Security cameras - you either love them or you hate them!

 

You have been warned

I've had many battles with my security cameras over the years to ensure they are able to achieve their principle role which is to ensure we can keep an eye on the horses any time we are away from them (or simply to lazy to walk across the yard and see them). As our system is getting a bit long in the tooth here is an update on my security camera exploits bringing the system up to date.

I first told you about my security camera journey back in 2012.

My early experience with IP cameras

So it only seems fitting that I bring you up to date 10 years later. Over the years I've grown in confidence using the cameras (although I've still no idea what I'm actually doing when I allocate ports to cameras) and I've managed to keep my matrix of nine Storage Options cameras going and visible wherever we've been with a good internet signal.

For the record I use two types of Storage Option Cameras, the OP1 for internal use and an equivalent outdoor model.

Storage Options MJPEG cameras
©Harveywetdog

At some point Storage Options stopped providing the fixed IP addresses and so I moved to DynDns in America which have provided this service at a cost. More about that later. I now use the LiveCams Pro App on my iPhone and Mrs R has stuck with the Foscam Surveillance Pro App on her iPhone. Both Apps work well although there is a bewildering choice available so if you find something that works it's best to stick with it. As I said back in 2012 I believe my Storage Options cameras are clones of the Foscam cameras so you do have to do a bit of research to get roughly the correct match but the Apps have kept working through various iPhone and Broadband supplier changes so they've served us well.

BT - Three - Gigaclear WiFi

The other thing that has changed across the years has been my home PC. Although I have found it possible to manage the cameras on my iPad and iPhone there's no doubt at times you need to talk to them over ethernet rather than Wifi especially as they can have a habit of resetting themselves to factory settings which means taking them down off the wall and reconfiguring them. The original cameras came with discs and as their software seemed to work best on my legacy PC I've kept that running just so that I could have a machine that I could use to manage the cameras.

The Storage Options cameras have become impossible to get hold of, although I did get a couple from supplier's final stock clearance sell offs, which had got me thinking about what I would do if I needed to replace them. Because I'd had to write my point forwarding rules for the BT Hub I'd stuck with the cameras being on the BT Hub Broadband, even though we'd flirted briefly with a Three router via 4G before Fastershires completed their fibre optic installation and we switched to Gigaclear. At the time of the switch to Gigaclear I'd checked that port forwarding was possible with their router but that was as far as I'd taken it.

Two things about BT. One, point forwarding through their Hubs (well at least the one we've got) feels relatively straightforward. You can also specify who is providing your fixed IP address and it all feels very well engineered; second thing - their Broadband over two miles of copper wire is crap but expensive. So I knew ultimately that I was going to have to take on the Gigaclear router.

Foscam Cameras

Late last year I had a couple of cameras down so instead of tickling them back into action I decided to replace them with modern Foscam models. I went for Foscam because I thought if they were good enough to clone then they were good enough for me. I bought models from the lower end of the range and went for the F19912P for external use and the R4M for internal use. I read with interest about the Foscam Video Management System (VMS) and I also noted that Foscam provided a recording device (Network Video Recorder (NVR)) that could corral all the videos on a system.

I purchased the cameras from Foscam UK and they arrived without delay.

Foscam goodies
©Harveywetdog

One thing to note is I specified the extension to be 3 metres thinking this would give me a three metre tail on the F19912P. Unfortunately it just meant a three metre extension for the power supply to the camera. I also specified the cameras without memory but on reflection the cameras work best with some memory so I'd get that next time (or invest in some micro SD cards for them).

The first camera I set up was the F19912P. I set this camera up via the iPhone Foscam App and I also found that installing the Foscam IP camera finder tool on my modern PC worked well and found my Storage Options cameras as well. Looking back at my DynDNS account, not only did it tell me I was a VIP customer, but it also told me I was only using 1 out of a possible 30 addresses. This meant I was able to set up a new address for the Gigaclear router IP address in parallel with the one for the BT Hub.

