CCTV Camera at Home - To Monitor Maid & Toddler


i read this thread and i really want to laugh. Ling how how (margret)and sharon ang (sharon_ang) are so defensive and sore, for no apparent reason. one thing for sure, when u are dealing with some "IT know some and dont know alot" kind of ppl, they tend to get pretty defensive and refuse any corrections from anyone. likewise, i came here to find out more on home cam, but all i find here is some defensive trash tht dont offer any constructive information at all. i think i better stick with my usual forum, hardwarezone
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bernard, u hav had a fair share of flamed by this aunties, i salute your patience to explain things to them. lol

ling, if u jus wan a dummy cam, jus DIY, find a small dome shaped stuff, dig a round hole, insert some refective stuff to make it look like len glass. double sided tape on wall or ceiling, thats it, right? your maid wil be impressed by u, where madam manage to find such high tech looking surveillance cam.
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sharon ang, ppl quote to u, is expensive, then dont buy. doesnt mean ppl is not honest. your friend labour cost might be cheaper cos he or she is your friend. understand?
i do interior designing for clients and cos them thousands. i did it for my parents in law and sister in law, free of charge, how about tht?
 
Hi all,

I will be getting a new maid soon and need to install CCTV or any devises to monitor her but don't really want to spend too much money. (Budget). Can anyone advise me?
 
Hi Teresa,
The cost of a CCTV systems depends on the number of cameras that you want to install and whether you want to view thru the internet or not. If you need further info or have other queries, you can email me at [email protected]
 
Hi Bernard,
Would you be able to advise how to set the monitor so that i can view online, mine CCTV is for recording only
 
Hi Jynnsan,
There is a couple of things you will need to know.

1) The CCTV recorder that you have does it support internet viewing? If the recorder that you purchase does not support internet viewing,you will not be able to view at all. You can roughly know whether your recorder support internet by checking the back panel of your recorder. Check if there is a network point behind your recorder. A network point is a hole that you plug in the internet cable just like your laptop. If there is, you got a chance.

2)You will need to have a modem router that support CCTV viewing. Some modem router (like the singtel modem) brand like MIO may not support CCTV viewing.

I hope I don't confuse you. If you have further queries or need to understand what I mention above, just contact me at 9760 2180 and I will try my best to assist you.
 
Hi everyone. Seems my wife's request for surveillance at home is quite a common one. I recently installed 3 Dlink IP cameras at home for my wife to keep an eye on the kids. Now my wife can monitor the kids from her office PC. Also installed a small PC to do continuous recording.

Have learnt alot from the experience. If anyone wants to know more of my setup,or about DLINK IP Cameras (the DCS-5220 and DCS-2121), do PM me. Will try to help if I can.
 
Hi claracarmel

I have 2 x DCS-5220 (which can rotate) and 1 x DCS-2121 (which is fixed) installed at home. All are connected wirelessly over a secured WIFI network (I agree with Bernard's earlier posting that normal CCTV wireless cameras can be insecure since they may not do encryption like WIFI does).

I'm using a Dlink wireless router to connect to Starhub's Broadband network.

Is it easy to set up? That depends on what you want to acheive, how technical you are and how patient you are ;-) I feel that as a non-technical person, its not as easy as the product makers say it is. If you want to use the cameras out of the box, and you have no networking experience, then I'd say its not easy. I understand networks, and it was sometimes quite frustrating. So my advise is, get someone who knows basic networking to help if you don't know what DHCP, DNS, and port forwarding means.

Is it reliable? Well, my cameras have been working for the last 5 months with no problems. Only problem is recording was inconsistent in the beginning when recording in high quality. I suspect interference from my neighbour's WIFI network. It's stable now, now that I set it to record at a lower quality.

Hope this helps.
 
Hi Madeline

Below are prices I got at the PC show last week.

DCS-5220: UP $389, Show Price $359
DCS-2121: UP $249, Show Price $$199

I bought mine at Challenger in Funan. I think the DCS-5220 was $379, and the DCS-2121 was $269. So prices has come down a little.

