IP Camera for home surveillance-Setup

Hi,

I hope this would be an interesting topic as most of the time we're off to work and would like to keep an eye at our home remotely. The video can be accessed even in 3G enabled phones.

Required hardware:-

1. IP Camera (Wireless as an option)
Note that these cameras are not easily available in the market, except for places they sell hardcore accessories.
Suggested place in Delhi is of course Nehru place. Else try eBay. I bought my Edimax IC 3030Wn from eBay.
This would cost around 4000-8000INR depending on the make and wireless capability.
Manufactures include Linksys-Cisco, Edimax, D-Link and TP-Link

2. ADSL Modem/Router
All internet service providers by default provide these, but be sure your hardware device has the capability for port forwarding and static ip addressing (as this is needed to support internet camera monitoring). if your service provider gives you a LAN cable, buy a router.

3. A desktop/laptop
Only for one time setup.

Note:
Video streaming demands good bandwidth and data, so its recommended to have a connection with good speed and unlimited data. Else the bills would be shocking. For internet monitoring, the router and the ip camera shall be ON all the time.


1. Connect the power cable to the camera
2. Connect the Ethernet cable to the camera and the other end to the router.
3. Power on the computer (connected to the router), ip camera and the router.
4. Insert the CD which came with the camera to install the admin software for the camera (one time process only)
This is required to setup the static ip address, else the default ip address for the camera needs to be known.
In most of the cases, this would be written with the camera catalog/else have the software installed.
In my case, this is the software for Edimax cameras.

5. Browse to the setting tab, where you can specify the static ip address for the camera.
Before determining what static ip address to be used, have a look at your router login page to know whats your
router ip address starting from. To do this, login to your router page.

As shown here, the starting ip address for my router is from 192.168.1.100
This means I cam assign static ip address from the range 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.99 for my ip camera.
The IP address from 192.168.1.100 onward is assigned by the DHCP of the router. We dont want the DHCP address.
So I choose to have my static ip address as 192.168.1.10
Now, this needs to be incorporated in the ip camera.
6. Now come back to the settings for ip camera (as mentioned in the previous step)
In the setting tab (depending in the make/model of the camera) the appearance might change but the method
remains the same.

As highlighted, click the manual ip and enter the static ip address here.
Subnet mask and default gateway would be the same as seen in the router login page previously. the port would be 80
7. Save the configuration (opt for the password as well for security reasons, as you are planning to use the camera
over the internet.
Now that the basic setup is done, you will be able to view your ip camera video
internally over the intranet.
8. To do this, and to also make sure that everything was configured properly, type in your static ip address that you
have assigned to the camera (192.168.1.10) in the address bar of IE/firefox/Chrome

You should be asked for the login credentials. if you have opted for, else you would get a screen similar to the above.
Now the camera is configured internally, we can move on configuring the camera for accessing from the internet.


Before going on to the following steps, there are a few things which I would like to remind of. To make the camera ready for internet use, we need to do some port forwarding.
Port No 80 and 554.
Port 80 is for the internet by default and 554 for data.

9. Login to the router page again for port forwarding. See the attached page. Click on single port forwarding.

There are some listed application by default, dont get confused seeing all these...
just assign any name (it has got nothing to do technically. only for your reference)
We need to forward the ports to the static ip address that we had assigned to the camera, in our case, this was
192.168.1.10
Type in 80 and 554 for forwarding. Make sure that you dont make any mistakes here.

Save the setting. Now that the ports are forwarded, the camera can be accessed from the internet knowing your
IP address assigned by the ISP. This is a time consuming process if you are having a dynamic ip address, as
most ISP's do. If yours is a static one, just type in the static ip to the remote computer and Whola!!!
Even dynamic ip address users can try this at this time if they know their ip address (not from the PC, but from the
router)

The ip address shown here is your ip address (for static users this would never change) for users including me this
would be something else after the router/modem is switched off.
This means, you would need someone every time to "call you" and tell the ip address the ISP had assigned your
router after it has been switched off. Time consuming right???
What if the "SOMEONE" is a piece of software that resides on your router/ip camera? This does the job for you? Sounds great? Well thats what "DynDns" do.

So, whats dyndns again? Its a piece of software that updates your dynamic ip address to a small hyperlink which you create. There are lot of other service providers, but the major ones are Dyndns and TZ0
Managed DNS | Outsourced DNS | Anycast DNS

TZO.COM - Dynamic DNS Services for your Dynamic or Static IP Address

Dyndns provide the service free of charge, while tzo charges a nominal fee. I use dyndns and I am satisfied with it.

