Solar Powered CCTV

[AlanW]

Since the house was broken into a year ago for the sole aim of taking the car, the whole situation still haunts me to this day. Two of them climbed over the locked side gate, snapped the lock on the back door entered the house and searched all downstairs till they found the car keys on the shelf under the stairs and all this while we were asleep upstairs, back out the house and climbed over the side gate and away.

Just four minutes from them walking down the drive to driving the car away, according to the footage from next doors CCTV!!

The Police believe that prior to the break in, that the house had been under surveillance for several days prior to the break in. They also believe that the offenders had also been round the rear of the house to understand what locks we had or what additional security we had.

Of course, immediately afterward the break in, and yes, the words horse and bolted spring to mind, but all the necessary precautions were immediate implemented, top spec door locks fitted, comprehensive house alarm, extra dead locks, flood lights replaced etc etc.

As those that have suffered the same plight will understand the immense mental pain that such a traumatic occurrence leaves behind. I was hoping that has time goes on the pain would subside, but quite the opposite, for me anyway. In fact, I've had two nightmares so this week, one the car was stolen, the second my bikes were stolen.

But the thought that haunts me the most is the fact that someone had been walking around the rear of the house, not helped with it getting dark at 4pm of course.

So, I'm now seriously thinking about getting a solar powered CCTV mounted at the rear of the house just to try and give me some sort of peace of mind, I hope? I've decided on solar power purely for ease of fitment to be honest. The sole aim of it is just to alert me if anyone is walking around at the rear of the house via an app on my phone I presume?

I'm not really interested in recording, unless someone can advise me otherwise of course, and I don't think I'm fussed about the quality of the footage (again unless someone can advise me otherwise) and I certainly don't want to pay any sort of subscription.

I've looked on Amazon and it's a minefield with so much choice, so rather than take potluck, I thought it would be worth a question on here.

Any thoughts or recommendations would honestly be really appreciated

 

[Cycleops]

Get a Pedigree Chum powered deterrent/alarm. A dog. Doesn't have to be a big one.

 

[BoldonLad]

Sorry to hear that your unfortunate experience has had such a long term effect on you. I can understand, had my house burgled once, not a pleasant experience.

I have a EUFY System. The Cameras are battery powered. Time between charges is claimed at 180 days, but, it clearly depends on how often it is triggered. The camera at the front of the house typically lasts 3 months between top up charges, in winter, and, 4-5 months in summer (I have a small solar panel plugged into it to top up battery). The camera in the back garden lasts around the 180 days between charges, it doesn't have a solar panel, but, there is much less "traffic" in the back garden. The Cameras connect via wifi to a base station, where footage is stored. Once storage is full, it overwrites the oldest file(s). No subscription required.

As you suggest, I have it for "peace of mind" rather than any real assumption that it will deter scumbags, or, that the Police will actually take any notice of footage. The system will send an alert to your phone, if movement is detected. You can monitor the camera(s) from anywhere with an internet connection, via your phone.

You can speak to the person in view, so, for example, the camera beside the front door, if a courier calls with a parcel, I can speak to him/her and tell them to leave parcel behind flower pot (or whatever), if I am not in, or, otherwise occupied.

I have in the past tried a cheaper "Chinese" set up (iGeek), it worked for about a year, then, gave up. I chose EUFY because, they are made by Anker (the speaker, headphone, ear-pod people), and, I have been impressed by their products in the past.

This is the one I have. Amazon product ASIN B07W4MY7HLView: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07W4MY7HL/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?_encoding=UTF8&aaxitk=134dce20a507ed675d3b25df8ca1c0f0&content-id=amzn1.sym.1d1fc9de-af63-45b7-b9a4-15664e2de42b%3Aamzn1.sym.1d1fc9de-af63-45b7-b9a4-15664e2de42b&hsa_cr_id=0&pd_rd_plhdr=t&pd_rd_r=592ee688-f725-4f64-b08b-4fc8908f90e7&pd_rd_w=eQzwt&pd_rd_wg=S13QA&qid=1671702853&ref_=sbx_be_s_sparkle_lsi4d_asin_0_title&sr=1-1-e0fa1fdd-d857-4087-adda-5bd576b25987

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Just a warning
I have not got a CCTV system - at the moment - but I did install 4 solar powered flood lights around the back of the house last year

They all worked fine for a while - even worked fine with long nights as long as they were only set to trigger when they detected something

but this winter 2 of the 4 have stopped working. Due to the bad weather I have not got round to swapping bits round to try and work out what is wrong - but there is a lot of stuff out there that is not as good as it needs to be

and solar powered stuff is a specific problam as saving on the battery and solar cell will increase their profits a lot but it is difficult to tell how good they are from a web site!

 

[si_c]

The Eufy systems are good, but please note there have been serious privacy issues raised recently with their cloud servers (think people can watch your cameras without logging into your account serious).

 

[AlanW]

Sorry to hear that your unfortunate experience has had such a long term effect on you. I can understand, had my house burgled once, not a pleasant experience.

I have a EUFY System. The Cameras are battery powered. Time between charges is claimed at 180 days, but, it clearly depends on how often it is triggered. The camera at the front of the house typically lasts 3 months between top up charges, in winter, and, 4-5 months in summer (I have a small solar panel plugged into it to top up battery). The camera in the back garden lasts around the 180 days between charges, it doesn't have a solar panel, but, there is much less "traffic" in the back garden. The Cameras connect via wifi to a base station, where footage is stored. Once storage is full, it overwrites the oldest file(s). No subscription required.