You'll need a PC if you want to use the standard recording software from DLINK, or a network storage device, which is what I'm using. But I built my own, so won't list that price here. You can probably buy one for less than $300 if you want to buy a ready made network storage device.
 
have a friend who told me, why spend so much. Use a dummy as a deterrence is enough. Anyway we are not a store, not going to catch some thief. Ha ha.. But it's good to have sometime to back up in case sometime bad happens.
 
Yes, dummy is a good deterence. But I have kids, and a maid. So when something happens, it's good to know you can check. And when the maid see you can check (I don't hide the fact that I spot check the recordings from my maid), its a greater deterence.

I personally feel recording is key. Remember the MRT incident when someone fell on the tracks, and SMRT CCTV did not record it because their system did not record? I thought that was a joke. And they spent alot of money installing the recording function after it happened. Not much good for the person who fell on the track.
 
yes, spending so much and can't do anything after it happen, so they install door.

Like of home, but we can's simply wired up the whole house, like mrt station, and ff the maid already know u doing recording then she won't be doing anything infront of the camera.If she want to do anything she she might go to places where there is no camera coverage. Then we wasted the money on installing and electrcity.

I would prefer to install hidden camera.
 
haha, yes, they install doors to prevent people from falling. Unfortunately, we cannot install anything at home to stop the maid misbehaving ;-)

It's interesting you bring up the hidden camera. That's exactly what my mother-in-law said when she first saw my cameras. But I think they serve 2 different purposes. Per your statement about the dummy cameras, the big camears in plain view serve as a deterence. Hidden cameras are installed to catch something, AFTER it's happened, like things get stolen from your bedroom. You can't have it both ways, ie a hidden camera has no deterence value at all.

As I explained to my mother-in-law, I prefer deterence to catching people in the act. I rather my kids are safe (theft is less important), then catch the maid hitting my kids in a hidden camera. The damage is done when its after the fact, and catching the culprit is not a consolation to me.

And I clearly will not install a IP camera in my bedroom, no matter how good I am with network security ;-)
 
Hi Bobby,
I bought 1 DCS 2121 yesterday at IT show and being one with no network experience, am struggling with the setup, although I managed to install camera through installation wizard and setup wireless connection through Linksys router on Starhub broadband network. But am having problem with D-View Cam setup, it could not connect camera (with message video lost). Agreed with you, it can be very frustrating especially I don't understand DHCP, DNS, etc as I can only complete partial setup as I also don't know some of the complicated settings for recording as I wanted to only do recording on motion detection so I also bought SD card. I've called DLink technical support and they will call me tonight to walk-through the setup correctly.
 
Hi Claracarmel,

Always admire someone willing to trying to DIY this ;-).

Just want to say one thing if you are trying to do motion detect recording. My experience has been that it's good if no one is at home, and you are trying to detect intruders and be informed via email. But in a busy home, it tends to capture alot of images, e.g I see my maid walk back and forth alot while she is cleaning the house, not to mention what happens on weekends when we are at home. So hope you bought a high capacity SD card, or you may have to do alot of housekeeping of the card as I believe recording will stop when the card is full, though I may be wrong on that since I did not try out this option ;-)
 
Hi claracarmel, just wondering how it went with the DLINK support guys. Did you manage to get your camera to work as you wanted?
 
Hi Bobby, yes the DLINK support staff did call me but at very late hour, 10.30pm. She email me step-by-step guide which I managed to follow and all done, port forwarding etc and managed to view camera remotely and recording onto SD 4MB card is fine as able to read recorded files from USD 2.0 card reader. Unfortunately, am having problem now as camera is not recording, when I view live video, the motion trigger indicator is lighted when motion detected but not the recording indicator. I took out the card and confirmed that nothing is recorded. Not sure what is wrong now as I checked that SD card status is OK, and all settings as before, ie when storage is full, overwrite older recordings.
Anyway, the SD card was already empty when I reinsert it into the camera SD slot. Tried calling DLINK helpline but it is always very frusrating to hold onto the phone for more than 20 mins so will email them instead.
Do you happen to know the cause, appreciate if you could offer some advice.
 