I will continue this thread for Dynamic IP address users next time soon. I know this was the part all was waiting for. Will do that tomorrow. Hope that you setup the internal network by that time.

Cheers!
Nevin.


CONFIGURING DYNDNS

As explained, now lets move on to configuring Dyndns for dynamic ip users, which 99% of internet users are!

1. Fist step is ofcouse get registered with Dyndns. This is not a tedious task, and so. I'm skipping this
step. All the details are available in the web page itself which I've mentioned earlier. The reason why I
choose Dyndns/TZO is because these software's are by default integrated into most of the best
quality routers like Linksys, Belkin...etc.
Well, if you don't have a router that has this software, don't panic, most of the ip cameras has this
feature as well. If the router have this software its recommended to disable the Dyndns option in the
camera, and let the router do the work.

Dyndns shall be enabled either in the camera,. or in the router, not together. Its up to you to
decide, but I will always recommend router. The reason behind this is to prevent Abusive
Updates. I will explain this in detail later.


2. Now that you have registered with dyndns, keep the username, password and hyperlink ready.

3. Login to your router page. ( I will attach the linksys page here)


You have the option to choose your service provider (Dyndns or TZ0)
Give your credentials, and the hyperlink which was created during the registration process.

4. Click connect

5. Done. Now all you have to remember is the hyperlink which you created to access your camera
anywhere from the internet, provided the router and camera is on.

OPTIONAL STEP

6. In order to view the video on a phone, the RSTP port also needs to be forwarded. Follow the same
procedure of port forwarding to do the same.

Note:
Abusive updates can deactivate your Dyndns account. Abusive updates occurs when dyndns update client is enabled in both camera and router. This causes multiple updates from the same ip address and
cause account suspension temporarily, until the problem is rectified. Hope this clears the doubt about that!

HAPPY SURVEILLANCE

ALL THE BEST

NEVIN

Ive heard people people talking about this and seen it on tv aswell, but is this something which is avaliable in India yet?

Oh Yes! I did it in my home, you can buy these cameras either online, or as I said in Delhi, Nehru place. You dont need a third party to set this up if you follow the steps. The expense is limited to 3000INR + internet charges. Now an advanced technology has come up called cloud computing. The setup part is taken care by the cloud data centers. All you have to do is to connect the ip cam to the router and get it registered with the cloud. Voila! Simple as that. Gooogle "Cloud ip cameras". Its expensive as the technology is new. Cloud computing is useful for those who are not so comfortable with the "internal" stuff!
Believe me I use my android phone and access the same ip camera which I had set up...... even now!

Preety impressive then hey! What are the cameras like, are they discreet or big noticeable things?

They are noticeable.... not like a spy camera, although it could be hidden from view by keeping it away from the "view"

I suppose its ok, because they are not spy cameras, so if noticeable it doesnt really matter. Handy for those who have a maid and servents working in their homes all day, easy way to keep a tab on them.

How many cameras do you get?

n numbers... just need to port forward from 80......n.

DynDNS is now a paid service, costs appox 25$/year. Time to move on with cloud cameras.

I want to set up a camera on my terrace. I feed birds on my terrace and there are dozens of birds at any given time and I want a camera feed to be available on a website for those who want to see the birds feeding. I might need some classes from you soon on how to set one up

Get the latest cloud cameras. Those are plug and play!

I dropped the idea back thin thinking it would be complicated and too many point of failures aswell.


This cloud camera you mentioned above, is it possible to get one hooked up just using wifi and not have the computer in the set up? I would love to set one up if it does nto cost a lot. I have a 1mbps uplink now so the quality wont be too bad I guess.

Do you know of any particular model that you would like to recommend? My budget is in the range of 10-15K at the most. I would otherwise prefer a much lower price as it is just for fun really.

Yup, just plug in and the installation CD does everything for you. After that you can download an android based app on your mobile. If 3G enabled, you will get the live stream.
The camera costs around 3000-4000INR (For the WiFi enabled one)

http://www.dlink.com/us/en/home-solu...t-cloud-camera

What are cloud cameras. Please can you give more information on this.

Sent from my 6043D using Tapatalk

Have a look at the link posted in this post.