Some old roaster has reversed into the wife’s car at the weekend, not once but twice – 2 separate folks witnessed it and left details, the driver pissed off.

My wee blink camera would’ve picked it up, but no chance of picking up reg number. Reckon there’s maybe 20′ between where I’d mount the camera and far side of the parked car, anyone recommend anything? Thinking of the eufy 2c at 229 on Amazon, but ideally no more than that.

Cheers!.

If it’s the car that’s the main reason for the camera, and you’re not thinking of changing the car anytime soon, what about a dashcam? Garmin do some which can run from the battery and automatically record when the car is knocked.

Will definitely give you a better chance of getting a number plate than an outdoor camera, though a cheap one to then cross reference the incident against in terms of watching them drive off would also be good as doesn’t have to be 4K or anything daft to get the plate.

All this from having my car hit four times so far this year (parked on a main road) and one of them a fail to stop so it was particularly rewarding getting the bastards registration and passing it on to the rozzers.

been trying to choose some cameras myself and it’s a real minefield! If you want to actually recognise things like plates/faces then the most important specs are probably lens size, sensor size & resolution (and whether you want to recognise stuff in daylight or at night, most cameras aren’t equally good at both!) Couldn’t see the lens from a quick google, I’d imagine these are more aimed at giving an “overview” than serious security. It’s only 1080P which is pretty low res these days tbh.

The advantage of stuff like Eufy is it’s fit & forget, has an app etc. With your budget you could actually get something decent though, especially if you might want to add more cameras later then proper IP cameras can be run through a hardware or software video recorder.
something like this (4mm lens)
https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/products/41630-hikvision-ds-2cd2383g0-iu-4mm/
or this (6mm lens)
https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/products/31003-hikvision-ds-2cd2385fwd-i-6mm/

Since you’ve thought about viewing distance (which is a good start!) you could consider what lens size lets you see the whole area you’re monitoring at that distance (bigger lenses having a narrower field of view but more detail therefore more chance of a decent ID), with a decent res (though counter-intuitively the more the res the worse the night-vision performance normally is).

Loads of serious chat at IPcamtalk if you want advice or just disappear down the rabbit hole…

If it’s the car that’s the main reason for the camera, and you’re not thinking of changing the car anytime soon, what about a dashcam? Garmin do some which can run from the battery and automatically record when the car is knocked.

that’s a good shout actually, my Blackvue does the same.

I think a dashcam may or may not capture the car that hit yours depends on where it hit and which direction it drove off in.

At home, a CCTV camera mounted and pointed at your car is the better bet I think

Am I missing something?
You’ve presumably been parking cars there for years without incident.
You’ve had an incident that’s not on camera, but was witnessed and details captured.
You are not planning to spend £229 on an electronic box that might capture a future incident if this rare event was to happen again in the right location and nobody was to witness it.

Not without incident, there’s been a few things tbh, my old transporter was scratched 3 times, a hater I presume.

I’m asking for recommendations, and was offering up the £229 camera option as one I’d been looking at.

It’s not just for this, as mentioned above, I have a wee blink camera up that covers my path, and my nearly a centenarian neighbours too, as she had a couple of scammers recently during the day, when I’m not here.

I like the dashcam suggestion, didn’t realise they could be used that way, thanks.

You’re not really missing anything, the auld prick that hit the car twice would’ve cost me over a grand in repairs, if it hadn’t been witnessed, so I don’t really think a couple of ton is out the question.

mate of mine has the eufy system you linked to – it’s pretty good from what I’ve seen on his app, am thinking of getting the same. decent picture quality (daylight), faces recognised and beamed to the app etc.

I have a pretty decent 2-camera (to NVR) Hikvision system (can’t remember the camera  model but they’re 1440p turret style and were new models 18 months ago). My only disappointment with it is the blurriness of moving images (both car regs and people’s faces). If they stop everything is crystal clear but even moving fairly slowly it can render number plates unreadable.

I looked into it a bit and apparently it’s more down to the camera’s shutter-speed than advertised frame rates and although some cameras you can adjust the shutter speed (I don’t think on mine you can) there is a trade-off that the image will get darker.

I looked into it a bit and apparently it’s more down to the camera’s shutter-speed than advertised frame rates and although some cameras you can adjust the shutter speed (I don’t think on mine you can)

is it an IP camera? I’d be very surprised if you couldn’t. Think they call it “exposure time”. That is one of the advantages of a more professional setup (being able to tweak all the settings to suit your individual situation and get the best picture)

I have the Eufy 2C in my back garden and in the garage. I like it.

I get notified when it detects a person, I can set off an alarm and talk to the person in question. Video quality is decent and the app is good. Battery life seems to be living up to the advertised period as well.

I’ve also got the Eufy doorbell and I’m thinking about hooking it up to the alarm and other security devices. You can develop your own system around their ecosystem.