Hi claracarmel, glad to you managed to get it to work.

I have seen a problem similar to what you have encountered. What I found is that recording usually stops for 2 reasons:

1 - the storage device has exceeded the recording threshold, but this is not your problem.

2. - the camera forgets its configuration. In this case, what I did was to go back to the recording page, and click "Saved setting". You don't need to change anything, just save it again.

This works well for the DCS-5220, though I have not seen it on my DCS-2121. Maybe you can give it a try anyway
 
Hi Bobby, spoke to Dlink staff this afternoon and they suggested I upgrade the firmware to 1.04 as my DCS-2121 is 1.03 and once firmware upgraded, I should format the SD card. Also, the reason they think the recording stop was because I did not turn off the camera before I eject the SD card and therefore may have cause damage? Anyway, I will give a try as you suggested first on point no. 2 before I try upgrade the firmware and format the SD card. By the way is your DCS-2121 firmware 1.04 as I also understand that need firmware upgraded to 1.04 in order to be able to view via iPhone and access through safari.
I will only do the firmware upgrade when my mind is relax especially am not an expert dealing with network configuration, it's always very painfully challenging to do this kind of task!!
 
Hi claracarmel, yes, my DCS-2121 is running 1.04. Interesting point about the iPhone. Haven't tried that. May give that a try as well.
 
Hi Bobby, so I should really upgrade mine to 1.04 then.
You may give a try on iPhone and let me know if it works as that's what Dlink support guys said that if its 1.03, you'll have to upgrade to 1.04 firmware so it will be able to be viewed via iphone and you may access it through safari (http://hostname/m)

Interestingly, I put a new SD card and it starts recording when I view Live Video, so am wondering if the previous SD card was corrupted and if there is a way to check if it was indeed corrupted?
 
Hi Bobby, I was advised by DLink support that with the upgraded firmware v1.04, it supports SD card control without having to remove it from DCS-2121, ie all recorded video files in the SD card is retrievable and playback when we log in to the device.... amazing. Will try to upgrade firmware tonight.
 
Hi claracarmel, I have not done much with SD card since I record to a server, but I just tried it out.

Yes, I was able to record to SD and watch the captured file using a web browser. Also tried out iPhone access locally. That works too, so it should work over the internet if your router is configured properly. Haven't tried that. If you can get it to work, do let me know.
 
Can PM me some contacts for the CCTV or IP Cam? Wanted to install 3 cameras with Internet & Phone (iphone & windows mobile) support to monitor maid & new born; but have low budget. TQ!
 
Hi, recently my clothes keep got stolen outside my corridor (very angry!!!!) I installed this online monitoring to try to catch the culprit, but the idiot stop stealing! argh! so now i just use it to monitor my kids, see if they always watch television or not! LOL! i got mine from www.microfun.sg. pm me if you got any questions.
 
Hi Jessica, I looked at the website you posted. Interesting, but I'm very curious about one thing.

How did you monitor your corridor using the microfun system? It requires the camera be connected to the PC via USB (or video capture card). This requires the camera to be pretty close to the camera (USB cables tend to be pretty short). Did you stick the webcam out the window and put the PC next to the window?

In my opinion, that's one of the shortcomings of a webcam system, i.e. the camera is tied to the PC. So for a single camera to see one room, that should be fine. But it's not useful for anyone needing more than 1 camera since it's hard to imagine how you can connect 2 cameras in 2 different rooms to a single PC using USB. I did explore webcam systems, but decided on IP cameras because I needed 3 cameras at home and could not find a easy way to wire up 3 cameras using cables to my PC.
 
Hi Maof2,
If you want to install CCTV to monitor on your maid, I would suggest that you use the normall CCTV rather than IP camera. I have nothing against IP camera cos they have their own advantages as well.
When you are working and need to monitor on your maid, you will need a recorder as you might not have time to view it everyday when you are back at home at night. An IP camera cannot record for a long time compare to a CCTV recorder. This is because most IP camera uses a SD card to record and SD card does not comes in big capacity in the market currently.

