Looking for a front/rear cam that operates when the car is off to catch acts of vandalism

Ollivander

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My car has been vandalized twice now. The first time the license plate was vandalized, and now the back window and the license plate were vandalized again. I'm looking for a dash cam that will act as a surveillance system to catch the vandals that keep vandalizing my car. Could anyone help with this? It'd have to be a dashcam that would operate without the car being on. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.
 
you will need parking guard, and thats not good in most dual setups as i undestand it.

To power it you will need to hardwire it with a BDP ( Battery Discharge Preventer ) to make sure it dont drain your battery, and if you plan to have it on every night while you sleep and allso the 7-8 houres you work you will need to drive a lot to make sure your generator can restore the levels on your car battery, you might need a stronger generator if you dont drive that much every day.

If it is at home i would put a cctv camera on the car, i have a 1080P IP camera on mine where its parked in the dark yard behind the block i live in.
But thats even more expensive, but its the better way to go for a home setup, for occational use in car ( dont use parking guard normally ) i would just use a USB power bank to tie me over for the fjew houres ( shopping or what ever )


Reason my camera on the car is a little over the top is that its a PTZ camera, i need that as i dont allways park in the same spot so PTZ ( Pan Tilt Zoom ) allow me to move the camera around to frame my car good, normally i am a little more zoomed in than in the video above.


I can acess my cameras on the TV that the NVR is hooked up to via HDMI ( Network Video Recorder ) that in turn is hooked up to a router too, so i can allso see and control cameras on my PC and on my tablet when i lie in my bed.

Other cameras cover the street in front of my apartment block and one is in the peephole in the front door :D nothing get buy here without me having a chance of knowing it.


O and welcome to the forum ollivander.
 
Damn. Thanks for the response. Maybe what I need is just to install a personal security camera to overlook my car in the parking lot below. Here's a picture of my apartment highlighted in red and then my car with a red arrow above marking which one it is. It's the blue Toyota FJ Cruiser. I think an easier (and less expensive and invasive) route to take would just to install a personal security camera and set it up at the window. I only say that based on the lengthy measures I'd have to take from what you've advised above.

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Oh and thank you guys for welcoming me to the forum! :)
 
I have not tried the K1S myself, but it seem to have taken some flack for being less than stellar. And welcome to you too avto036

@Ollivander my camera covering the street is allso in my window, to be honest its not legal to put cameras up like i have, or rather it is but not legal to have them recording.
But since the police here dont bother with my car beeing vandalised 2 times, it must be up to me to be police - judge and jury too :rolleyes: not recomendable but thats what i feel like i am forced to do.

My window camera is just a cheap little box IP camera, and it do get a little obscured from time to time when its raining.
Been meaning to put some rain x or simmilar on that window but not gotten around to do it as that camera is not that important to me, i mostly use it to buzz in the postman when he have a parcel for me :D freak him out when i start talking and buzz him in before he get close to the intercom :p

Your parking spot seem pretty close so if you go for a fixed lens camera i would go for a 4 mm or maybe 6 mm lens, or maybe get one of those cameras that have a little manual zoom lens 2 - 12 mm or there about.

Only problem with the camera inside is any IR lights on the camera might/will reflect off the window glass blinding the camera, but if you have some light on that parking spot at night you might be able to make do with that, my window camera do okay on the 1 street lamp on the front of my building, but then again its a wide angle lens for capturing the big picture and not ppl and faces in partikular.

8 months ago the senile little old lady down on the #1 floor forgot she was cooking, as a result we had the firedepartment come by for a visit.
At the wery end you can see how that camera cope with just the light of 1 street light.

As you can see there is some horsontal noise on that little camera, its just there in low light, so i think i might have been a little too cheap with that one ;)

My NVR is simmilar to this one.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/131629596684 it will swollow up a 4 TB harddrive like the ones for desktop computers, there is a fan in it to cool it and it is noisy, but i have my NVR in the livingroom by the TV so i can live with it, i will not recomend to try and sleep in the same room as the NVR.

Make sure the NVR you get hooked on support 1080/30 fps on all channels, you can do without things like POE ( Power Over Erthernet ) as most cameras come with a PSU and not all cameras support POE.
POE is nice as you only have to route 1 cable to the camera, but in your case thats no problem, i even route network cable + power cable thru my balcony door for the PTZ camera screwed onto the top of the door ( i can do that no problem as i never get out onto that small balcony anyway )
Dore became a little harder to close, but the rubber gasket sealing it still allowed for the 2 cables to go thru it, and i dident have to drill holes in anything.

