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I worried about this when installing 7 cameras on my home. For what it is worth, more recent nest cameras have battery backup and buffer up to an hour of video

I worried about this when installing 7 cameras on my home. For what it is worth, more recent nest cameras have battery backup and buffer up to an hour of video if the WiFi is out (https://store.google.com/gb/magazine/compare_cameras?hl=en-GB https://store.google.com/gb/magazine/compare_cameras?hl=en-G...) So in theory if the perps cut the power you are ok, and if they jam the WiFi you are ok too. A month or two ago 3 guys actually did try to break in (without jamming) and the police took the videos but still weren't able to catch them. It gives me some.hope that perhaps one day maybe they do catch these guys and it serves as evidence. I now have the cameras hooked up to Home Assistant so if they detect a person (and not e.g. a fox) and we are out, a Raspberry Pi starts playing loud barking noises and a few lights turn on. During our breakin attempt, the guys were on their 7th (!) attempt at kicking in our front door and you can see from the videos that within literally a second of a light going on (...when we woke up) they turned and ran off so signs of life from the inside seems to be a strong deterrent.

Jnr 3y ago
What is it good for if they knock out cameras from being able to report activity to a person? Video probably will not help catch the bad guys. I use cameras with ethernet and PoE, those are also cheaper than wifi. On the other side of the cable there is PoE injection, ethernet switch, recording and object detection server, all connected to a UPS battery. If power goes down, I still have cameras and network running for a few hours, notifying and alarming if anyone trespasses. When power goes down, I also get notification with snapshot of the incoming electricity box on the street, to know if it was local issue caused by a person, or something else.
- creer 3y ago
  The point here is to send them to some other house before they actually get into yours. Not to catch them. To some extent, catching them means you were not dissuasive enough in the first place.
  - mattlondon 3y ago
    Yep. For me as well it was quite reassuring to be able to piece together exactly what happened. So rather than just being woken up by the noise of someone trying to batter the door down, I was able to go back and piece together 3 or 4 minutes of what happened - the cameras caught their car arriving, caught them going down a side road, caught them climbing over a fence at the back of my house, caught them trying to climb up onto the roof, caught them creeping around in the garden looking through windows, caught them trying to kick the door in, and then caught them running off and driving away. I had enough that I was even able to write a post mortem with timestamps etc. This helped us make some security improvements, but for me personally it helped me process the whole situation - it was less traumatic for me to feel like I at least had "complete" info and was in control and generally feel less victimised and helpless.
    - creer 3y ago
      That's a very good point yes. Understanding and satisfaction that the defenses worked (and how they worked). Closure basically. Far better than the alternative (of a big mess in the house and not knowing how things failed - not being any better prepared after than before.)
- dkn775 3y ago
  Can you give us a product list? I’d like to build a similar set up. What kind of cameras and what software are you running? Great setup
  - petepete 3y ago
    Not the GP but I have more or less this with all Unifi gear, a Dream Machine Pro and PoE switch in the network cupboard, a Flex PoE switch in the loft with 4×G5 Bullet cameras plugged into it. Unifi restricts choice but everything works in a few clicks and both the web app and mobile app management interfaces.
- mattlondon 3y ago
  Yes I was originally going to use Ubiquiti cameras and PoE for this (Ubiquiti cameras store data locally too so a single chunky UPS would cover everything) but for me the problem was the cable runs. They were just not really feasible in my house without considerable work - there was no easy path to run cables under floorboards or through loft spaces etc - I would have had to cut channels in interior brick walls, install conduit, replaster, repaint, then pull the cables through etc. For one camera location I would have had to go through a bathroom too so would need to retile! It would have been the gold plated solution yes, but would have required significant work and disruption to install. With WiFi cameras I was just able to spur into nearby power which was already wired into the house. Each camera took maybe 30 minutes to do a neat clean permanent install. Running ethernet and making good would have taken many days potentially weeks, and as others have said it is mostly about deterrent and peace of mind. It is easy (and kinda fun!) to get paranoid and get carried away planning all this stuff out and thinking about "what if..." scenarios, but ultimately home burglaries are typically just opportunistic things without much premeditation or planning. Sure if you are a specific high-risk target and people are going out of their way to target you then sure go ahead, but you'd probably just be better off with dogs at that point!
  - hcfman 3y ago
    Ubiquiti have a great name for switches. I have some. Unfortunately they chose not to provide an MJPEG stream on their cameras, which make's is very inconvenient (Read computationally non viable) to get the still images if you want to process the images with your own AI. And proactive camera security should be doing this and not relying on the AI that might be built into the cameras running on their tiny computers.
    - mattlondon 3y ago
      Yeah the integration/API was one other reason why I eventually didn't bother with Ubiquiti cameras (even though I have Ubiquiti WiFi APs and switches and management console already). Nest has a reasonable API (although it appears not to allow changing floodlight settings)
    - 3y ago
creer 3y ago
In general plausible signs of life does sound like a good response. All the more so if they really make sense related to sensory input. In service of making the next home seem like an easier target than yours.
noja 3y ago
> So in theory if the perps cut the power you are ok, and if they jam the WiFi you are ok too. Steal the camera
- mattlondon 3y ago
  Always an option. Mine are in the eaves of the house, so about 5 meters up from ground level. So now they have to block the WiFi AND bring a ladder AND anything else they need to break in. Totally possible of course, but why not just burgle the house next door that doesn't have any cameras. You don't you need to outrun the bear, only the other humans nearby.