A normall CCTV recorder can typically record at least 3 weeks of video images and this is important if you happen to be a person who is always busy at work. An IP camera are normally used to record short period video images.

For example, you want to install a camera to see who is your neighbour who has been stealing your shoes so you can consider having an IP camera cos everyday when you come back from your home, you will instantly knows if your shoe is missing or not. Then, you can immediately playback your IP camera.

Anyway, a typical CCTV System with a recorder range between $800-$1300 depending on how many cameras that you need. If you still need more info, you can contact me at 9760 2180. I will try my best to assist you
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Hi maof2, I agree with Bernard that normal CCTV and IP Cameras both have their Pros and Cons. But I just would like to correct his statement that " An IP camera cannot record for a long time compare to a CCTV".

IP Cameras can record to PCs or Network Storage devices, not just SD cards, and these can have far greater capacities that most CCTV recorders, e.g I can buy a 1TB external drive for slightly above $100, connect it to my PC, and use that to store all video from the camera(s). Most CCTV recorders provide far less capacities than that.

On a very tight budget, I would think that what claracarmel did, using a $200+ IP camera, and a SD card (very cheap these days), can be a viable option. Plus you can install 1 camera at first, and add more as you need. But IP cameras do need to be configured, but, claracarmel has shown that it can be done, and proven that it works for both Internet and 3G ;-)

You can PM me if you want to know more about the Dlink IP cameras I use ;-)
 
Hi Bobby,
Looks like we have got different opinion
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I actually think that with you around, mothers here would have another option and that is good
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You are correct that IP cameras can be recorded to a PC but the PC have to be switch ON for as long as you want to record, meaning that the PC have to be switch ON when you are working the whole day. A normal PC is not design to be switch ON for long hours everyday for months or years. You need to have special PC to do this function and this type of PC is not very cheap
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A DVR is designed to be switch ON 24 hours for months and years. That is the major difference.

Anyway, I would agree with you if any mothers here have a very tight budget and only need to record just a few hours, an IP camera might be an option.
 
there bis a different agenda here, Bobby is purely helping the mummies here for free, whereas Benard is purely on business. Ha ha ha
 
Hi, I connected 4. living room, bedrooms and kitchen. I moved the one from my corridor. the webcam is connected via USB. they came to my house to fix it as i'm not much of a DIY person. But I know I bought 4 adaptors that cost 30 dollars each, it is for any distance more than 6 meters. the adpators have wire in between them, I think that's how they connect. everything is concealed with those white colored plastic tubing, the same ones that you have for normal wire in every home. It is a new technology (I think, haha), I am able to monitor (real time) my kids from my office via internet. And its much cheaper than IP cameras. one yr is abt $58 for the software. There's a number where you can call. I'm sure they can explain better than me! ;)
 
Hi Bernard, I do agree with you that a PC may not be the best way to do the recording. Not just because it has to be switched on all the time, but also PCs use a fair amount of electricity, and can be noisy (especially at night and its near your bedroom), and run hot. That's why I installed a network storage device (NAS) ;-) These are built to be online all the time, use less electicity, and can be hidden away in my storeroom, so the little noise that it does make doesn't bother me. And they are also cheaper than a dedicated PC for video storage ;-) But using a PC is an option for people who has a PC and don't want to spend more money on a NAS.

Also, I don't have the problem of Microsoft deciding to reboot my PC anytime it wishes to update my PC, which happens on my laptop quite frequently ;-(

Just one thing to note. When I tried using the Dlink supplied software to record, it slowed down my PC quite considerably. But then, I was using a old, slow PC.
 
Hi Jessica, Wow, I learnt something new today: USB extenders. Something for me to read up on. BTW, did they supply the USB cameras as well, and can you share how much they cost? This will give us a better idea of the cost per camera. Based on what you wrote, I assume you need 2 adapters to extend 1 camera. Is that correct? And I guess you are using your PC to record?

