Home Improvement Today?

Im finding a decent amount of info on how to connect the lights to existing wiring, but not how to run new wiring for a series of lights.

If anyone has any good sources or info how to do that, I'd appreciate that!

 

^this^

I think you're making it too hard. If you want to run ring cameras get the solar powered ones and save the wiring headache. Ring cameras run on 5 volts so they don't need anything fancy. Or pull cat 6 cable and run POE converters for the Ring stuff. If you do this long term you will be upgrading to better cameras in the future, because Ring just ain't that great. The POE option is the most future proof. But, if you want to run 120 out to the camera locations, I'd still recommend you pull some cat 6 at the same time. Future you will thank you.

 

I cant really use the solar option in the front of my house because its blocked by a large tree, so it doesn't really get any sun at all. The backyard is definitely an option for solar, and probably what I'd end up doing back there.

I'd do the POE, but I want something that will alert me when I'm not home, instead of just recording what happens, basically having the "smart" home security, even if the cameras themselves aren't that great. If there's other options for this, besides Ring and Nest, I'm definitely open to them.

 

but you mention something about cat 6 and a PoE converter... I'm not familiar with that route, could I hookup the Ring floodlight to some kind of adapter? My router is in my living room, which is at the front of my house, so it would be relatively close to where the cameras are going to be set up. It would be pretty easy to just run cat 6 cable from the living room to the attic and then outside.

 

If you’re going to run a new circuit and have never messed with sparky stuff hire an electrician lol


Otherwise find a nearby light circuit and put a junction box in (AFTER turning breaker off lol) with a new run of the same gauge wire coming out of it to power new lights. If the lights are hardwired then you’ll need to tie them in inside some kind of junction/light box. If they plug in you’ll need to install receptacles. Like @jsi said go ahead and run some cat 6 while you’re in there lol https://www.bobvila.com/articles/how-to-splice-wires/https://www.bobvila.com/articles/how-to-splice-wires/

Definitely buy/test use one of these lol https://www.lowes.com/pd/Fluke-Fluk...VzsDACh3eMQV1EAQYAiABEgJN1fD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

thanks for the links, I'm definitely aware of the risks and precautions to take when working with sparky stuff. I'm really looking for tips/advice on where to connect the wiring, i.e. at a particular junction, and if each light should be on its own line, or if I should wire them in a series, etc, stuff like that.

 

To run POE you're going to need a POE switch. This is literally the first switch that came up on Amazon, so do your own research before buying.

$45 TP-Link TL-SG1005P, 5 Port Gigabit PoE Switch, 4 PoE+ Ports @65W, Desktop, Plug & Play, Sturdy Metal w/ Shielded Ports, Fanless, QoS & IGMP Snooping,black

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Compliant-Shielded-Optimization-TL-SG1005P/dp/B076HZFY3F/ref=sr_1_3?crid=Q0J8H6V11T74&dchild=1&keywords=poe+switch&qid=1605137942&sprefix=poe%2Caps%2C206&sr=8-3


On the other end by the camera you plug in the splitter to provide power.

$20 ANVISION 2-Pack Gigabit PoE Splitter, 48V to 5V 2.4A Micro USB Ethernet Adapter, Compatible with Raspberry Pi 3B+, IP Camera and More

https://www.amazon.com/ANVISION-Gigabit-Splitter-Ethernet-Raspberry/dp/B07PYZQBK8/ref=sr_1_23?crid=3GVB2GC7DZ9TQ&dchild=1&keywords=poe+5v+adapter&qid=1605137802&sprefix=poe+5v%2Caps%2C203&sr=8-23

POE is 48 volts so it's a lot less likely to burn the house down. But, you still have to be careful because it will get your attention, if you know what I mean.

I have ring cameras for my home, and at work one of my teams does video for a very large operation, 2000+ cameras. The ring cameras drive me freaking crazy with their incessant motion alerts. Ring - oh the wind is blowing, let's send an alert. Ring - oh there's a bug on the lens, let's send an alert. Ring - Oh there's someone walking on the sidewalk, lets send an alert. Ring - let's drop the wifi connection and not tell anybody. Me - did my package arrive? Why didn't Ring alert me? Checks Ring, son-of-a-bitch it dropped again. To be fair all motion detection it going to behave the same way, but wifi connections have additional problems.

The enterprise stuff at work is spendy, and it just works. I'm saving my pennies till I can upgrade my home to the good stuff.

 

This is very helpful thank you! does this route work with the wired version? or is it for the battery one, and its just providing power to keep the battery charged while being used?

Also, what is the enterprise stuff that you have at work? Would like to consider all my available options. I'd like to have reliable stuff as well.

So far my Ring doorbell hasn't been a problem. I have it set to only notify when a person is detected.

