Web cams in use

[Blicj11]

"exterior grade" would probably be a wise choice! The power injector, at least, will be in more human habitable conditions!

This may be overkill for you, but I ran my exterior grade cable inside a metal conduit. We have predators here that love to eat cable.

[xairbusdriver]

"Predators, indeed! We learned rather quickly that the screen-wire "protection" on our powered roof/attic fans were for six-legged predators, only! Ones with fewer legs, and usually wearing masks, were quite capable of moving that screening out of the way. I 'engineered' some hardware cloth coverings under the three fan units, all the while praying that the 'predators' had "left the building"! Only damage we could find was some mangled foam rubber insulation. Obviously, these "guests" just wanted a warm place for the night, during the Summer, they would have had their nails trimmed trying to enter these openings!

[Felix]

We don't allow those kinds of temps in SW TN!

Gonna be in Knoxville a couple weeks from now...ORNL.

[LesCimes]

Set up a D-LInk a few months ago. It is wireless, HD and has infrared capability, i.e. night vision, albeit short range. For security reasons I didn't want it hooked directly to my home network; so I run it through the guest network. Have had no problems with it. Wish I could afford a camera that had more night vision capabilities in order to see deer, fox, or whatever. With the present camera, I did catch a raccoon pestering the bird feeder.

http://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KGAGRACE1

[xairbusdriver]

Don't know why I didn't look at this site earlier. It has a very extensive list of cameras that might be useful for investigating possible camera purchases for use with a Mac.<Evological.com> "a Mac-only software company, committed to creating high quality, easy-to-use software products"
I would have sworn I saw a reference to the Ubitquiti brand on the forums (perhaps it was at WxForum?). As is usual, most hardware that should be compatible with a Mac has very little specific data on that topic. About the best one gets is that "Mac OS" is included in a list of 'System requirements'. Of course, there are some that even mention a version of OS X. This version of a hobby being a niche or a niche, makes this kind of info extremely important and proportionally less obvious. Oh well... [removed link to the now castly photobucket.com site]

[Blicj11]

Several forum members use EvoCam from Evological. Good company.

[Felix]

Several forum members use EvoCam from Evological. Good company.

And alas, some even put their equipment in their profile for easy reference.   

[Blicj11]

And alas, some even put their equipment in their profile for easy reference.   

Well, not to hijack this thread, but now that I am looking at your profile and see that you are using EvoCam 5, I have some questions. Were you using EvoCam 4.X before you went with 5? How do you like 5? What is the main difference between 4x and 5x?

[Felix]

Blick, I upgraded to version 5 with 64-bit architecture (which I think was still beta then) when I did a clean install of Yosemite on the Mac mini that runs my weather software.

Here's what Evological says about version 5:

Added support for Foscam FI9828W
Added support for TRENDnet TV-IP672WI
Image-based actions now support image resizing (for thumbnails, etc)
Added 'Set document visibility' action to hide/show documents
Source for camera items can now be set via AppleScript

And I'll add one more, memory leaks seem to be largely non-existent with version 5. It runs weeks without issue, recording three cameras 24x7.

There were a lot of complaints when Evological released version 4 as a Cocoa application, I think largely because it broke version 3 AppleScripts which folks had invested a lot of time on. I liked version 4 for a multitude of reasons including the recordings in mp4 format vice mov on the older.

[LesCimes]

I use to use EvoCam. When I set up my D-Link DCS-2330L, a wireless, outdoor rated cam, I set it up to use its internal software (operating system). The cam is a mini-server, if you will. It will FTP, work as a web server, etc. Pretty much, it will do anything you ask it to, though the setup instructions are clumsy at best. I was able to stumble through it and get it working without too much hassle and experimentation.

[elagache]

Dear Michael, and WeatherCat sys-admins,

I you posted something a while back that puzzled me then and still puzzles me so I guess I've just gotta' ask:

For security reasons I didn't want it hooked directly to my home network; so I run it through the guest network.

Sorry, I can't imagine the security issue you are concerned about.  What is the exploit you are worried about and how does running this camera on a guest network resolve the problem?

Curious minds want to know!

Cheers, Edouard 

[LesCimes]

A while back, an exploit was found in webcams, those used primarily for video chatting, that enabled hackers to take over the cam and view whatever/whenever what they wanted without the homeowner knowing it. There were reports of people being exposed in the privacy of their homes. The firmware of the risky cams has since been updated to prevent such exploits (though how often do people update their camera's firmware). I wasn't a victim of this exploit but was aware of it and it gave me pause when setting up my own camera. I think it is possible, if not probable, that the system software (Linux, I think) on the webcam could be hacked. By using my guest network, if someone ever hacked into my network via the software on the webcam, it would only be the guest network; I have nothing else on that network. So, my main computer and the weather station computer aren't at risk. That is my thinking concerning the security aspect. It may be that I am being overly cautious due to my ignorance of the real nature of the risks. I figured it is better to play it safe.

[elagache]

Dear Michael, and WeatherCat sys-admins,

A while back, an exploit was found in webcams, those used primarily for video chatting, that enabled hackers to take over the cam and view whatever/whenever what they wanted without the homeowner knowing it.
. . .
I figured it is better to play it safe.

Hmm, I wasn't aware of this.  Open source is neat in many respects but the quality of the code . . . .

Okay, I'll have to give this matter a little more thought.

Thanks for the tip!

Cheers, Edouard 

[LesCimes]

I should emphasize that in my research for camera security, I didn't find any reports of exploits or hacks upon current models. All the info was for the problem that came up a couple of years ago. Secure measures were strongly recommended, the simplest (but very important) and often neglected was use a very secure password to access admin rights.

[xairbusdriver]

I'm considering the following outdoor, PoE camera: <EYEsurv-esip-APEX3-bt1> I was seriously looking at (another Chinese 'brand') and saw many reports about the same problem that affects many digital cameras sold in the USoA; Grey-boxed versions. Chinese versions that are hacked to provide English text, but that will revert to the original language IF you can even install any firmware updates. Supposedly, Amazon is not too good at recognizing this buy-it-cheap-and-foist-it-off-as-the-branded-product SCAM. I can understand most of these camera's being made over there, but even companies based there are being asked to provide support for hardware not that was not intended to be sold anywhere else. That's how I came across the site selling the hacked brand as well as this one.

Don't suppose anyone here has used this brand? I've contacted the EvoCam dev if his software can handle this thing, although there is Mac software available for it, it might be easier to get support from a native Mac app! This search has sure turned up a pile of shady 'dealers'!

5/21/15, 9 am
Had a reply from "Nick" at Evological waiting in this mornings mail. He say it appears the camera would work with EvoCam, but he'd be glad to connect/investigate it if it didn't. Now, if I can get a replay from the (US) vendor, it wold help. OTOH, I'm willing to accept unmarked 20 dollars bills from any who want to hear the news first! Sorry, first five only! PM me and I'll give you a mailing address.

5/21/15, 2 pm
Just heard from the vendor. "I couldn't find anything in the interface for capturing pictures based on a schedule or timed interval." They did suggest a more expensive camera with that capability. Of course, this may involve either the camera or the Mac version of the management software. I'm hoping that EvoCam or even WC can do the frame capture of the stream. Gotta check the EveoCam and WC Manuals...