3 years, 3 months ago-
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I have been looking at a lot of models of cameras, trying to help my HOA. I find some decent quality and features like Soliom S90 pro. Solar is perfect, cells charge enough to last all week with only a couple days of good sun. wifi has good antenna and picks up my home wifi when mounted on pole dead center of cul de sac. Has okay tilt and zoom and decent lens (would prefer better) but the deal breaker is that it is not really ip camera that I can host. Because the cameras will be in strategic placement around the neighborhood, I will grab internet from several agreeable neighbors so we don’t have to put up a mesh network and internet…too expensive. So it must be ip based as each camera will be on different feed. Last but not least I need to be able to host on my cloud server. We want to run 24/7 and none of the services will do that reasonably. But equipment is so inexpensive I can just add them to one of my web servers and donate to the cause. S90 offers expansion via sd card but then your up and down on the poles and to much trouble. On my server I can allow general viewing via a HOA pass code and provide Police with all they need.
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Breaking this down to essential elements
Software to host on your own cloud server for viewing access and recording – ispyconnect offers a free solution, or a paid subscription and offers a feature known as neighborhood watch software https://www.ispyconnect.com/neighbourhood-watch.aspx that allows people to connect their cameras and give access. They also have a long list of cameras and settings for setting up the shared cameras.
IP cameras compatible with this software – https://www.ispyconnect.com/sources.aspx In looking at some other battery/solar powered cameras reolink states it is not supported as it can increase power consumption. It may be best to find the camera with wifi you want and we can power it via another method
Power for those cameras – since it looks like most battery powered ip cams don’t play well with other software, a solar charger/battery is needed. https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Solar-Power-Your-Home-Security-Camera/ provides some basic instructions to build these but the components would be different depending on your camera.
Internet for those cameras – With each homeowner providing Internet, you may still want to use dynamic dns and may have to set some port forwarding to be able to connect to the camera.
Overall it can be done but will take some testing and some work. It might pay off to see what cameras are already in place in the neighborhood and see if you can get access through the Neighborhood watch software, then just adding needed cameras later.
I hope this helps you, if you have any additional questions let us know!
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Thanks great suggestions, I am looking into the neighborhood and sharing as that is very good idea but still need about 8 good quality to shoot down the streets for the license plate database. Ddns and port config no issue, been doing this a while but just not having much luck with solar wifi and it was so easy with the Soliom that I am hooked. I will check out the cameras on ispy apoved list… thanks
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Got a bit side tracked with the season but need to get refocused and finish this job. We seem to have people running thru the neighborhood stealing mail from mail boxes and not only the loss of mail but confrontations are escalating. I have bought some good cameras I like a lot like Heimvision line. The technology on the batteries and solar is fantastic. Just the lithium batteries alone will record and give you 2 weeks then report when running low. That coupled with a small solar panel is inexpensive and easy to setup. 3 hours sunshine a day and you have no issues at all. The quality of the cameras is crazy how good that has become. Whether standard width of zone and digital zoom is what you need or PTC with analog and digital is unbelievable at very low cost. So it all boils down to the software again. Space is not the issue these days but a way to connect the camera by ip or mac and then share especially when you use multiple internet feeds throughout the neighborhood.
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