As you suggest, I have it for "peace of mind" rather than any real assumption that it will deter scumbags, or, that the Police will actually take any notice of footage. The system will send an alert to your phone, if movement is detected. You can monitor the camera(s) from anywhere with an internet connection, via your phone.

You can speak to the person in view, so, for example, the camera beside the front door, if a courier calls with a parcel, I can speak to him/her and tell them to leave parcel behind flower pot (or whatever), if I am not in, or, otherwise occupied.

I have in the past tried a cheaper "Chinese" set up (iGeek), it worked for about a year, then, gave up. I chose EUFY because, they are made by Anker (the speaker, headphone, ear-pod people), and, I have been impressed by their products in the past.

This is the one I have. Amazon product ASIN B07W4MY7HLView: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07W4MY7HL/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?_encoding=UTF8&aaxitk=134dce20a507ed675d3b25df8ca1c0f0&content-id=amzn1.sym.1d1fc9de-af63-45b7-b9a4-15664e2de42b%3Aamzn1.sym.1d1fc9de-af63-45b7-b9a4-15664e2de42b&hsa_cr_id=0&pd_rd_plhdr=t&pd_rd_r=592ee688-f725-4f64-b08b-4fc8908f90e7&pd_rd_w=eQzwt&pd_rd_wg=S13QA&qid=1671702853&ref_=sbx_be_s_sparkle_lsi4d_asin_0_title&sr=1-1-e0fa1fdd-d857-4087-adda-5bd576b25987

Thanks for the info, but I'm really looking for a complete standalone camera. I have the Simplisafe alarm system and I did look at adding the Simplisafe external camera to the system, but to get notifications from the camera to my phone I need to add a monthly subscription.

 

[AlanW]

Just a warning
I have not got a CCTV system - at the moment - but I did install 4 solar powered flood lights around the back of the house last year

They all worked fine for a while - even worked fine with long nights as long as they were only set to trigger when they detected something

but this winter 2 of the 4 have stopped working. Due to the bad weather I have not got round to swapping bits round to try and work out what is wrong - but there is a lot of stuff out there that is not as good as it needs to be

and solar powered stuff is a specific problam as saving on the battery and solar cell will increase their profits a lot but it is difficult to tell how good they are from a web site!

I also added two solar powered flood lights last year, and touch wood they are still working as they should. That said they don't get a lot of use and are only on for a couple of minutes maximum once they are triggered.

 

[AlanW]

Sorry to hear that your unfortunate experience has had such a long term effect on you. I can understand, had my house burgled once, not a pleasant experience.

I can honestly say that not a night goes by when I don't relive that moment I realised that we had been broken into

 

[AlanW]

How about this for utter and bizarre timing, I have just this minute taken a call from Blackburn Police, they have found my engine in a chop shop!!!

14 months after the car was stolen

 

[Dadam]

I had my car taken in the exact same way in 2016. It's not pleasant. We knew nothing about it until the following morning when my wife noticed the side door ajar and my car gone.
The cheeky scum took my wife's purse and cards and used them to buy snacks on the way back to Bradford (quelle surprise!) and to top that they used one to pay someone's fine at Bradford courts!! You'd think that might be a pretty good intelligence to find the culprit but no, the lucky recipient of this beneficence just denied any knowledge of it, as if random people you don't know paying your fine is a commonplace thing, and the police couldn't do anything more!

Two months later the car turned up for sale on different plates at a shady car dealer (where? you guessed it, Bradford!) They had cloned the plates from an identical make, model, year and spec for sale at a main dealer. A prospective buyer reported it when he saw apparently the same car for sale at these two unrelated dealers at the same time!

 

[AlanW]

When the scum broke in, the sole intention was taking the car, nothing else. They ignored the two mobiles, a laptop and a £100 in cash sat on the kitchen table!

 

[BoldonLad]

Thanks for the info, but I'm really looking for a complete standalone camera. I have the Simplisafe alarm system and I did look at adding the Simplisafe external camera to the system, but to get notifications from the camera to my phone I need to add a monthly subscription.

You are welcome. I think they do a standalone camera too, might be worth a browse on their website. https://uk.eufy.com/products/t81243...eLq8We5-x-Er5ybhYeAiuFWWmmSRPM9hoCEE0QAvD_BwE

 

[AlanW]

You are welcome. I think they do a standalone camera too, might be worth a browse on their website. https://uk.eufy.com/products/t81243w1?currency=GBP&variant=40259795648705&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google Shopping&utm_source=google&utm_medium=max&utm_content=sec&utm_campaign=uk_security_max_cam&utm_term={{14755486744}}_{{14755486744}}_{{14755486744}}&gclid=CjwKCAiAnZCdBhBmEiwA8nDQxbylNKGZezYG8P50gIk-KweLq8We5-x-Er5ybhYeAiuFWWmmSRPM9hoCEE0QAvD_BwE

Thats seem to be exactly what I am looking for

 

[HobbesOnTour]

I can honestly say that not a night goes by when I don't relive that moment I realised that we had been broken into

It's probably not what you want to read but the above seems (to me) to be something that deserves a bit of attention.

Will a camera stop you thinking like this? Reduce the anxiety?

You may find it more helpful to investigate some methods of dealing with the stress and trauma internally rather than externally.

Best of luck

 

[cougie uk]

That's awful. What car was it ?
We have some Amazon blink cameras. Mainly inside the house but there's one in the garden that runs off a battery. Motion activated and the battery lasts months at a time.

They all tie together with an app and it's uploaded to the cloud so the footage is safe.