ZoneMinder Forums

Hello Team,

I am looking to get a surveillance system in place based on 3 outdoor cameras and one internal. As backend, I am planning to use my existing MythTV Server running Mythbuntu. 2Gb RAM and 2Tb LVM storage. ZoneMinder will be running the surveillance server.

Are there any true wireless cameras out there that can work with ZoneMinder? Distance to the server will be about 30ft maximum.

I mean really wireless, streaming data wirelessly and operating on batteries? I cannot pull any cables, be those Cat5 or power.

Any suggestions will be much appreciated.

Just a quick suggestion, modified ASUS routers with UVC stlye usb webcams. Run it in client mode and connect back to your home network. Chuck D has got all the information on how to make Solar powered routers so forget needing any cable and never have to change the batteries.

I'm working on finalizing my Wireless mesh building system capable of hosting LAN camera's which will then funnel all feeds to any remote Zoneminder server in the world

I also read that it might be possible to marry those solar powered garden lights with a webcam. Has anybody done this before, what are the results? It should work in theory, power is there, light is there, wireless is there. I am hesitant to get lights and starting hot-wiring those....

Read this post and then look about,

http://oregonmicroscience.com/hotspotfo ... .php?t=425

You will get an idea of how we run our setup with Solar power and you should get an undestanding of the power required. I doubt just hooking into those solar powered lights are going to work. Not only do you need the solar power your going to need a battery to hold the charge when there is bad weather or during the night.

Yeeeaaahh, that kind of throws a wrench in my wheels.

Ok, in the places where I want to install the cameras, I have lights, so I will be able to splice off the necessary voltage for power, but the question of being wireless and IP (don't want any additional receivers) still stands.

Are there any IP wireless outdoor cameras under 300?

Looking for any pointers here.

If your feeling up to it I could help you with a DIY project. You would need to get 3 things,

1 WL500g Deluxe ASUS router, I've only tested this exact model
1 Orbit AF cam
1 Outdoor case for the equipment

Add that up and your probably looking at less then $180 and you would hvae the ability to run the router in client mode with the orbit plugged into ther router. Why do it this way you ask? It's cheap, pretty cool project and with the mjpg_stream app you can pan and tilt with the Orbit, plus you can actually run two camera's at once off one router

If that doesn't interest you I'm sure someone will point out a cheap wireless camera that has been tested with Zoneminder.

Any chance you can try a newer router in the near future? Googling for that model only showed me one place that had them, and a review written in 1996. Perhaps it's because I'm in the US, but that seems unlikely.

Don't have time to ebay equipment.

We'll the same setup works on the WL-500W N router. The problem is you would have to open up the router and change out the mini pci card otherwise the wireless won't work. I've switched gears at the moment to focus on some new things I'm coming out with. The only other thing I can think of is the WL500 Premium and not the Version 2. It's currently a limitation of Kamikaze firmware and the broadcom driver. The ASUS Deluxe is pretty easy to get over there. Hopefully I'll have an up to date solution for you soon.

newvisionantenna wrote:If your feeling up to it I could help you with a DIY project. You would need to get 3 things,

1 WL500g Deluxe ASUS router, I've only tested this exact model
1 Orbit AF cam
1 Outdoor case for the equipment

newvisionantenna - thanks a lot for the laundry list, I did a little bit more research and got even more concerns now. For example:

1. What about the snow? I live in Vancouver, 49th parallel is naturally warm, but we can have a foot of snow fall within 24 hours and stay for a couple of days. How do you tackle this? Is there a way to channel some energy generated by the panel into exothermic emissions to melt the snow?

2. I realize that the setup is to create a source of power based on solar and then power the cam and a router that relays the video feed.
Why don't you just use a wireless IP camera, that does not need an extra router, representing an extra wireless hop thus causing network latency and signal drops. Is it possible to power a wireless IP camera that hooks up to an existing wireless infrastructure?

3. Where can I buy smaller solar panel blades that I can re-arrange as I want? The thing is that I want to make sure that my solution is not only functional and stable, but also esthetically pleasing. This will require me to experiment with different design shapes, and if I had smaller panel pieces that I can play a puzzle with, it would definitely help the cause.

dscheste,

1.The best thing would be to PM Chuck D or I can ask him myself. I'm sure he deals with snow and somehow overcomes it. This is a person that has no Internet or Telephone Provider at his house but instead get's it from miles away using Solar powered "wireless base stations". That's the best name I can give it, pure genious if you ask me.

2. I'm sure you could power the wireless camera on it's own but I'm not familar with how much power that would use. I know for a fact the solution at the link I posted works using a router and I'm sure the usb camera would only need alittle more power. Maybe the wireless camera would use less but I have nothing to test this theory on.

3. I'll get back with you on this. I purchased a couple solar panels but that was almost 9 months ago. I'm sure you can get smaller panels and tie the power together somehow. Wish I could help you more but I'm working on the next best thing, automatic wireless mesh security system deployment. That was a mouth full, hopefully I'll think of a better name for it.

I designed (but ultimately never built) a simple system for this.

One wireless ip camera. (Axis 207w)

One deep cycle car battery. 12v.

One 12v->5dv converter (The 207 is 5vdc)

Two cheap 12v car battery solar panels to trickle charge it through the day. The sort that are designed to be left on your dashboard.

Have used all these components in other projects (solar to power electric fencing, converters to run a temporary wireless camera off an un-recharging car battery).

Axis also allow you to tune the wireless power down a bit (I think, some time since I looked at it) which if you're not that far away should prolong battery life further.

Our company bought a half dozen or so wireless outdoor IP camera systems from wirelessoutdoorcam.com to monitor the job sites and they work pretty good. We have two that run off deep cycle batteries like the previous person noted and we ahve about 4-5 others on buildings and untility poles. And we even have a couple of Wireless PTZ 802.11g cameras and one has a wiper on it, which is pretty cool. Some of them record to SD cards and others record to laptops hiden in a cabinet or desktop PC somewhere. And were beta testing their 900MHz 802.11 cameras next week so we can pentrate thru a couple of buildings with signal. Hope it works, there could be a bonus in it for me with no federal stimuls package to back it up.