fussed about recording beyond my property anyway.
I don't particularly want to try out device after device until i get something suitable so i'm hoping someone out there has bought something and can link to it as a recommendation. Thank you.

Inner_Zone

Purchased one of these recently for £16.99 plus a 32GB micro SD card for £7.54. Gives upto 4 days of recording capability;


https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B074395R84/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


Have mine inside a window overlooking the garden. Make sure you turn off the IR otherwise it will reflect back from the window glass at night.

AquaGirl

Inner_Zone wrote: »

Purchased one of these recently for £16.99 plus a 32GB micro SD card for £7.54. Gives upto 4 days of recording capability;


https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B074395R84/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


Have mine inside a window overlooking the garden. Make sure you turn off the IR otherwise it will reflect back from the window glass at night.

Thank you very much. Can i ask where you got it from for that price since Amazon are doing it at £40?

We've lived on a quiet street for years with no issues. There's been a family who've moved on who although we keep ourselves to ourselves we know they've upset a few families around here. Cars getting damaged with footballs, flower beds ran through. We've been told they run around our driveway. Stepping foot on it is one thing as that does no damage but when i come home and find them straddling my wooden fence panel when they live on the other side of the street a few houses up (so they shouldn't even be near it) then who's going to pay for it when it ends up broken especially as at the moment i'd have no evidence of anything.

Depends which side of the fence you sit on (no pun intended) i suppose. Some take the stance of kids should have respect for other peoples property whereas others take the stance of well damaging your car, fence & flowers is better than going and killing someone (like there's only 2 options) and at least they're outside (and not to forget the classic "well what are they supposed to do/where are they supposed to go"). If it costs £40 then i'll buy it but i'd rather pay what you paid for it :rotfl:

Inner_Zone

Amazon, but it usually fluctuates between £20 and £40.

Savvy_Sue

I can't give any recommendations, but ours at work you can set to only record when there is movement.

Also even if it's just recording on your property, do you not still need a warning sign up? Someone will know ...

I know some people find the sign and a dummy camera is enough, but I wouldn't want to rely on that personally.

ententecordiale

Hi, I had a similar issue after my mum passed and I wanted to keep and eye on her house.

I picked these from Amazon on a whim

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B07CB14GTB?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd_title

I'm really impressed. I bought two and there was a discout for buying more than two.

Really impressed, the quality is excellent and I can connect via internet to internet. You can pan and tilt them so it covers the room, they are so easy to setup.

You can add a sd card and it will record video and also mail and alert if motion is detected.

I think they are brilliant

AquaGirl

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I know some people find the sign and a dummy camera is enough, but I wouldn't want to rely on that personally.

I've approached them and asked them to be more careful. The one that appears to be the worst behaved of the lot (who seems around age 7-10) just flat out said no. I asked what do you mean no. His reply was that it was an accident (reference ball coming into our garden all the time).

Yes you may not mean it to come in here but that's because you're not good enough to control it and when you hoof it all the bloody time coupled with your lack of ability means it's going to be in my garden all the time. This i didn't say because what can you do to kids these days when they hold all the cards and have zero respect? Single parent family who doesn't seem to bother checking them. The one i mentioned who seems to have a brother a few years older who doesn't seem as bad well the younger one is running around with very colourful language. He was talking about little girls on the street who must be 6-8 yrs old talking about them having their legs open etc (and as much as you may like to think it was innocent because 7-10 year olds couldn't be like that, no it wasn't innocent). All his mother said was please stop talking like that, so he carried on.
So if asking nicely isn't going to work i don't think they're going to care much for signs.

They must devalue everyone's house on the street by about 15k and the sad thing is is that there's much worse families out there too.

Norman_Castle

All his mother said was please stop talking like that, so he carried on.

Explain to him that his behaviour is making his mother look like a useless idiot. He shouln't be your problem.

AquaGirl

Inner_Zone wrote: »

Make sure you turn off the IR otherwise it will reflect back from the window glass at night.

I was having a scan back through the comments as i was wondering if there'll be a tell-tale sign that i've got a camera pointing out of my window (for example - a flashing light) and that's when i saw your comment.
IR i assume is infra red. What would turning this off do? Would it mean that i can only record in daylight? Or is IR a feature that auto-detects movement & triggers the record? Personally i don't think i'd like to rely on any auto detection, i'd rather just record & when i come home if everything is ok then i don't need to bother with the footage but if there's been any damage then i can scan through.
Basically i would like to avoid drawing peoples attention to my window. I'd rather nobody knew i had a camera facing out. Is that possible?

that

I would have a look through some old posts, as there are some truly wireless cameras - they use rechargeable batteries and last a few days.

Then there are old mobiles which can be converted. When I ind my old one I will put Alfred on there - no idea if it is great though?

if your camera does have ir LEDs, or a power light, you could always cover them with black tape

One person on this forum that has done lots of good camera post is forgotmyname, click on Advanced Search and in the SEARCH BY KEYWORD(S) type camera and in the SEARCH BY USERNAME type forgotmyname

Thought about putting one of those abso high frequency generators up that only kids can Hear?

googler

Why not consider motion-activated cameras, rather than leaving something recording for 10 hours?

We use an Arlo system. Wireless cameras, a base unit that plugs into your router. Control everything about the system from tablet, phone or web browser, cloud storage of footage, can record up to 20 secs each activation, adjust motion sensitivity, or switch cameras to a live view.

You have to have the cameras outside, but they're an easy self-install.

Camera battery life can be up to a year if you choose the right batteries and they're not getting triggered too much.