DynDNS Fixed IP Address Provider

By swaping the PC between my two broadband networks I could bring the old cameras across from the BT Broadband to the Gigaclear network. I set up a single port forward rule on my Gigaclear router and then via the new fixed IP address with DynDNS hey presto I had a camera visible on my phone but sitting on the Gigaclear Network. I have to say this was all a bit of a struggle, the Foscam camera needed a few attempts before it would open on my PC and getting into the Gigaclear router wasn't straightforward even though the address and password appear on a label on the kit. So a bit of perseverance was required.

Obviously having a mix of modern and legacy cameras produced its own problems which I'm going to go into. The modern camera worked very well with the Foscam App and needed very little configuration or any talk of port forwarding. The App seemed to be able to communicate with the camera away from the house effortlessly so Foscam must be managing and taking care of the communications with no effort required from the user.

With the Foscam camera finder tool on my PC I was able to find find the cameras on BT, reconfigure them to pick up the Gigaclear WiFi, switch the computer from BT WiFi to Gigaclear, check the camera was working and then change the address on my App so that I could view the camera remotely.

TP Link WiFi Extenders

Now we need to say something about WiFi Extenders. I use TP link extenders and have both 2.4GHz and 2.4/5 GHz models. I also have a legacy Netgear extender but that isn’t involved with the IP cameras. TP link also have an App called Tether which I’ve found very useful. It was a bit of a fight to start with but all I can say is that the default user name and password is clearly stated on the back of the device if you look hard enough. I also found it was easier to configure the double frequency model on my PC rather than try and fight the App.

Once I had the App working I took one of the 2.4GHz units out into the stable, checked signal strength on the App which assured me the location was perfect. I was then in a position to transfer the cameras over to the Gigaclear network. Without giving too much away I have cameras in a variety of locations and I found that one location was poorly served by the WiFi repeater. As a result I decided to use the BT Broadband Extender Flex 600 Kit and expand my Ethernet network to serve this location. I’ve been using the Flex 600 Kits for a while to serve one camera that stopped working over WiFi and although they work well as a pair I’ve found it impossible to expand to three or four units although the instructions say they should work in this manner. (The Kits work by send an encoded signal through your home wiring).

Netgear Ethernet Network

I don’t know much about Ethernet but from the availability of devices on-line I saw it was possible to expand using network switches. Due to my lack of knowledge I went for the cheapest possible, the Netgear  5 port GS205, which I obtained from Broadband Buyer. I chose Broadband Buyer because they also have a great range of Ethernet cables and I bought a selection of lengths for my interconnections at both ends. Broadband Buyer were very efficient and the kit arrived after a couple of days and I was able to plug the “switch” in and connect up the cameras with the signal brought into the area via the Flex 600 Kit. As I’d gone for the cheapest switch possible I was not able to monitor the switch via Netgear’s App, but that will be something to look at if I invest further in this technology.

Ethernet Technology
©Harveywetdog

With Ethernet, Power over Ethernet (POE) is now readily available, so that would be something else to consider if I think about buying anymore modern cameras. Searching the Foscam website informed me that it is also possible to buy a POE splitter which takes a POE signal and provides separate power and signal to a legacy device. Just make sure you’re getting the correct voltage for your camera.

I noticed that the point forward the Gigaclear instructions I had been given told me to fix the IP address of the device I wanted to point forward. I didn’t quite understand this until it dawned on me that I was already fixing the address of the cameras internally by not ticking the “Take address from DCHP” box so the instruction was in fact duplicating what I was doing already. In the future I will have a play with this as the legacy cameras have had a habit of resetting themselves and then become difficult to "find". Linking the camera to router via its MAC address may get round this.

Gigaclear Wifi Router Advanced Settings 

Once I had all the cameras on my Gigaclear network I had one last look inside the BT router and realised that I had specified the DynDNS address for my fixed IP address but hadn’t had to do this for the Gigaclear router. Admittedly we hadn’t had any power cuts to reset the router’s IP address but what worried me was the fact that I couldn’t see any way to set it. I went onto the Gigaclear technical support chat line and was quickly told that Gigaclear don’t work in this way but would provide me a fixed IP address for £2/month. That’s less than I pay DynDNS, but unfortunately I had just extended my contract with them for two years! I did my usual test of turning the router off and on for 30 seconds and noticed my IP address did not change, however Technical Support assured me that if the router was turned off for roughly 15 minutes the address would change.

