Long range WIFI cam

kamkar

kamkar

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I am looking for a camera you can connect directly to with a phone with a APP or ip adress in a browser, i think it need to have a external antenna / a antenna you can put on a wire.
CUZ the camera are going to be in a stable, which are some distance from the main house where the footage need to be viewable, so i was thinking if you put the antenna on the outside of the building there might be a chance.
Even if it is not far i dont think a wired camera would be of any use, well at least not without some box in feed into, and to what you can then connect with a phone, so pretty much a IP camera or other form of wired cam.

But i am trying to do this cheap and without too much fuss as the people using it, are not super tech minded, but a APP on a phone or maybe a IP address in a browser i think they can handle once set up.

I haver not yet looked to see if the houses WIFI router can be seen in the stable, but i somehow doubt it as there more or less is a building in the way
 
Maybe setup an old router as a wifi extender in the stable, then you have good internet for everything in the stable. The antennas on routers tend to be pretty good so router to router is more likely to work than other connections.
 
Never owned a router or a switch ASO, only had the ones provided by internet providers, and those have to be returned or big fine, or in the case of my nephew return it and get big fine.
 
Oops i am lying here, i did get a router when i had the house for the cheap IP cameras i dabbled with back then, but it got thrown out when the house was sold.
 
Also i would prefer to not mess with stuff like that, i do so hate network stuff and pretty much do not get it very much.
 
So much so, formatting my PC a while back i have not set up the software i used to access my NVR, what i have done is connect my spare 27" monitor to the NVR and then do it that way now.
 
I have an eight-channel NVR and I am only connecting four cameras to it. The NVR/cameras have repeater function. The near house camera can receive signals from far away camera and relay the far away camera signal back to you house. You might want to consider having an NVR/camera with this kind of function.
 
I do have a NVR myself, but this is for my niece as she would like to keep a eye on her horses, not least the next one which will be pregnant when it is delivered.
But i doubt i can get them to install a full CCTV system

I did not know that wifi network cameras can act like repeaters like that, that's pretty nifty.
Personally i almost never use wifi for anything, it is also off on my internet router but i do have another router for my CCTV so i can get notifications on my bedside table tablet, also on phone if i feel brave enough to connect it to the internet before i leave home.
 
How many feet/meters?
 
Not sure 20 - 30 M i think.

Went to google for overview.

house.jpg
 
The barn is close enough to the building to just run Cat5 cable. A basic IP camera and an NVR and they'd be all set! They don't need Wifi.
 
The barn is also close enough to connect to wifi, so installation of a cable is not needed!
 
Dashmellow said:
The barn is close enough to the building to just run Cat5 cable. A basic IP camera and an NVR and they'd be all set! They don't need Wifi.
Click to expand...
Nigel said:
The barn is also close enough to connect to wifi, so installation of a cable is not needed!
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I suppose the solution will depend on how the Client wants to view the camera. Do they want live view on a fixed monitor, or do they want to view on a mobile device?
 
I dont think the kids have any PC at all, so just on phones.
Yeah i know the distance are not super big, but as i have almost 0 experience with wifi i do not know its reach

Sitting in my parked car in the back yard i can actually see my wifi router which is on the other side of the building facing the road, but i suppose it also have a stronger signal than a little camera.

If the camera had a antenna you could screw off, and put on the end of a wire, and so have it even closer to the building i assume that would be enough, at least if doing something like that is OK with a camera, but i would assume so.

I suppose i could put my phone in the barn in hotspot mode, and then try to see if i could connect to it with my laptop from the house.
 
kamkar said:
I dont think the kids have any PC at all, so just on phones.
Yeah i know the distance are not super big, but as i have almost 0 experience with wifi i do not know its reach

Sitting in my parked car in the back yard i can actually see my wifi router which is on the other side of the building facing the road, but i suppose it also have a stronger signal than a little camera.

If the camera had a antenna you could screw off, and put on the end of a wire, and so have it even closer to the building i assume that would be enough, at least if doing something like that is OK with a camera, but i would assume so.

I suppose i could put my phone in the barn in hotspot mode, and then try to see if i could connect to it with my laptop from the house.
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Phones don't have the greatest antennas either, so the phone is a reasonable test.

My wifi reaches 40 meters to my phone, although with only one wall in the way,

You may be able to move your wifi router to a better location, more central to the house+barn, or maybe just raise it up a bit to get significant extra range.

Easiest solution may be to add a wifi-extender. I don't know what is allowed in your country, but here our internet providers sell "official" wifi extenders (at excessive prices) that can be positioned around the house to cover blind spots and just need pairing to the official router, that should be enough to cover the barn.
 
kamkar said:
Not sure 20 - 30 M i think.

Went to google for overview.

View attachment 67755
Click to expand...
Do you happen to know much about Dahua cameras

I'm trying to set up a battery only system (no PoE) and at the moment I've got IMOU cameras that eventually I want to set up as an ONVIF system via BlueIris

I'm interested in anything that integrates via ONVIF on the cheap, like some of these cheap Dahua-origin cameras that come out of China ...
 
Nigel said:
The barn is also close enough to connect to wifi, so installation of a cable is not needed!
Click to expand...

Well, since @kamkar has mentioned a variety of impediments to accomplishing a WiFi network out in the stable, both technical and personal, I suggested a simple run of CAT5 cable going to a camera as another option, Nigel, especially as kamkar had characterized the stable as "some distance from the main house where the footage need to be viewable", which it is apparently not. CAT5 cable is cheap, simple, easy to install, can run for long distances and doesn't required a lot of sophisticated networking skills for a single camera. Kamkar mentioned that he doesn't like to mess with routers and networking but he does have a hardwired NVR at home. - "Also i would prefer to not mess with stuff like that, i do so hate network stuff".

The fact is, any solution will require some sort of network even if it is a very basic NVR, the question is what is the easiest and least expensive approach for making it happen. I would probably go with WiFi if it were me.

TonyM said:
I suppose the solution will depend on how the Client wants to view the camera. Do they want live view on a fixed monitor, or do they want to view on a mobile device?
Click to expand...

Any solution here will likely require a router, so a WiFi router would give them either option except that it will be slightly more complicated than connecting to an NVR and monitor alone. If they don't want to record, they can skip using a hard drive.
 
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I haven't read all of the comments, so I'm sorry if this has been mentioned earlier. But have you considers powerline networking? If you can confirm a power outlet in the barn that is close to the main router, then you can use something like https://www.amazon.ca/gp/B00F0RC97A
 
Hehe yeah.

In my resent format C: i lost the PC access to my NVE, instead of going thru that nightmare again, i have connected my spare 27" monitor to the NVR and are now watching it / controlling it directly.
Also suddenly remote viewing was not possible on my NVR, same go for my friend with the Hikvision system, i have found what the problem is, suddenly we now need to forward our NVR address.
I can still view mine on the phone VIA wifi here at home, but the over mobile data part died with the sudden need to do port forwarding.

My last IP camera or the one i bother running ATM is the 1440p Dahua camera on my balcony door that monitor my parked car, but i have run a few off brand cameras too, relying on the Onvif standard, and it have worked too, though some times i need to yell at my hardware for a half day before it want to play ball.

This setup for the kids / young folks, it is also only due to the pregnant horse, its not like they have cached the paranoia of Uncle Brian, i am sure once the horse have foled the system will no longer be needed.
Hell i cant even get permission to install free dashcams in their cars. They simply cant be bothered.
 
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