And you have camera's in your bedrooms! You are very brave. Hope you have a good antivirus and firewall installed on your PC ;-)
 
Hi, one webcam need one pair of adaptor. Yes they do, one cost $30 per webcam only. So cheap and good quality! much cheaper than IP cameras which cost at least $300 each. That's 10x the price! Initially I was worried about turning on the PC for the whole day too. But the boss told me PCs in Lan gaming shop turn on 24hours, and also can last for years, alot of my friends also on the PC the whole day or just hibernate it, so I dont see a prob, nowadays PCs not like 10 years ago, also dont produce heat and noise like last time. haha! why need to be brave lei! I only put them in the kids room and only switch it on during the day to monitor the kids, I dont switch them in the night.;P and which computer dont have good antivirus system now? haha.
 
Thanks Bernard for the sharing.
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I just came back from Sim Lim. Found that typical CCTV packages don’t have voice recording & IR. Also the installation fee and configuration fees are higher than the cameras. Not interested to pay so much if IP/Web cam can achieve my expectation.

Thanks all for the advice too. I know my expectation better now. I’m looking for the solution with the recording and real-time (PC, iPhone, windows mobile phone). Good to have wide angle lens and IR.

One of the sales mans suggested the Cameras King IP Cam ($390) with the 8 GB SD card. My understanding is this cam comes with IR, motion detects & realtime viewing with >100 degree len. The 8GB card should last for 3-4 days. He said I can download the avi files via network instead of replacing the cards manually. He also mentioned if something happened to the ‘normal’ web/IP cam, the whole recording will gone, but their product record in small avi files which will not have this risk. Would like to hear your opinion of this?

Hi Jessica, may I ask for the price for your package (one time + monthly fee) and the user experience so far? This product got recording, iPhone and smart phone real time viewing features?
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• One time cost of $120 for 4 adapters, $58 setup, $?? Special web cam and etc???
• Monthly ???

Hi Bobby, am interested to know more your solution too. Would you share a good SAN setup article for my reading before I PM you any stupid questions? :p

p.s. Newbie here, I think I just enabled the PM feature. Ha… :p
 
Hi maof2, here's my thoughts on your last post.

I think what the Cameras King IP Cam guy told you about losing the whole recording is incorrect. The IP cameras record files in short intervals. For the Dlink cameras, its something between 1-3 mins per file. So something goes wrong, you'll lose that bit of the recording. All previous recording should still be fine. And I'm surprised if he said it applies to "normal" IP cam. Does that mean his solution is "special"?

Unfortunately, the Dlink cameras I have do not have IR functions. A pity, true, but for what I'm using it for, ie monitoring the home while away and not catching burglars, it's still ok for me since I'm at home at night. And the DCS-2121 also allows you to download the videos over the network, without needing to take out the card.

As for Jessica's solution, only comment I'd like to make is if you are looking at 3 cameras, you probably need to take the cost of 1 at $30, and th other 2 at $90 ($60 for a pair of adapters, and $30 for the camera). But it is cheaper that an IP cam solution, assuming there's no installation cost. As you pointed out in your findings at Sim Lim, cabling can be costly (PVC casing, manpower, etc). I'd be pleasantly surprised if installation comes free.

As for your question to me, I use a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device, not a Storage Area Network (SAN). Close, but very different. There are many resources on the internet on NAS. Below are some you can start with:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network-attached_storage

http://compnetworking.about.com/od/itinformationtechnology/l/aa070101a.htm

If you want to see a sample set up guide, you may find the DLINK one a good starting point.

http://global.dlink.com.sg/site_support/DNS-323/Manual/DNS-323_B1_Manual_v1.3.pdf

But do note that NAS is not cheap. So if you are on a tight budget, it may not the most appropriate solution for you. FYI, the DLINK NAS without the disk already cost about $270.

Hope this helps.
 
