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Lost and need help

Howdy,

I am venturing abroad in June and need to keep my apartment safe for about 3-4 months. Can't find anyone to live in (other than occasional visits like checking mail, etc.) I live in a subdivided two story house. The grounds are communal and a lot of my neighbours feel the need to trawl around my side playing sport and what not, so I think outdoor sensors are pretty useless for me.

Anyway.. I want to be able to see exactly whats going on and I'm guessing I will want 4 cameras. One which will see who comes to my front door.. I think it should be mounted on the inside on the actual door itself as I don't want it to be stolen/vandalised and also don't want people knowing they are being filmed (yes I realise the potential legality issues here..). Second camera in my lounge room where my expensive gear is, third camera in the kitchen facing the window. This was where thieves managed to get in back in '05, but I had no decent screens then, and finally the fourth camera in the bathroom/laundry facing outside.

I want to be able to login and watch the action live myself and also have say..hourly "grabs" emailed to me. I have reasonably fast broadband (512/256k) but no unlimited uploads so bandwidth will be an issue.

I also want a system that will have PIR or window/door sensors that will trigger an alarm (silent only) and alert me and several other people I nominate via mobile and email (I live in Aus, so needs to be Tri/Quad band), and attach a camera image of the situation.

I have years of experience assembling computers, networks, etc. But I'm a total newb when it comes to alarm systems, etc. Would prefer a system that is more or less ready to go rather than assembling one myself. Reliability is also a must!

The closest I have been able to find is this:

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cheap and nasty comes to mind.

Cheers!

Reply to
neurotic34
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Ex Copper from Belfast. I wll move in. got refs.

Kid Regards.

Micky.

Reply to
Micky Savage

Are you going to fly to Sydney to do that?

Thanks, Kid regards to you too!

Reply to
G. Morgan

You ought to be able to do that for abt 800-1000 usd with 4 camera capture card, your old computer, 4 indoor cameras, no need for pirs as you can set the capture card for motion detection areas on the cameras. Web access too.

Reply to
Crash Gordon

On Feb 10, 12:08=EF=BF=BDpm, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

Not anyone from your area in this group, so anything that we would recommend would be a USA product, and wouldn't know if it's available or useable in your part of the world. Mickey is the only (semi) regular here from out side the US.

Generally speaking however, why would you want a silent alarm? You don't really believe that you're going to enjoy watching the people break in, vandalize and take your stuff ...... and get away .... do you? One of the major jobs of a security system is to let the intruders know they've been detected and either keep them out or make them stay the shortest period of time and that the authorities have been notified.. If you're depending upon "friends" to come to your home upon receiving a call from you or central station, (You ARE going to use a central station ..... Aren't you?) do you think you really want to put your firends in a situation that they could get hurt by some armed or crazed intruder? and you could record THAT event also. Would go over great a coctail party. And you said nothing about alerting the authorities. Just how long do you think it takes to burglarize a home? About 15 minutes, on average. How fast do you expect ANYONE to get there ..... IF AT ALL? Do you think that everyone has their cell Phone on or within reach, or will actually answer it, 100% of the time? How often a day do you check YOUR E- mail? Did you ever forget your phone someplace or discover that you're in a "dead" zone? Didn't hear it ring? Couldn't pick up because you were in the middle of something that couldn't be avoided and then forgotten to check your voice mail? This is what you want the security of your home to depend on?

Other tidbits .......... putting a camera inside looking out a window will only get you a silhouette in the day time and if there are lights in the room at night you'll only get reflections of the room off of the glass particularly if your use inexpensive cameras without infra red lighting or back light control. I'm not absoutely sure, but I think that at 256K it's going to take you about a half hour to download one or two frames. You'd probably spend most of your 3 or 4 months away time, waiting for pictures to download.

I'm sure cost is an issue but for something like this I'd suggest you get someone of experience to come in and do it for you or at least as a consultant, unless you've got lots of time to experiment and learn some issues about camera specifications, placement of cameras, motion detectors and the basics of security ...... first. If you're going to put money into something and then discover it's not going to do what you want, why not pay the piper and do it right, or not do it at all and take your chances. At least you'd be ahead that money.

Reply to
Jim

this:

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> But cheap and nasty comes to mind.

Thanks Jim, excellent points.

Loved the cocktail party bit, lol.

This is new territory for me anyway. The cameras is mostly a curiosity thing and I was gonna get a security monitoring company added to the dialer aswell.

Might head over to one of the major electronics retailers here for help/advice. Some of them have a two weeks no questions asked money back policy so I can test some of them out and see what happens.

Thanks again.

Reply to
neurotic34

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