Jnr 3y ago

What is it good for if they knock out cameras from being able to report activity to a person? Video probably will not help catch the bad guys. I use cameras with ethernet and PoE, those are also cheaper than wifi. On the other side of the cable there is PoE injection, ethernet switch, recording and object detection server, all connected to a UPS battery. If power goes down, I still have cameras and network running for a few hours, notifying and alarming if anyone trespasses. When power goes down, I also get notification with snapshot of the incoming electricity box on the street, to know if it was local issue caused by a person, or something else.

creer 3y ago
The point here is to send them to some other house before they actually get into yours. Not to catch them. To some extent, catching them means you were not dissuasive enough in the first place.
- mattlondon 3y ago
  Yep. For me as well it was quite reassuring to be able to piece together exactly what happened. So rather than just being woken up by the noise of someone trying to batter the door down, I was able to go back and piece together 3 or 4 minutes of what happened - the cameras caught their car arriving, caught them going down a side road, caught them climbing over a fence at the back of my house, caught them trying to climb up onto the roof, caught them creeping around in the garden looking through windows, caught them trying to kick the door in, and then caught them running off and driving away. I had enough that I was even able to write a post mortem with timestamps etc. This helped us make some security improvements, but for me personally it helped me process the whole situation - it was less traumatic for me to feel like I at least had "complete" info and was in control and generally feel less victimised and helpless.
  - creer 3y ago
    That's a very good point yes. Understanding and satisfaction that the defenses worked (and how they worked). Closure basically. Far better than the alternative (of a big mess in the house and not knowing how things failed - not being any better prepared after than before.)
dkn775 3y ago
Can you give us a product list? I’d like to build a similar set up. What kind of cameras and what software are you running? Great setup
- petepete 3y ago
  Not the GP but I have more or less this with all Unifi gear, a Dream Machine Pro and PoE switch in the network cupboard, a Flex PoE switch in the loft with 4×G5 Bullet cameras plugged into it. Unifi restricts choice but everything works in a few clicks and both the web app and mobile app management interfaces.
mattlondon 3y ago
Yes I was originally going to use Ubiquiti cameras and PoE for this (Ubiquiti cameras store data locally too so a single chunky UPS would cover everything) but for me the problem was the cable runs. They were just not really feasible in my house without considerable work - there was no easy path to run cables under floorboards or through loft spaces etc - I would have had to cut channels in interior brick walls, install conduit, replaster, repaint, then pull the cables through etc. For one camera location I would have had to go through a bathroom too so would need to retile! It would have been the gold plated solution yes, but would have required significant work and disruption to install. With WiFi cameras I was just able to spur into nearby power which was already wired into the house. Each camera took maybe 30 minutes to do a neat clean permanent install. Running ethernet and making good would have taken many days potentially weeks, and as others have said it is mostly about deterrent and peace of mind. It is easy (and kinda fun!) to get paranoid and get carried away planning all this stuff out and thinking about "what if..." scenarios, but ultimately home burglaries are typically just opportunistic things without much premeditation or planning. Sure if you are a specific high-risk target and people are going out of their way to target you then sure go ahead, but you'd probably just be better off with dogs at that point!
- hcfman 3y ago
  Ubiquiti have a great name for switches. I have some. Unfortunately they chose not to provide an MJPEG stream on their cameras, which make's is very inconvenient (Read computationally non viable) to get the still images if you want to process the images with your own AI. And proactive camera security should be doing this and not relying on the AI that might be built into the cameras running on their tiny computers.
  - mattlondon 3y ago
    Yeah the integration/API was one other reason why I eventually didn't bother with Ubiquiti cameras (even though I have Ubiquiti WiFi APs and switches and management console already). Nest has a reasonable API (although it appears not to allow changing floodlight settings)
  - 3y ago

creer 3y ago

In general plausible signs of life does sound like a good response. All the more so if they really make sense related to sensory input. In service of making the next home seem like an easier target than yours.

noja 3y ago

> So in theory if the perps cut the power you are ok, and if they jam the WiFi you are ok too. Steal the camera

mattlondon 3y ago
Always an option. Mine are in the eaves of the house, so about 5 meters up from ground level. So now they have to block the WiFi AND bring a ladder AND anything else they need to break in. Totally possible of course, but why not just burgle the house next door that doesn't have any cameras. You don't you need to outrun the bear, only the other humans nearby.