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 -
https://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!
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 -

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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