So I’ll probably go for fixed IP address from Gigaclear and stop using the DYNDNS service. We also need to work out if we’re going to keep the landline from BT or phone over Internet from Gigaclear. There is also the bt.com email addresses to sort out once we cancel BT Broadband.

Finding my VMS - Perfect IP Camera Viewer

In parallel with this I was also trying to find a video management system that would allow me to monitor and record the cameras from inside. As I said I had started by thinking I would use the Foscam VMS but when I tried it I found I was not able to call up the legacy cameras. A check with Technical Support at Foscam confirmed that the Foscam VMS did not support MJPEG cameras. (My legacy cameras are MJPEG). This seemed to answer my next question which would have been does the Foscam Network Video Recorder (NVR) support MJPEG cameras?! But I wasn't too worried about this because a) the Foscam VMS and my Windows software didn't seem to get on terribly well and b) I'd begun to realise that my recently superseded 16GB All In One would make a nice NVR if I could find a suitable piece of VMS software to run on it.

So began the search for my VMS software. You know the drill, you ask your phone something like "which is the best IP camera VMS for a Windows PC" and you start working through the lists. Some are clearly sponsored and may not be an altogether independent opinion but you begin to pick up a picture of what's about, what some of the pros are as well as some of the cons.

I started with some software called "Blue Iris" which appeared to be top end when it came to features and complication but which wouldn't readily recognise my legacy cameras so it was a none starter. Blue Iris offer to evaluate your camera for you so that they can add it too their list but I didn't fancy giving them access to the camera for two days and furthermore any software that needs tutorials to teach you how to drive it is probably too complicated for my needs. I wasn't sure what the pricing plan was for Blue Iris, the initial purchase was reasonably pitched but it may have been a subscription service rather than a one off buy.

I then tried Security Monitor Pro which once again wouldn't work with the legacy cameras (although operation with MJPEG cameras was stated as a feature) and it was a case of third time lucky when I stumbled across Perfect Surveillance and trialled IP Camera Recorder which was able to work with my cameras. I started with IP Camera Recorder but then moved to IP Camera Viewer. I wasn't sure if there are any features Recorder had that Viewer didn't but as Viewer allowed motion detection as well as recording and appeared to be the same price as Recorder I went with Viewer.

The price plan for Viewer is a one off purchase with software updates but if I had one complaint about the Perfect Surveillance website it would be that the pricing schedule is not visible before you download the software - yes you can download it for free but sessions are limited to two hours (I believe) until you pay. The license is based on the number of cameras you want to use and the divisions were 8 cameras and then 16 etc but as I had nine and feel you should always allow room for expansion I went for the 16 camera version. I have the cameras split between recording and monitoring because we expect movement from the horses in their stables but the monitoring feature is more appropriate for the cameras on security duty.

Perfect IP camera viewer?
©Harveywetdog

The software is able to send texts to your phone but you need to pay a subscription service for this so I just rely on emails.  We haven't caught any suspicious characters yet but dogs, cats and birds have all been successfully detected and caught on film. So far, in four days of running the software has crashed once so I will have to monitor that. I've noticed that Perfect do not respond at all to Technical queries so I'm a little guarded in saying that the product is Perfect yet!

Latest News

I've got the R4M up and running and sitting on the Foscam App. It was really easy to configure and would make an ideal replacement for the OP1s monitoring the horses inside the stables.

I'll continue to monitor the performance of the IP camera viewer software; for now I've restricted it's recording and monitoring activities and next I'll get the interface working to my phone. I’ll give you a further update in a couple of weeks time.

Finally

I've noticed that I tend to set my security cameras up to obtain an artistic image and not in a position to do the best job as security cameras. I definitely need to get out of that habit!

 

Artistic imagery is not required
©Harveywetdog