New placement questions

seageek

n3wb
Oct 13, 2025
1
0
Seattle
Hi all. Very happy to find this place and wealth of information here. Reading lots, but also wanted to post this and get some advice.


Setting up a first time camera system. I want some combination of deterrence by visible cameras, but also ability to identify if needed (with reasonable night performance).
It’s an older house on a hill. Drive way behind house with garage at higher elevation, house at medium elevation, main road in front of house at lower elevation. Generally a single main path up/down. But there are some side bush access on the front (mailman tends to use these rather than go up/down at every house).

Overview -
map2-preview.jpghttps://ibb.co/rGGWTqH1
Front of house - Back of house - Garage -
Thinking of an NVR or BlueIris computer in the basement. Running up a cat6 in a smurf tube to attic, some industrial powered poe switch in the attic, and then cat6 cables to specific cameras.

First, what are good placements and camera choices for the house? What would you do?

1/2 and 3/4 are somewhat easy locations to wire up from the attic. If doing it at the bottom of the 2nd floor, then that translates to about 14ft height outside. Let’s say 15ft to the front door to 50 ft for front path, ideally say ~45+ degree FOV. For the ones facing the front of the house (2,3), perhaps 5442 ZE or 5842 ZE to be able to identify? Same for side views (1,4)?

Would you also add some front door camera or just 2 and 3 are sufficient?

For the back, it almost seems like one camera is sufficient? Another 5442 ZE or 5842ZE, placed in say 7 above the back door awning?

Thinking about positioning - 7, 6.5, or 7.5 are reasonably easy to wire from 2nd floor. 5/6/8 are more challenging. Additionally, 5+6 extension is just first floor, so camera would be lower/reachable. Although could do 4.8 (looking front) or 6.2 (look at back) from 2nd floor/above the roof awning reasonably easily.

Second, garage is more of a connectivity challenge (power, but no ethernet in short term).

I’m thinking of just placing some Wifi mesh unit in the garage and running PoE cameras to it. That seems like most future-proof option for whenever I get around to connecting the garage to house by cat6. Currently using Eero, and there’s no decent VLan support, any suggestions for isolating cameras from the web? Different wifi network/mesh device?

For actual cameras, is just a single camera at 9 sufficient? Or would you do two opposite facing cameras at 10?
From distance, 5442 ZE or 5842ZE would also seem like correct choices?
Some kind of license plate reading would be a nice bonus, not sure if 5442/5842 would do both people identification and plates well.

Inside the garage camera (at 12) probably 5442?


Thank you!
 
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Given the elevation differences, I’d treat front and back separately.

Front: 2 & 3 at ~14–15 ft should cover most approach angles. If you pick something like 5442ZE/5842ZE, you’ll get decent ID at ~50 ft. A dedicated doorbell or a small fixed cam near the front door can be a nice add if you want clear face shots right at the door, but not a must if 2 & 3 are dialed in well.

Back: 7 is a sweet spot — high enough and good coverage. You could add something lower later if you find blind spots, but starting with one cam there makes sense.

Garage: WiFi mesh bridge is fine short term. For plates, 5442/5842 can catch them if you dedicate one cam just for that angle (say 9), but ID + plates with the same cam isn’t always ideal. If you do two cams at 9 and 10, you can split tasks.

Also, if your mesh doesn’t support VLAN, consider a separate SSID just for cams until you hardwire.
 
Welcome!

Don't chase MP. Unless you have stadium quality lighting, the 5442 will beat the 5842 all night long as they are both on the same size sensor.

You will NOT get ID quality with the ZE at 50 feet. The camera choice for 15 feet away is much different than the camera choice at 50 feet away.

One camera cannot be the be all see/see all.

You would have to set the camera up specifically to read plates. You need the proper camera with OPTICAL zoom for the distance you are covering and the angle to get plates.

Regarding plates, keep in mind that this is a camera dedicated to plates and not an overview camera also. It is as much an art as it is a science. You will need two cameras. For LPR we need to OPTICALLY zoom in tight to make the plate as large as possible. For most of us, all you see is the not much more than a vehicle in the entire frame. Now maybe in the right location during the day it might be able to see some other things, but not at night.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night of vehicles traveling about 45MPH at 175 feet from my 2MP 5241-Z12E camera (that is all that is needed for plates):

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See the LPR subforum for more details.