Covert in house camera wanted.

soundesciple

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Dash Cam
DR400G-hd II / mini 0803 / Mobius + A lens.
Hi guy's. Long story short. Recently my elderly mother (89 year old) who is looked after by Care workers while I work, has been having money and small items removed from her Purse/house and I am looking for a couple of cameras to place one in her living room and one in her bedroom. I've had a quick look about and found a couple of spy cams that look like clocks. here's a link to one of them.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/151135720790Iwould like to use a couple of Mobius cams but there is no places to hide them
So just thought I would ask if anyone had any better ideas or know of any more suitable equipment to catch the culprit?
 
Thanks jokiin will look now.
 
They're here on DCT so write them and I'm sure they'll help
@spytec or @TJ_Spytec
 
why are you looking at dashcams for this? there is a market for home security cams that are designed with being stealth in the home and offer standard features like wifi, ability to send an email with a few seconds of video (or a still), ability to adjust over the internet whilst away from the home...

just my opinion you should look at the home security market.
 
why are you looking at dashcams for this? there is a market for home security cams that are designed with being stealth in the home and offer standard features like wifi, ability to send an email with a few seconds of video (or a still), ability to adjust over the internet whilst away from the home...

just my opinion you should look at the home security market.
Im not looking for dash cams to do the job, I was just asking if anyone had any ideas or tips as to what cameras would be best seuted to do the job. There is no internet in the appartments were she lives so it would have to be recorded footage. Thanks for the input though I will look at the home security market like you advise.
 
There are indeed covert cameras designed as clocks, radios, teddy bears, whatever. The problem with them as I see it is that they are often highly overpriced and the performance/resolutions, etc., compared to what we have become accustomed to with modest priced dash cams tends to be lacking for what one needs to spend. I have repurposed an old dash cam for occasional surveillance use using a plug-in USB power supply that I run when I'm away from home facing a glass door that was previously the point of a break-in burglary and I have also occasionally used a Mobius in this way. If you are handy you could probably install a Mobius inside another object and make it work quite well at a fraction of what you might pay for a covert nanny cam. (needs to be properly ventilated though.) I've also managed to hide a dash cam quite well in a basket full of random "junk" on a table in the corner and people looking right at it never seem to notice it among all the other stuff. You might consider at least experimenting with this option.
 
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There is a lot of different "nanny" cameras http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanny_cam

I assume a mobius can be hidden inside a ring binder and shoot out the hole
China_Ring_binder_binder_file_clip_file2010251654348.jpg


But i dont even think the mobius need to be hidden that well as its pretty small, so maybe placed on a high shelf or on top of a grandfather clock or somthing.


There is many places to hide the little camera, one just have to be sure the blinking red light cant be seen ( cover it with some black electrical tape )

Anyway its amasing how little criminals notise, normally its in and out as quick as possible, so as long as the camera is not right in ther face they will not notise it.

I am sorry you have those kind of ppl too in the UK, but i guess praying on the sick and elderly is a universal feature :(
The MOFO caretaker will most likely focus on small things of value such as Jewelry and cash, so you will need to focus on the locations where they are found at your mothers place.

If she is anything like my old mother her purse will most likely hold her mony, and i bet she place it the same place every day, my mother hang her purse on the back of a chair in the kitchen.

A 64 Gb Memory card in a mobius will hold a lot of houres footage, and i think its safe to lower the bitrate of the little camera to the lowest setting to cram in even more footage.

I hope you catch this low life, and i wish the UK courts had some proper punishments to hand out to the person.
 
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Thanks Kamkar1. I already jave a mobius that ive been playing about with for time laps videos so i will do a few trials with that and see how it goes. My only wrries about using the mobius is the heat sinks can get very hot so hiding it away inside objects could be a bit hazardous fire wise but i will do a few test before leaving it unattended.
I like the idea of the ring binder! I could get my portable power brick in there as well and leave it running all day if needed, i also have a 64 gb card due back from warranty replacement, that should let me keep the video quallity up as long as it dosent get too hot.
(I will catch the tea-leaf somehow).
 
An interesting idea might be to use just a bare Mobius circuit board and the 8 inch lens extension in a safe and well ventilated manner, installed in a suitable object using a different type of heat sink. Having the lens module away from the case improves the heat problem by itself but eliminating the case improves the heat issue dramatically. You can buy a bare Mobius circuit board, lens modules and extensions from Banggood, You can also buy any length of USB cable extension you like so you don't need to have a power brick inside whatever object you hide the camera in. In my set-up I have a USB 5V adapter plugged into the wall with a USB extension cable running discreetly to the camera. So, with this concept you could essentially do a DIY covert camera any way you want.

mob2.png

mob1.png
 
An interesting idea might be to use just a bare Mobius circuit board
Thanks for link, this opens up many plans i didn't even know i had...:)
 
Is it worth my while setting the mobius up for motion detect? or does it not work very good? I have not tried it yet.
 
I'm not a big fan of motion detect but you could certainly experiment with it to see if it works for you. I find that motion detection seems to often experience false triggers or fails to capture parts of key events. I won't use it in parking mode in my vehicle for this reason as just a bird flying through or wind blowing tree leaves can trigger the camera. Indoors is easier of course but it sounds like in a situation with a home health care worker moving around engaged in various activities you might be better off capturing the whole scenario.
 
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Just been looking in the loft and found on of these, an old DVD player.
20141019_112832.jpg
I think I might be able to gut the workings out of it and put the mobius extended lens peeking through the remote IR receiver hole with a bit of DIY. And use a usb lead plus charger for always on power.
Do you think this will work?
If yes roughly how long will it work before I need to replace the battery with a capacitor?
And would there be any fire risk running it on the battery for say two continuous recording until the capacitor arrives?
 
That's great! I was actually going to suggest using an old VCR for this purpose so we're on the same page about how to approach this idea.

For months now I've been running my old dash cam with its internal battery for many hours a day plugged into the wall adapter with no problems whatsoever. I've even come home a number of times and forgotten to unplug it so that it runs all night and I only notice it when I sit down at the breakfast table. Fires are really very rare with these kinds of batteries despite what you hear on the news. More likely, if there were a problem the battery would simply swell up. It would probably be prudent to keep an eye on it for good measure but it should be fine until you receive a super-cap. Also, keep on mind that you are going to use the camera inside a metal DVR case inside a home rather than in a hot car sitting in the sunshine. In fact, when you mount the Mobius circuit board inside you should be able to use one of the existing internal metal brackets as a form of additional heat sink.
 
CPL filter is also quite dark if you have to make like fake display to DVD player and put mobius behind that, it is very dark from outside and it's very hard to imagine that someone could see camera behind that if they don't know what to look.
But if they are going to steal your DVD player then it's quite different...:confused:
 
But if they are going to steal your DVD player then it's quite different...:confused:

Hah, That's one reason I thought of an old VCR rather than a DVD player as it would be less likely to be tampered with or stolen. :)

Edit: It sounds like the culprit is only stealing cash and small objects less likely to be noticed. A missing DVR might be hard for the home care worker to explain away.
 
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