Q: I am renting a barn from a farmer and I would like to install a laptop with daylight and infrared camera’s to record any theft activity. The barn is out of sight from the farmer and it must be battery operated, even with a car battery for back up. It would be on standby until activated by a micro switch on the front door.
If you could suggest the right software, or could you do an article on this subject in the magazine? There was a programme, it might have been Crimewatch, sometime ago about a man ringing the police from Spain, because thieves had broken into his house; he was able to watch them on camera, the police went to the house and arrested them. If you could suggest the best way to go about this I would be grateful.
A: If it’s triggered into life by a motion sensor a laptop will likely take too long to wake from standby and the thieves will be on their way before it’s recorded anything — probably taking the laptop too. The best way to do this therefore is not to use a computer, or at least not a local one.
We’d suggest getting an Internet Protocol (IP) camera — one with infra-red will cost you about £130 — connect this to a broadband router and you can access it via the Web from anywhere in the world. More expensive models allow remote control so that you can pan, zoom and tilt the camera. Most have built-in motion detection and when they’re triggered can initiate an email alert or begin recording to a remote computer or FTP site. We presume that the barn doesn’t have a broadband connection but, depending on distances, you may be able to connect the camera via a wireless router in the farmhouse thus not needing any cables. Using 11g wireless you can get a range of around 500 feet outdoors with a clear line of sight. You should be able to double that with high-gain antennas or parabolic reflectors. If you’re too far away for wireless it’s possible to get cameras that record to an SD card when triggered, but obviously you’d be unable to monitor this remotely.
Your biggest problem is likely to be power, most IP cameras run on around 5V DC from a mains transformer, so you’ll need a voltage converter to step down the 12V power from your proposed car battery — try a caravan or boat supplier. You could employ a small wind turbine or a photo-voltaic panel to keep the battery topped up.
An IP camera doesn't need to be attached to a PC
Originally featured in PCU108