Hi, I will write down what I paid.
What I paid them:
1. One year fee of $58 for software (can have up to 16 webcams per software).
2. 4 webcams, $30 each.(will be your permanently. Alternatively, you can get your own webcams at sim lim sq.)
3. 6 adptors. $30 each permanently yours. (any camera more than 6 meters away from the PC will need 2 adaptors. I have 4 cameras in total, one of the camera is in the room that put the PC, thus I only got 3 cameras that is more than 6 meter away from PC. Hence, in total I need 6 adptors.)
4. some money for wiring and tubing is ard $30
5. fee for the worker who fix it is $80
All wiring can be concealed with white plastic tubings.
Total: $470.
If you want 2nd year just pay another $58.

You can view it in your handphone, but you will need to have internet service for your phone. you can see your home in real time anywhere as long as you have internet, overseas also can. If you want you can record image into your computer also. They also have motion detect in the software. total for mine is $470. But it is also dependent on how many cameras and how big is your house. I live in a 5 room HDB flat.
I think the system is really quite good and cheap. I think there's a tester version in the website, as long as you have a webcam, you can test try. Cheers!
Hope this helped!
 
Hi Jessica, so that works out to an average of $115 per camera for a 4 camera system. That's about 50% cheaper that the DCS-2121. Yes, that is pretty cheap for a system which does what you say it does, if you don't mind having a PC running 24/7.
 
Hi Jessica, after your good comments on the system, out of curiosity, I decided to give it a try ;-). I managed to install it on my home PC, and got it running locally, with only 1 webcam since that's all I had. But I could not get it to work over the internet using a web browser. All I saw was a blank screen with a "x" on it. Not sure why. Maybe it's a java issue since I'm running Windows 7. I didn't try the internet conection using the client as I did not want to install the client on my company laptop.

But there's a one thing I found that I thought was very interesting, and that was the fact that accessing the cameras over the handphone is a payable service! It's $10/mth or $100/year. So I couldn't try the handphone capability since I didn't want to pay just to test ;-) Also, they provide a network storage capability, but it's to record on their server, and this too is a payable service. So you can't save it on a local network drive. Well, that's all I have to share.
 
Hi Bobby,
I found this from linksys website.

Wireless-G Internet Home Monitoring Camera
(WVC54GCA)

Will this be a good IP camera to buy ? As compared to the models that you have purchased ?
 
Hi akoyo

Don't have any hands-on experience with this camera, though I did consider it in the beginning. There were mixed reviews when I looked it up on the Internet. But the main reason I did not choose it is because it did not support recording to a NAS (at least not on the specs sheet). I really like the NAS recording ability as it makes it very easy to record continuously onto a small NAS box, and not require a Windows PC to be switched on 24/7.
 
Hi

I am looking for a good and cheap system CCTV or anything less then 500? Any lobang here? Just want a simple recording camera that I want to view when I am out which is usually once a week only. To monitor maid, mil caring of my son in my absence when I nap or when i am out.

Pleae adivse and how is installation one? WIll it be very messy with wires dangling everuwhere? Comp is in my MBR, so does it mean I have to on it while I am out for the time which i want to record what happens while I am out?

Pleae advise?

Thanks!
Fern
 
Hi Fern

If you are only looking to record once in a while, and for short periods of time, I've seen standalone cameras in all shapes and sizes, eg, photo frame, clock, etc, when I was at the recent PC show. Think some will probably be in our budget.

For traditional CCTVs, I think recording systems will usually be more that $500. And these typically need to have cabling done.

For IP cameras, the DLINK DCS-2121 I used can record to a SD card. So the combination of camera and card will be below $500 (if you don't buy a expensive card). In this case you don't need your computer to be switched on, just the camera since it records to the SD card. If you have a home network, you can see the video over your network using your browser. And the camera is a wireless camera, so no cabling is required (except the power cable). If you don't have a home network, you can remove the SD card to view it, though this is not recommended as it may corrupt the SD card. So a simple router may be a good investment, and the solution will still be less than $500.

But of course, IP cameras needs some configuration that you need to do to make it work, if you don't want to pay for installation.

Hope this helps.
 
Hi Bobby

Where to get IP cameras and Dlink DCS-2121?

I intend to have a CCTV at home and my budget is below $500 but don't know how to go about it.

I have home internet (singnet) at home. What other things should I buy to have a CCTV at home to monitor maid.

Thanks.
 



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