Greenhouse cam

I thought I would share this in case there is any interest; a few years ago I bought an IP camera on eBay for the greenhouse. The camera cost under forty dollars US, and it was worth it, although installing the software was a challenge. The camera simply needs an electrical outlet in the greenhouse and a nearby WiFi signal. With it I can check the greenhouse online from anywhere. It has IR lights, so it can see in the dark, it can be set as a motion detector and take a photo of anything moving and send the photo to your email address. There is an option to set up users with names and passwords. Not necessary, but a nice toy.

 

I don't know if its still available, but there used to be a software suite called iCatcher Sentry. It hooked up to any web cam, including a dedicated IP web like yours, and it would alert you if anything moved, while at the same time only recording changes, so that if you had an incident, instead of trawling through hours of footage, the only footage saved was stuff where something had happened.

 

That feature is built in, the camera takes a photo each time there is movement. There is also free software available to activate it at different times during the day or night to capture all of the video. When I first installed the camera, I was at my son's house taking care of my grandchild, I received several images in my email account. A friend had dropped by to return some pots and entered the greenhouse to look around. The camera captured the back of his head as he entered, and a photo each time he moved. My favorite was the one of him bending over to admire my tomatoes.

 

That sounds like a great idea. Does the camera send a signal to your home router via wi-fi? If so how far does the signal extend? I suppose it depends on the system, but would you need some sort of lead or extension from the camera to get it near enough the router for the wi-fi to work?

I'm just wondering how I could do such a set up - the polytunnel is some 30 yards from my router - with a couple of walls between too.

many thanks

 

Sounds really useful for checking the neighbour's are looking after the plants properly whilst on hols, keeping an eye on your giant marrow to be entered into the village show, etc. I've always wondered about installing one in the hen run, but Mrs Scrungee has suggested that perhaps it's best not to know what they get up to when we're around.

I suppose there's now also remote monitoring of temps, rainfall, moisture, etc., so you can phone your neighbours and ask them to put the greenhouse heating on, give the plants some extra water, open the greenhouse door, etc.

If you've got mains electricity extended into the tunnel, you can use the mains wiring to use plug in wifi extenders.

 

I haven't got them in the GH but have got them scattered around the garden,good for catching the fox playing with the dogs toys and even saw a couple of foxes mating...also saw a mouse drag a sausage roll across the garden...makes for fascinating viewing

 

Yes, it sends a Wi-Fi signal to the router in the house. I imagine the range is a hundred feet, or a little more. I can pick up the neighbor's Wi-Fi signal from that far at least.

The Wi-Fi signal has to pass through a few walls to get to my router, so walls should not be an issue.

 

Thanks very much for those helpful replies.

 

Will this be appearing on some dodgy Russian website

 

No, the first thing I did was change the username and password from the default. It appears the Russian's have taken down their site.

 

If you have power in your Greenhouse then you have loads of options, you could buy a Power Line Network adaptor, these are about £30 for a pair (but I have seen the cheaper versions in Maplins for £20) then plug your camera into the Power Line Adaptor and gain access to the internet that way or you could plug in a Range Extender and extend the range of your network...handy if your sitting out in the garden anyway

 

Sounds like a new toy I need.

 

There are plug and play versions now. Mine was a little complicated to install, what with having to assign a port on the wireless router.