3G Solar Security Camera options?

[Reece]

Been battling for a while now to make heads or tails of the options out there.

Will be used on our small farm/rural property.

Looking for a camera that works on cell network and is solar as I have no eskom available. Cell network is not the strongest but is there. Must be able to withstand harsh conditions etc as it will be mounted in the wind, rain and brutal North West sun. Also should have a small footprint, don’t want to advertise it to the world and its dog.

What can you guys recommend ?

[RoddieJ]

Be very aware to consider theft of equipment. There definitely are options, but remember that you will get what you pay (mostly).

Give some thought to solar for the household, with the cameras on a separate circuit, otherwise you lose the benefit of solar power. Unless you are considering solar power to individual cameras. In which case you will have to have battery storage at each camera.

I’m also interested to hear from the experts.

[LCamper]

Been battling for a while now to make heads or tails of the options out there.

Will be used on our small farm/rural property.

Looking for a camera that works on cell network and is solar as I have no eskom available. Cell network is not the strongest but is there. Must be able to withstand harsh conditions etc as it will be mounted in the wind, rain and brutal North West sun. Also should have a small footprint, don’t want to advertise it to the world and its dog.

What can you guys recommend ?

What exactly are you trying to achieve? Do you live there and want a warning system? Are you away and just need alerts? Do you specifically need video?
I have discreet trail cams running off very small solar panels with a built-in lithium battery on Karoo farm to monitor movements. They email immediate alerts/pics when triggered. See typical pic below. Only still pics are sent but the cameras record and store video on internal SD card for later retreival.
I also had a very data hungry remote view 3g video camera but the baboons were not happy with it and it lasted only a week.

[Reece]

What exactly are you trying to achieve? Do you live there and want a warning system? Are you away and just need alerts? Do you specifically need video?
I have discreet trail cams running off very small solar panels with a built-in lithium battery on Karoo farm to monitor movements. They email immediate alerts/pics when triggered. See typical pic below. Only still pics are sent but the cameras record and store video on internal SD card for later retreival.
I also had a very data hungry remote view 3g video camera but the baboons were not happy with it and it lasted only a week.

Exactly what I need, just something to give me alerts when not there. A week often goes by without me getting there. Like your tril cam setup/idea. Mind sharing some more details?

[supersunbird]

We use a trail cam in our area to alert to movements of criminals in the spruit veld, with decent success. If detected them 3 times last week and we were able to thwart their plans each time. They must wonder if we physic or something.

A bit expensive to purchase (R6000ish) but after that R40pm for Vodacom 500mb plan. 8 x AA lithium batteries every few months. 4m up a tree. Extra camouflaged with some netting and a branch or 2 so not easy to spot, put a but of thin rubber matting on back and bend over top, there was some water ingress in the battery compartment. If in direct sunlight the IR sensor gets triggered very frequently sending false alerts, so now mounted in shaded spot, Image takes about 2 min to be processed and reach the app.

https://www.spypoint.com/en/support/...ink-micro.html

It also takes pictures of the occasional porcupine, cat, dog, guinea fowl and similar.