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Hiding cameras in plain sight

Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2019 6:09 pm
by TimG
Do any of you have experience of hiding or camouflaging cameras for external home surveillance ? I'm well aware that cameras need to be at face height to be able to identify a person in an image, but of course it makes them easy to damage or remove. Putting them higher is safer for the camera, but reduces the chance of getting a useful image.

What do you ppl do 8-)

Re: Hiding cameras in plain sight

Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2019 6:34 pm
by Thixotropic
Some of the pinhole IP cams are very easy to hide. They're thin and have pretty decent image quality. If they're reasonably close to the subject you can get excellent images. The hole they look through is ridiculously small; it's easy to hide it so that you can look right at it and not see it.

I don't own any of these specific ones below but they look nearly identical to some of the minicams I've used in the past:

https://www.amazon.com/lookcctv-Portabl ... 07RWHVRZQ/
https://www.amazon.com/NightKing-Indoor ... 07HCQF46M/
https://www.amazon.com/Inwerang-Securit ... 07R4H9JFQ/

There are also a ton of clocks and wall chargers and coathooks and other things with cameras built in, so getting something like that might be worth considering.

Re: Hiding cameras in plain sight

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 12:33 pm
by TimG
I am impressed, I didn't know they made onvif cameras that small !

I envisage a wooden owl with a camera as one eye, and an IR LED as the other :idea:

Re: Hiding cameras in plain sight

Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2019 2:37 am
by MikeBwca
I have seen these types of cameras with the lens coming off a lead, rather than in the box itself. This would make it a bit easier to mount into the owls eye. How your going to hold the owl down while you do this would be the difficult part! lol

Re: Hiding cameras in plain sight

Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2019 5:40 pm
by TimG
Barman, I'll have a pint of the same stuff that MikeBwca is drinking please :P

Re: Hiding cameras in plain sight

Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 12:33 pm
by dwellonroof
I purchased a few of these small cameras of which 2 overheated and quit working and the other would never connect to BI

Re: Hiding cameras in plain sight

Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2019 6:56 pm
by TimG
Good to know ! I've got to move house before I can start experimenting though :(

Re: Hiding cameras in plain sight

Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2019 7:00 pm
by Thixotropic
dwellonroof wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 12:33 pm I purchased a few of these small cameras of which 2 overheated and quit working and the other would never connect to BI
Interesting- the ones I worked with got a little warm but not hot. One was in a box with almost no airflow, the other was tucked away under an eave. Still both going strong as far as I know (I haven't had anything to do with them for a year or so now).

Re: Hiding cameras in plain sight

Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2019 7:05 pm
by LOOPYLOOP
be careful where you hide cameras, i have a random pile of rocks in my drive waiting for me to do something with them, just for fun i hid a camera in them thinking that living in a village i might see a few mice running amongst them or the odd fox or deer pottering about, but no, i managed to get a rather unflattering video of one of the binmen peeing on it!