Dont bother with the slightly cheaper analog CCTV stuff, IP cameras with 1080p is the way to go like 1080p or higher is it for dashcams.

And feel free to ask any CCTV related questions in these forums too, we are a fjew in here thats allso into that stuff to some degree.
 
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I have a similar issue and would like to protect my vehicle whilst parked. My car was recently damaged by hit and run driver.
IMG_1971_zpszwwtgjcf.jpg

I favoured the Mini 0806 due to it's small size. Although the manufacturer claim this has a Parking Guard on their sales blurb, I understand this feature does not work and has been disabled from the latest version of their software. I thought about hard wire and run 24/7 but have been advised camera would not last long working continuously. Maybe if I activate motion detection this would be less strain on the camera?

I am considering the Blackvue 650 which has a motion activation whilst parked and sends a message to your mobile if it senses an impact. This seems to offer what I require.
 
I have a similar issue and would like to protect my vehicle whilst parked. My car was recently damaged by hit and run driver.
IMG_1971_zpszwwtgjcf.jpg

I favoured the Mini 0806 due to it's small size. Although the manufacturer claim this has a Parking Guard on their sales blurb, I understand this feature does not work and has been disabled from the latest version of their software. I thought about hard wire and run 24/7 but have been advised camera would not last long working continuously. Maybe if I activate motion detection this would be less strain on the camera?

I am considering the Blackvue 650 which has a motion activation whilst parked and sends a message to your mobile if it senses an impact. This seems to offer what I require.

there's no solution that is guaranteed to detect something like that, running a camera permanently is hard on the camera and taxing on your car battery, even in motion detect mode they are still running
 
Isn't that being a little negative? I'm installing a Street Guardian 12RC in the front and mobius in the rear. If I set the BDP to 6 hours (or even 12) and leave the cameras continuously running then they should capture the incident. Depending on light conditions and weather you may not capture the license plate but I think you would have a good chance.

Of course to set the BDP to 6 or 12 hours and have two cameras continuously running you need to be driving the car enough to keep the battery charged.

You mention taxing on your car battery, but replacing a car battery after 3 or 4 years instead of 5 doesn't bother me. There's not much added cost in the long run.
 
It would be worth a few pounds for the chance to identify the pond life who caused £1600 damage (£300 excess) to my car. Perhaps a security cam fixed on the building overlooking the car park might be a better option?
 
Dash cams can only do so much, not least when the light get low.
I much prefer my IP camera, only solution to use in a totally blacked out back yard.

If you wish with a cctv solution you can add motion detect and get a alarm ( buzzer ) if somthing happen in a zone you have set on the camera.
This can allso be used to trigger any PTZ camera to turn and zoom in on the zone you have set.

Offcourse cameras can be rendered mute by wearing a ski mask, as did the 2 guys visiting my friends house december 25, BUT they got a big :eek:

In daytime or in a parking garage a dashcam will be just fine.
 
Can you recommend an IP camera for a well lit car park?
 
I am not that much into the IP cameras, the ones i have are all Chinese makes/models, but they seem to be working allright, but its only my PTZ camera thats mounted outside, and even there its somewhat shaded by the balcony of the ppl above me.

My PTZ is from a brand called Sunba and i think the model is called 805 D20 x ( 20 X optical zoom ) i think 10 X zoom will be enuff for most ppl, focused on my car 20 - 25 M avay i only use 8 X zoom level.

And it look like this camera from another brand https://www.ebay.com/itm/191740833972
Its a pretty big housing with 7 inch in diameter, you might be better off with one in a smaller 4 inch housing and with only 10 X optical zoom.

Offcourse with a IP camera you allso need a place for it to unload, i have a cheap 4 channel NVR thats from the brand Qvis, it take up to 2 Tb harddrives so it can hold plenty of footage even with 4 cameras running 24/7
BUT ! it is a little noisy as it have active cooling.

A PTZ is good if you cant be sure to get the same P spot every day, and you can ajust zoom level and so on the NVR or on the PC or tablet that can allso connect to the NVR and control cameras and functions.
My NVR is allso connected to my 42" flatscreen tv via HDMI and i have a wireless mouse on the NVR so i can sit in my chair and make changes as i please.

In this pic my car is only at 6 X zoom level, i am zoomed in a little closer now to make sure i get a better face shot of ppl close to the doors.
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I suggest you read up a little on some CCTV forums.
 
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Many thanks for your response.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year, Bob.
 
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