I think I haven't mentioned I installed a security camera, frigate, and connected it up to Home Assistant. Haven't got a coral yet, seems they are hard to come by right now, but I installed frigate on my server that's an ex-gaming machine - it handles the load OK but my graphics card doesn't seem to be supported so it's using CPU detection. I'll probably get a coral when I can to solve that.

One thing I learnt is just how bad of an idea it is to try to run a cable from the outer corner an eave. Turns out the inside of the eaves are not part of the ceiling cavity as I had assumed. I got it in the end but it was pretty hard work 😅

I put it up in my back yard. I actually want it out the front so it can tell me about people arriving, couriers dropping things off, and apparently if you get Frigate+ you can have it tell you if you forget to put your wheelie bin out! However, I installed this one in the back yard because I expected to struggle and didn't want the neighbours to watch me spend all day trying to run one cable - which given how it turned out I think was a good call 😆

I also only got a cheap one to play with. It's 4MP and does the job but I think I'd like a higher resolution one for the front so I can play with facial and number plate recognition. I also think I made the wrong call getting a 4mm instead of 2.8mm, as it doesn't have as wide of a viewing range as I was expecting.

[–] eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

One thing I learnt is just how bad of an idea it is to try to run a cable from the outer corner an eave. Turns out the inside of the eaves are not part of the ceiling cavity as I had assumed.

Interesting that yours is not part of the cavity! I've installed PoE cameras in eaves four times now and the worst part is always lying down in the roof space trying the get the wire fed through the small hole you can't really see due to the sharp angle of the roof at the edges.

Which camera did you get?

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Maybe it's just my house that's different! I measured to the ceiling and the eaves are a decent chunk lower than the ceiling inside the house. Here's an artists impression of how the eaves are laid out: paint drawing of a house showing the roofline coming down against the top of the wall, and the eaves formed by continuing this line and then going back towards the house at a lower point than the internal ceiling

Basically the boards holding up the roof are resting on the top of the walls, and the eves are formed from these boards extending past the walls.

Another pic:

paint drawing showing a corner then three brown lines converging on the house edge then continuing out to the eaves, making something like a crossroads at their joining point. A blue circle drawn on the eaves under the middle brown line to show where the camera goes

If you imagine an outer corner of the house, this is a birds eye view. The brown are the internal beams of the roof (that are against the sloped roof, coming down at an angle), that all converge in the corner, almost locking off any access into there from the ceiling cavity. I drilled my blue circle hole before working this out, otherwise I might have picked somewhere else 😅. In the end I taped the end of my CAT6 cable to a plastic tomato stake, made a much bigger hole in the eave than I was planning, and poked around until I managed to get through the small gap into the ceiling cavity. Then I climbed in the ceiling and pulled on the stake to thread it through. I climbed in the ceiling a lot, because I'd poke it through and then climb into the ceiling but couldn't find the other end and then tried again and so on. I didn't actually find the garden stake until some time into my attempts, it got easier after that but still quite hard to get an angle that would work, and it didn't come out in the spot I was expecting based on the angle either.

Which camera did you get?

This one. I paid about $45 for it a few weeks back when it was on a bit of a special.

I think 5MP still won't be enough but 8MP cameras all seem to cost close to $300.

I’ve installed PoE cameras in eaves four times now and the worst part is always lying down in the roof space trying the get the wire fed through the small hole you can’t really see due to the sharp angle of the roof at the edges.

Would it be easier to feed it in from outside, up through the hole, then just keep feeding the cable in until it gets into reaching distance in the ceiling? That was my original plan.

[–] eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Wow that looks like a real pain!

Would it be easier to feed it in from outside, up through the hole, then just keep feeding the cable in until it gets into reaching distance in the ceiling?

Yeah I think so. I'm trying to recall how I did it, it's been awhile. I think I got my wife to feed it through while I was in the roof. A lot harder when doing it by yourself. I think I might have also taped it to a bit of bent wire to poke it up so I could see it easier.

I don't think you really need 8MP at all. Sensor size is more important. Kinda like how phones have inflated MP numbers but a dslr or mirrorless camera with less megapixels but larger sensor gets much clearer pictures. If you are recording as well it takes up a lot of space. Check out cameras with the Starlight sensors, they get a great image at night without changing to a night mode or using IR illumination. Also if you go for a wide FoV camera, you lose detail around the edges and it's generally clearer in the centre. All depends the distance you are trying to capture.

I did a lot of searching a few years ago on the ipcamtalk forums when I was looking for one. Check them out when you plan to upgrade!

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think I got my wife to feed it through while I was in the roof. A lot harder when doing it by yourself.

It was just me, I think my wife was out that day. It definitely would have been easier with two people 😆

I don’t think you really need 8MP at all. Sensor size is more important.

Maybe that's the issue. With the one I have, you'd have no chance of facial recognition, zooming in you can barely see the face off the person. The camera covers a reasonably large area so the person only makes up a small part of that area, hence why I thought 8MP seemed like a good plan.

