To catch a thief

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dennishoddy

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Is there cellular service at the house?
If so is there wifi?
If so, use a WYZE system.
https://www.ebay.com/i/263999077263?chn=ps
Less than $30 per camera and they work great. I was in Missouri for a while, just getting home today and I watched the housekeeper come and go while there and a trapped bird in the garage that gave me fits with all the alerts, etc. (you can turn off or on all alerts with the cell phone)
They have a motion detector, a sound detector, as well as a fire alarm and CO detector. If any are detected, you get an alert on your cellular device. It can be shared. My wife gets alerts the same time I do. These things are incredible.
I just got the new pan camera. It detects motion within a 358 degree range and pans to the location where the motion was detected. You can also manually pan it side by side, as well as up and down. It was $39 or something. Cheap.
What I didn't know previously, is that a CO detector puts our 4 beeps for an alarm and a fire detector puts out three beeps. This unit tells the difference and give the appropriate notification to your email or message.
You can talk to someone on the feed and listen to what they say. It also stores the alerts on a micro SD within the unit, and also records a 15 second clip in the cloud for free. No subscription to cloud services needed, and you can watch and delete if you don't want to keep the alert feeds.
You just have to marry your IPhone or Android device to the camera which is a 30 second no brainer operation of holding your phone in front of the camera, and it supports both phone platforms at the same time.

https://www.wyzecam.com/
 

SoonerP226

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FWIW, I have Ring cameras around my house. I installed them when I was going to be out of state for a few months, and I've been happy with them. Their only major drawback is that you need a decent Internet connection; my craptastic uVerse connection barely gets it done, but it was good enough for me to talk to the OEC tree trimmer who rang my Ring doorbell while I was in BFE, Mississippi, and I had some decent views of a fox that was visiting my porch early in the morning.

If you can get a decent Internet connection, they have a battery-powered hi-def camera that works really well, and they make a solar panel for it. One other awesome thing is that all of their cameras that use batteries use the same battery packs, and the packs have built-in charging circuitry, so all you need is a USB charger and a microUSB cable to charge them.

I pay for the Ring Pro service (for the unlimited storage), so I'd only need to add the alarm and sensors, but I have another alarm service, so I haven't gotten around to looking at their alarm offerings yet.
 

sanjuro893

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Do you know of any patterns on how they hit it? Like is it limited to weekends or daytime/nighttime? I think the trail cam is a good idea. A lot of people want to put them around they're porches, etc., which is fine but I recommend putting at least one at a low angle by your driveway or the entrance to your property so you can get a tag number.
 

SoonerP226

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There is no electric to the house, thus no internet.
A cellular hotspot, or a burner smartphone, with a USB battery pack could solve that. Anker makes a 26500mAh battery pack that's not a lot bigger than a TV remote; that and a hotspot or smartphone could be easily hidden in the attic. You'd probably have to swap out the battery pack ever couple of days, but there are solar chargers that could do trickle charging to extend the battery life.

Not having the lecstricity complicates things; I'm not sure about the Ring alarm, but the SimpliSafe system needs AC power for the base station/alarm horn (although it has a battery backup and the sensors are all battery-powered). A cellular game cam would probably be the least complicated option (the sheriff recommended them for my dad's shop), but I dunno anything useful about them.
 

Neanderthal

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Do you know of any patterns on how they hit it? Like is it limited to weekends or daytime/nighttime? I think the trail cam is a good idea. A lot of people want to put them around they're porches, etc., which is fine but I recommend putting at least one at a low angle by your driveway or the entrance to your property so you can get a tag number.
I wish that there was a pattern, there isn't. I honestly believe that it's more than 1 group of thieving buttnuggets. It's pretty open at that place, so camera placement will be a task in itself.
 

Neanderthal

In Remembrance / March 2023
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A cellular hotspot, or a burner smartphone, with a USB battery pack could solve that. Anker makes a 26500mAh battery pack that's not a lot bigger than a TV remote; that and a hotspot or smartphone could be easily hidden in the attic. You'd probably have to swap out the battery pack ever couple of days, but there are solar chargers that could do trickle charging to extend the battery life.

Not having the lecstricity complicates things; I'm not sure about the Ring alarm, but the SimpliSafe system needs AC power for the base station/alarm horn (although it has a battery backup and the sensors are all battery-powered). A cellular game cam would probably be the least complicated option (the sheriff recommended them for my dad's shop), but I dunno anything useful about them.

I checked out Simplisafe, Ring, and a few other suggestions. I believe that the most viable option at this point is a cellular trail camera. I've researched it a bit and think that I finally have my options narrowed down to only a handful!
 

SoonerP226

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I checked out Simplisafe, Ring, and a few other suggestions. I believe that the most viable option at this point is a cellular trail camera. I've researched it a bit and think that I finally have my options narrowed down to only a handful!
Sounds like. I hope you nail their hides to the wall.
 

Neanderthal

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My buddy has a "Bigfoot" brand cellular camera and is very happy with it.

The Bigfoot 3G is being considered. There are two drawbacks with it (1) there's no GPS / Theft protection, and (2) the plans for the data don't appear to be as cheap as some of the others that I've found. As of right now, Spypoint 4G is on top of the consideration heap.
 

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