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CCTV on your holiday home


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Given the cheap price of movement activated CCTV equipment these days has anybody left one up and running while away from their holiday home and what did you see while you were not there ? Apart from the security applications I am wiondering what wild life move into the garden when we depart I have signs of some animal "nesting " in the grass when it gets long I would like to know what takes over the place when I am not there .
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I had reason to visit both the SFR and Orange shop some weeks back and both offer a little gadget that uses wifi or can be hard wired so you can watch live over the internet. The 'sting' is the price, even third party ones seem to be around 150 Euros.
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Could be the start of some serious new obsessive-compulsive disorder behaviour.

 

While I think about our house in France daily, I never worry about its condition between visits.

 

This changes about 20 miles before arrival to have we been burgled/vandalised and to is it still standing just before we turn the last corner.

 

Having escaped the allure of wall to wall soaps I don’t want to risk spending hours each day watching the house.  

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I dont want to watch mine Braco and have no intention of doing so ..I dont worry about it being burgled I am insured .The low cost cctv cameras come with an SD card and what pases by is recorded on that for viewing on a lap top later. I often wonder what takes over my garden when we are not there..
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  • 1 year later...
Could act as a useful deterrent though, even if you just have a CCTV warning sign on public view. Apparently, most house thieves are opportunistic amateurs and will avoid houses with alarm systems and CCTV, in preference to the plenty of alternatives without those precautions. Also might lower your insurance premium.
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I've been toying with this for a while now but I haven't actually completed it yet.  I have no land-line or internet connection to my house but I do have old/spare notebook, mobile and 3G dongle with good connectivity.

My plan is this:

1) I have already made a device that will remotely turn on mains equipment when you ring a mobile phone (all optically isolated so dead safe)

2) use this to fire up the notebook, or maybe just take it out of standby, the notebook will have the 3g dongle attached and be setup to connect to 'tinternet when it wakes up.

3) wait a couple of minutes then remote desktop to the notebook from anywhere in the world and control webcam(s) around my house

There is a small problem that you can't shut down a computer using remote desktop but I can get around this by using a program like Shutdownafter which can put a machine into standby after a preset time.

What do you think?  Clear as mud? [geek]

Or do I just have too much time on my hands [;-)]

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The heart of the system I'm putting together is this kit  http://www.esr.co.uk/velleman/products/index_minikit.htm

actually I got mine from www.conrad.fr but they don't seem to stock it anymore

Pretty straightforward to build although I must say I found some of the components vanishingly small and had to look at resistors and diodes under a strong light with a magnifying glass !!!

It works well and is programmable for all sorts of time durations. Of course you have to keep a power supply on for the phone, kit and notebook but in standby mode the whole lot consumes nearl nothing.    I have to play around a bit to get the notebook to use the dongle when it fires up but that should be OK.  Once you're 'in' you can do what you want with webcams or even take it further with say a USB interface to control other stuff.

I have to say I always thought there was a restriction on shut-down by remote desktop but if this is not so then even better!

PM me if you would like to arrange a little chat about this (by Skype maybe) 

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