If you are recording as well it takes up a lot of space.

I'm recording but have heaps of space. I have frigate set to only record motion, 7 days of retention has only been 30GB of storage and I've got a dog running around outside. It's currently recording on my 2TB boot drive but I can move it to my 16TB one if I need the space.

Check out cameras with the Starlight sensors, they get a great image at night without changing to a night mode or using IR illumination.

Thanks, I'll look for that!

I did a lot of searching a few years ago on the ipcamtalk forums when I was looking for one. Check them out when you plan to upgrade!

I will! Though a reddit thread came up with my search, talking about how batshit crazy the admin was and how he will dox you or harass you if he doesn't like you... so I will just read as a lurker haha.

[–] eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

How far away is the person? The specs on the camera says people should be identifiable at 6.5 meters away.

I will! Though a reddit thread came up with my search, talking about how batshit crazy the admin was and how he will dox you or harass you if he doesn’t like you… so I will just read as a lurker haha.

I don't think I ever interacted with anyone there, just read reviews and what others were recommending!

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The person (me) is about 5 or 6 metres away at a guess. I can clearly tell it's me, which probably meets the criteria. From what I've read, they say a 20x20 pixel face for identifying someone you know, and 40x40 for someone you don't in good light. But Frigate is getting face detection and I will want to play with that. I doubt it could do a good job at it at such a low resolution.

It seems I have to decide if I want good night vision (lower MP and bigger sensor for maximum light per pixel), or high resolution for a great image during the day but bad night vision. I've been reading a bit on ipcamtalk and people have multiple cameras to cover the scenarios, ending up with 10 or 15 cameras to cover everything. I am less worried about security (identifying strangers at night) and more interested in playing with the technology (send me a warning message when my mother in law is at the door), so I might end up with high resolution cameras that do poorly at night.

I'm actually thinking I might get one of the Reolink doorbell cameras next, and just see what that covers of the front. Just got to work out where I can drill the PoE through the wall.

I do want to have one that can identify if the wheelie bin is out and notify me if it's not but it should be, but I didn't know I wanted that until I read it as a possibility in the Frigate docs 😆

[–] eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That sounds strange. Are you sure you're getting the main stream and not one of the lower resolution substreams from the camera?

I don't know what the setup is like in Frigate. My setup is a bit old now as I haven't really updated it, but BlueIris uses the lower res substreams for motion and object detection. I'm still using DeepStack for object detection, even though it's not supported now, but recording and clips uses the main stream. Using the substreams reduces the load on the CPU. This is the BlueIris guide for substreams, it might have some relevant info that could help: https://ipcamtalk.com/wiki/sub-stream-guide/

Yeah my camera isn't amazing at night either, but I don't need to to be. Usually if someone comes close to the door, they'll be identifiable anyway as the motion sensor lights will come on. It's an Amcrest one I bought years ago on amazon.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Huh, so frigate has the configuration set up to record from the main stream and detect on the substream (at least I think it does).

But using the TP-Link app I see everything much clearer.

I will go back and play again as I just set it up with the example configuration and didn't do much else. 4MP might be fine after all.

Yeah my camera isn't amazing at night either, but I don't need to to be. Usually if someone comes close to the door, they'll be identifiable anyway as the motion sensor lights will come on.

Reading on the Starlight ones is interesting. The companies selling them talk about recording in 0.001 lumens, how they were designed by the US military, etc. Then the people on the ipcamtalk forum say they aren't magic and to lower your expectations, they can do good still images but normally you're capturing moving things and low light will always be blurry for moving things due to the low shutter speed needed to capture enough light.

[–] eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah definitely blurry with motion in full darkness with mine too, but we have a street lamp not far from our driveway that lights up a fair bit at night, so it's not that bad. From a security perspective it doesn't actually matter too much. I'm willing to bet if you handed crystal clear footage of someone breaking in to the police, they still wouldn't be able to do very much with it, unless the person is someone already known to them.

It occurs to me that you could also reverse the logic for your bins - instead of an expensive camera to cover both long and short distance, just get a cheap one pointed where they usually sit and have the logic be "Hey, the bins should be out, but they're sitting here". Maybe not as fun though?

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago

Given what I've found with the clarity on my cheap camera, I think a cheap one should cover it anyway. Like I said, I might just start with a Reolink doorbell camera (not too cheap 😅) and see what it covers. Just need to work out how to drill a hole through the wall and out the other side, getting it in the spot I want, and also having the inside look nice (some sort of face plate for the inside of the wall). The cladding is weatherboard so will also have to content with the funny angle 😆

[–] NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I've been talking about doing something like this for a few years now..... but still havent got around to it lol.