 

Most lights are wired in parallel with short pigtails artfully crammed into some sort of light box with Romex connectors.
Got a pic/link for the lights?

 

I think Ring announced a recall today for like 350k doorbells. Something about risk of fire. Not sure I’d want to use their cameras after that.

 

this is the wired one I'm considering:

https://shop.ring.com/products/floodlight-cam

 

POE powers the device all of the time. The company I work for uses time clocks with a 7 inch touch screen that can operate on POE

 

For that one you’ll need to install a series of light boxes where you want them on/in your exterior walls....that’s gonna be a whole thing in itself to do where it looks right lol.........Then you’ll connect them with some (most likely) 12/2 w/ground wire using appropriate techniques and materials ie wire nuts and Romex connectors
Connect the pigtails coming out of the back of your light with the corresponding colored wires in your circuit parallel style

 

I'm wondering if the flood light camera can be powered/charged and used at the same time through the USB/PoE. I don't think doorbell can be... but that might just be because of the plastic cover, not a limitation of the device itself.

 

You can prolly pull the power off an existing circuit seeing as how the lights are led and won’t draw much power. It will require more work and expense and skills to run a new circuit but it might be nice to be able to shut the cameras off independently in case u don’t want something recorded lol

 

To be honest I'm not a Ring camera expert. The ones I have are WiFi and powered by battery or USB. I've just strung a long USB cable out to them. At work we use Axis cameras and Milestone VMS (video management system). They have a free version that I might deploy at home or I might use a VMS supplied by my NAS.

Free Milestone
https://www.milestonesys.com/solutions/platform/video-management-software/xprotect-essential/

 

And the amount of missed motion. But on lens all day but somehow misses the mailman twice a week.

 

I will throw my 2 cents in on security cameras.

Buy the best you can afford and nothing less, unless you like to buy again and hand down the lesser stuff to family / friends.

Ring is very low quality equipment but they have commercials out there.

I have gone from analog systems to digital then from 720 to 1080 and now 4K cameras. My family thanks me when I upgrade then have to go to their house and upgrade theirs.

The best option is to get a 4K or 1080P camera system with a NVR that can handle as many cameras as you will ever need. NVRs can handle from 2 to 16 cameras.

A modern NVR will have a built in POE (Power over Ethernet) switch so you will only have to one one CAT-5 or 6 to each camera. I system usually comes with enough cables for each camera.

You can setup the NVR to alert you just like ring when motion is detected. I shut that off years ago for the reasons mentioned above. They also come with remote viewing software for your phone.



A high quality camera will have great night vision and can stay color with very little light. The most important reason to have a camera is to have the ability too be able to make out what you capture.

Here is a neighbor with a ring camera when someone was attempting to break into their vehicle. You can't make out those faces at all.



Here is a 4K camera at night. I have 800 Lumen LED porch lights on either side of the garage.



During the day you can easily make out license plates.



This is why I have motion detection alerts turned off. The yellow marks are detection in a 1 hour span.



There are more things like where to place your NVR so if someone breaks into you home they don't just take it with them and adding a battery backup.

 

I would doubt trying to set a floodlight over POE would be feasible. I do have separately wired 120V motion detecting security floodlights. Something to think about. Most cameras will show color in the daytime and revert to black/white at night unless there is sufficient ambient lighting.
I am using POE cameras with an NVR which supplies the POE power. The advantage with the POE camera is that all the camera cables can go directly to the NVR (Network Video Recorder) or Power Source with no worries about solar or batteries.
I have a cheap monitor setup to the NVR to watch all my cameras. The NVR allows you to record all the time or just on detected motion, adjust sensitivity, alarm on detection or not. Wind or Bugs can trigger can trigger false alarms (flag waving, tree shadows moving in the wind, moths attracted to security light, spider webs, etc). So I sometimes will record on some cameras and mask out areas or disable the audible alarm on other cameras. So in addition to coverage, think about what events set off your alarms beside people and animals.
With all the cameras cables going directly to my NVR and only one cable going from the NVR to my network router, the camera traffic normally stays only between the cameras and NVR unless I pull the camera view up on one of my computers, iPad, iPod, phone etc. This helps keep my network wifi and ethernet traffic down. You can set it up to record on an endless loop with up to several weeks of recording depending upon whether you set it up to record continuously or to record only on events. https://www.backstreet-surveillance.com/ip-security-camera-systems/nvr-video-recorders.html


I was editing this post when TK-422 made his post with a lot of excellent information. I definitely second what he said about getting 4K cameras. - Sorry if I repeated.

 

Wow, thanks for the info!

this is an awesome system, and seems miles ahead of Ring. how would I go about getting one of these systems? How much do they run? I assume they're more than what Ring costs for a similar setup?