Three threads on the front page this morning with poor folks having bikes pilfered.

Can anyone recommend a decent home CCTV system? I would be looking for a two camera system, one outside and one in the garage (internal). Something that can record 7 days or so? I’m new to this so advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

What do you want from the CCTV? Recording alone won’t be that useful. If you go for a connected system then you can get alerts to your phone if something happens. Probably not that useful if you are away (unless you have friendly and burly neighbours) but useful if you are home and the garage is detached. You will need a network connection. There’s loads of systems now from cheap Chinese IP cameras to posh ones that integrate with your other smart tech. What’s the budget?

As per OP, its an internal garage. I have no other smart tech, planning on installing with the Yale Wireless Alarm system Screwfix. Not too interested on getting alerts on phone, if we’re away there’s not much we can do about it is there? Budget around £200?

Arlo works, if wireless is important. Budget will be an issue.

Arlo has been great for me. Had it for 2 years. A couple of bugs every now and again but the free subscription is good for 7 days of material.

If you’re on holiday and it wakes you up and there is a crime in progress – ring the cops!

I had a minor attempted break-in to my garage 2 years ago (pre-security) and everyone said they would be back. Put cameras up and D2D lights, and not heard a peep since.

Speaking from friends experience, I have to say that CCTV is pretty useless preventing theft. Spend your money on them not being actually being able to get in there in the first place.

Response time for police to attend could easily be 20mins (if they have anyone free of course) by which time the hooded (scarf round face) buggers will be long gone.

Speaking from friends experience, I have to say that CCTV is pretty useless preventing theft. Spend your money on them not being actually being able to get in there in the first place.

I’m sure there’s some truth in this, however local crime prevention officer here reckoned CCTV was the single best measure to deter burglars.

Perhaps thinking of random junkies rather than bike-specific tea leaves.

I’ve got a Netgear Arlo. Someone broke into our garage and tried (but failed) to take my bikes.

I got an alert on my phone, police were there before the scumbags had left the track at the back of the house, caught one of them but he wasn’t on video in the garage so they had to let him go.

They recognised the one on the video, went round to his house, arrested and charged him and he plead guilty in court.

Looking for a CCTV system too. This is partly for security but also to try and capture some incidences of vandalism and petty theft that have been going on.

The camera can be on the side of a shed, looking out over the area. Currently the shed doesn’t have power though, so it would rely on batteries, any options for this?

EDIT: House Wifi probably reaches the shed, just about

What do you want from your CCTV?

If you want it to alert you/let you remote view there are cheap chinese IP cams that will do fine (tenvis are ok)

If you want to use it for ‘evidence’, the police have quite tight requirements on that which will usually lead to you spending a packet. The when push comes to shove, will the police actually pursue things? (bike crime is pretty low down the list).

Im also after a system. My only preference is that it is Power over Ethernet as its more reliable than wifi and you need to run power to the cameras anyway so might as well use a more reliable data connection. Other than that requirement, not followed it up further.

Oh and agree with looking at upping physical security and also not keeping all bikes in one place if possible as additional priorities.

Posted the link to the one I have on another thread a few days back.
Actually have two – one at each house so can remotely monitor them when away, logs, motion detection, playback and much more.
1TB hard drive, 4 full HD cameras and the ability for another four standard definition ones as well.
I paid £263 for each one though

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00TWIREY6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This is the new version

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Samsung-HD-Home-SECURITY-SYSTEM-8-Channel-DVR-CCTV-BULLET-CAMERA-KIT-Outdoor-SET/231919380021?hash=item35ff78e635:m:mHajFIL9adUVL-fF5o49fYw

you need to run power to the cameras anyway so might as well

Arlo runs on batteries.

If you want to use it for ‘evidence’, the police have quite tight requirements on that which will usually lead to you spending a packet.

What requirements? The police were chuffed I had the footage and didn’t mention any special requirements.

I’ve got a Netgear Arlo. Someone broke into our garage and tried (but failed) to take my bikes.

I got an alert on my phone, police were there before the scumbags had left the track at the back of the house, caught one of them but he wasn’t on video in the garage so they had to let him go.

They recognised the one on the video, went round to his house, arrested and charged him and he plead guilty in court.

Nice work.

Did the cameras wake you?

Flip side is I can’t sleep in anticipation of them going off!

We have a flir fx ip camera for keeping tabs on the mother in law. It records to the web on movement and sends alerts. Loads of similar cameras available.

How handy with tech are you?
I have a setup using Raspberry Pi’s and the camera modules.
I think it cost me about £40 for each of the pi setups (it was a few years ago) and I then installed MotionEye for free, which can send alerts, cycle data, store on remote storage, only record on activities etc, and also only record when motion is detected. If you feel like it, you can also use that facility to hook into the GPIO outs on the PI to trigger external responses, i.e. lights, alarms, opening a lion cage etc.
Records to a an external hard drive attached to the router, and due to the nature of a Pi, you can either use ethernet, or you can buy a cheap WiFi USB adapter.
It was actually very easy to setup, as long as you can work out how to write an image to a Pi, as there are load of pre built images out there. Can also be set up to use a normal IP camera as another source, and has a reasonable web interface.