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Today's Topics:
1. linux security camera (brad)
2. Re: linux security camera (Frank Sweetser)
3. Re: linux security camera (Michael Voorhis)
W - luggers,
I plan to rig up a security camera for my wife’s store. Recently a drunk person stumbled in and gave the sales associate a bit of a scare, fortunately nothing happened.
A company quoted $4k, which i thought was unnecessary, so linux powered i will go. I recall hearing on the list about a linux security camera potential a year ago with a PI, and a search through old list messages confirms that. The market for these PI-like devices seems to be fast moving. The PI 3 was announced recently, and the wifi option is attractive b/c less wiring is desirable. I know of other similar devices such as, beagle bones, other PIs, and ODROID (mentioned on the list). These devices are out of my domain of expertise and there are many of them. I thought the PI 3 would make for a good choice, but i thought i’d ask the list if there is anything else to consider.
Price is not really an option since all these devices are so dang cheap. The camera(s) will likely fire a shot once every 20-30 second interval, so its not a continuous stream. Infrared is desirable for when the store is closed and visible light is low.
Thanks,
- brad
A few random thoughts, based on the much larger scale surveillance system we
run here:
* Cameras are useless without storage. I would strongly recommend against
storing the images on the Pi itself, as then someone could very easily walk
off with them. Instead, check out a centralized video storage system like
Zone Minder.
* Think carefully about what kind of images you want - resolution, image
quality, and frequency. Set up a test camera, walk around, do stuff in front
of it, and see how much really gets captured. 30 seconds is a long time in
between frames. With something like Zone Minder, you should also be able to
set data retention and long term compression policies, giving you more
flexibility. Once you have some settings you can live with, you can then
translate those to actual disk sizes.
* Assume wireless will stop working, because at some point it will. Wire is
pretty cheap (you can get good prices on bulk wire at Monoprice), and it will
more than make up for it's cost in reliability, performance, and security.
This is doubly true for the 2.4GHz only wifi on the Pi3.
* Are those pictures important enough to back up?
Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu | For every problem, there is a solution that
Manager of Network Operations | is simple, elegant, and wrong.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute | - HL Mencken
On 03/01/2016 08:39 AM, brad wrote:
> W - luggers,
>
> I plan to rig up a security camera for my wife’s store. Recently a drunk person stumbled in and gave the sales associate a bit of a scare, fortunately nothing happened.
>
> A company quoted $4k, which i thought was unnecessary, so linux powered i will go. I recall hearing on the list about a linux security camera potential a year ago with a PI, and a search through old list messages confirms that. The market for these PI-like devices seems to be fast moving. The PI 3 was announced recently, and the wifi option is attractive b/c less wiring is desirable. I know of other similar devices such as, beagle bones, other PIs, and ODROID (mentioned on the list). These devices are out of my domain of expertise and there are many of them. I thought the PI 3 would make for a good choice, but i thought i’d ask the list if there is anything else to consider.
>
> Price is not really an option since all these devices are so dang cheap. The camera(s) will likely fire a shot once every 20-30 second interval, so its not a continuous stream. Infrared is desirable for when the store is closed and visible light is low.
>
> Thanks,
> - brad
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wlug mailing list
>
Wlug@mail.wlug.org>
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On 03/01/2016 09:20, Frank Sweetser wrote:
> * Assume wireless will stop working, because at some point it will. Wire is
> pretty cheap (you can get good prices on bulk wire at Monoprice), and it will
> more than make up for it's cost in reliability, performance, and security.
At some point you may decide that one shot every 20/30s isn't enough, so
having a fast reliable network will become more and more important, as
you add cameras and start increasing frame-rates. Depending on the size
of picture you want to store (once again think about Frank's other list
items -- image resolution & quality) you can saturate a low throughput
network. If you're doing multiple cameras, or having multiple pictures
coming into the server per second, post-processing of the images on the
server end, you will end up with a CPU bottleneck.
Look at the low-light performance of your cameras also. You don't want
to record a blur ... you want a useful picture of a person that you can
show to the authorities. Make sure the target area is well-lit.
--MCV.
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