I keep telling myself I'll do it when we move to a single storey house with accessible eaves - as we currently live in a two storey concrete block / brick veneer house which seems like additional hassle to run cables etc

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

To be fair, that does sound like a good excuse! I want to put in a reolink doorbell camera but I've got to drum up the confidence to drill through the side of my house. Eaves aren't very noticeable and I reckon I can do a good job of patching a hole, but drilling through the weatherboards next to the front door seems like I've got to get it right or it will be obvious forever 😆.

[–] NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago

Haha I know the feel.

Measure what's seems like 10 times, cut/drill, find out you measure correctly, but didn't take into account some variable...

[–] eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm planning to move my shed to some unlevel ground near our fence soon. Spent the last week trying to think of ways to do it on the cheap, as it will need a base of level ground that's higher that the sloping ground so the door can open.

Decided to experiment with making a cement stabilised soil pad. Managed to get it all mixed and tamped down a couple days ago, so now I'm leaving it to cure. All I needed was a bag of cement and some bags of topsoil. I'm not sure I mixed it well enough though it has hardened some already. Oh well, it doesn't need to be as hard as concrete, it's only going to have a fairly light static load on it. Fingers crossed it all works out!

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Interesting, so you mix soil, cement, and water together to make a kind of extra firm dirt base? What's the end consistency like, is it more like soil with bits of cement in it, or does it make a pretty solid, flat surface that's more like concrete but without as much strength?

[–] eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's basically it! You don't really need much water either. It just kind of looks like dirt coloured concrete. Technically you only need about 10-15% cement to soil. But since I was raising the level and and adding topsoil (also being lazy), I didn't measure it and just used a whole bag of cement. Tamped it to level it out, but it isn't perfect as I'm going to use some paving sand and pavers to level out the top of it anyway.

If you don't mind a 16 minute video, this what I watched before deciding to try it: https://youtu.be/tNoWVPVb6Mo

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Interesting, I skimmed the video to see the important bits. Their one is in ground, and I notice towards the end of the video they are showing the chunks being quite brittle, which probably isn't an issue when it's in the ground. You mentioned it needs to be higher than the ground level so the door can open, do you have an edge to it or are you risking having the edges crumble?

[–] eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

You got caught out by skimming the video 😝

He says he underestimated thinking that experimental piece with a higher ratio would be fully hardened in 3 days.

Concrete/cement usually takes weeks to months to fully cure to it's full strength. In any case the lower side of mine has an edge and I've actually made it slightly larger than I need. I think it should be OK, It's not like it's going to have cars or foot traffic on it just mainly storing things.

I think I will get some crumbling at the edges as it was hard to mix there. I've removed the wooden form I used and it's holding together for now.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ah haha I guess I didn't see all the important bits 😅

It makes sense it would be harder to mix at the edges, hopefully it does the job anyway.

[–] eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My plan is to have things on either side of it, so maybe I'll back fill the gaps with gravel or put some bricks around it to help it out just in case. 😅

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago

Not a bad idea. I guess it depends on how the ground is shaped around it, you don't want chunks falling off when you clip it with the mower trying to mow the grass at the edge. But you tell me it won't be that brittle so maybe it will be fine once cured 🙂

[–] NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I tend to go down rabbit holes, and have a "Hobby of the month" type thing. Currently it's Flashlights lol. Such a weird thing to get into, but the rabbit hole is very deep.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Are you just researching flashlights, or is there a world deeper than just buy a flash light and use it to see in the dark?

[–] NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Researching, which has lead to a Purchase, and constantly F5ing USPS Tracking to see when it'll arrive lol.

It's quite unbelievable really. The number of options, including but not limited to: Emitters, Drivers, Software/Firmware, Body Materials, Colors, Sizes, Battery Types, Type of light beam you want etc etc.

Als, as someone used to "normal" flashlights, and LED Worklight types, the amount of light some of these tiny handheld things put out seems crazy.

As an example, this is a small flashlight from a popular creator whos name is Hank. Hence people refer to his lights as "Hank Lights" Hank Light

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Wow that's cool, did you get a Hank Light?

I was wondering why it needs software updates, if you can post to twitter or something, but then I noticed the GPLv3 notice and followed it to the documentation for the software: https://github.com/ToyKeeper/anduril/blob/trunk/docs/anduril-manual.md

The latest release seems to have added some function if you click 7 times then hold the last click haha. So many options!

[–] NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah, ended up pulling the trigger on one lol. Then once your set on getting one, it's a whole other process to try and kit it out to how you want it. Honestly took a few weeks of research to get me somewhat comfortable with the choices I made.

Yeah the software seems pretty crazy. It's honestly amazing to see people turn their hobbies/passions into something so polished/professional.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'd imagine you'd have to do a fair bit of research to be comfortable spending $100USD on a tiny little flashlight 😆

[–] NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago

Haha 100% Went back and forward so many times on whether I should or not, then what brand, then what model, then what options etc etc.

Though luckily I don't seem to have multiple hobbies on the go in a given month, which means the Allowance budget ain't too unhealthy lol.