Inconspicuous Weather Camera

[ARAMP1]

I have a weather station mounted on my roof. It's on a 17 ft pole on the roof of the 3rd story, so it's above all the trees and fairly visible to the neighbors. I would like to mount a camera towards the city for weather observation, but I really don't want to have a big bullet camera sticking out all "police-state-like" for all the neighbors to see. I've looked through Hikvision and Dahua websites and picked up a Dahua IPC-HUM8441-E1-L1 pinhole camera to play around with and try out but not sure how I'm going to mount it.

So, I'm looking for any suggestions for something inconspicuous. Bonus points if it's night color.

 

[bp2008]

Either of these will provide fantastic night color. Not sure the best way to pole mount one. Be sure to turn the LEDs off and change exposure and gain settings to allow the picture to get nice and bright at night.

Color4K-T



Color4K-X


Here is a post where I was using a Color4K-X as a weather cam (has a timelapse video):

EmpireTech IPC-Color4K-X is an amazing weather cam

I recently purchased an EmpireTech IPC-Color4K-X with a 2.8mm lens from @EMPIRETECANDY. This model is also known as Dahua DH-IPC-HFW5849T1-ASE-LED. I installed it not as a security cam, but as a weather cam. The high resolution and large sensor make for great captures both day and night...

ipcamtalk.com

The turret version should be less conspicuous. It is hard to find a good camera that is smaller than one of these. The pinhole camera you got is not really suited for outdoor exposed use and its night video would be relatively quite bad compared to the two I linked above.

 

[garycrist]

People do not look up!! I lived in Cali for years with a vertical antenna 26 ft. tall. Mounted on top of a 40ft. push-up with
12 radials about 30 ft. long streaming at about a 45ish degree angle.

It was only after a complaint from a neighbor about his am radio not working right, that I queried the neighbors.
All were shocked that they had never noticed after all those years. From then on everyone came to me
with problems, TV or Cable phone etc. I gladly obliged.

 

[Rob2020]

Build a cedar birdhouse around the cam. Cut the lens hole to fit the cam lens as close to perfectly as you can.

 

[garycrist]

I use both the 4K-X and the 4K-T. So far the best is the BIG bullet.
There is a new FW for the turret that I have not tried yet. 3/6/23