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CAT's out the bag - another project on the go... (Patreon)

Published:
2024-09-17 14:00:06
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

I really think any modern home should have CAT6 connections every few metres around the garden... it'd save me having to sneak around drilling holes through the walls at every opportunity!

Upgrading all the wifi, cameras and more - PoE is great!!

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Comments

Iain Hay

There is nothing quite like using a drill with an outrageously sized drill bit! Makes you feel like some kind of safe breaker

Simon

I'd have you down as a self crimper

Andy Barnett

Did mine about 20 years ago with cat 5 but hey, that gives me gigabit and hasn't let me down yet... One of the perks of being a network administrator (now retired). 😎

Sean Reifschneider

What kind of cameras are you running? ~7 years ago I put in Ubiquiti and it has a really nice app experience, but ~5 years in an update ended up bricking all the cameras, and I switched over to BlueIris with some of the commodity 4K cameras that are very sensitive in low light. Those work pretty good but the experience is not as good as the Ubiquiti. PoE is the way to go, agreed, but so many cameras don't have that option these days.

Hands on Katie
>>149695278

I've used lots over the years, Arlo for a while, but they were rubbish with their subscription/spam model. These are Reolink who have been awesome for years with their Home Assistant integrations, but boy is their tech next generation.... Colour night vision, 8k cameras, AI everything detection.... I've been having a field day. Think I need to do a video on these as I'm already using them for so much more than security!!

#ceadda

That drill bit is totally METAL! 🤘Impressive job on those last two pics.

Sean Reifschneider
>>149695278

The Reolinks are the ones I've been eyeing lately, they do look very impressive. But my current 4K+night vision give me 90% of what I'd like, it's just the software experience I don't love. Are you going to be driving the cameras via your NAS, I've been very tempted to get a QNAP to run their camera controller, but haven't really looked in depth at how the experience is.

Hands on Katie
>>149695278

That's exactly what I'm testing over the next week or two, so let me report back - I think I'll definitely do a video on this, they're super interesting! 😎 Wonder if I can cover the QNAP side also in the same video, I'll see what I can do!

Hands on Katie
>>149697525

I know. I did feel boss mode just carrying it around.... ! Given the walls I was going through, you can't really do much to check for plumbing, electrics and the like too...... 🤭😜

Nathan Church
>>149695278

Avoiding subscriptions and public cloud-connectivity is pretty high on my priority list for a home surveillance system. For my parent's house, I ran all the network cables when they remodeled it a few years ago and then last summer put in a Reolink (PoE) system. It's been reliable and working well for ~14 months. Required some tuning of the alerts and occasional spider web camera cleaning (IR lights tend to attract them). I've been slowly building out my own IP camera system (mostly 4k and 8k cams and a PTZ) and still experimenting with a few self-hosted NVR options, storing data on my QNAP sl872x NAS. I'm using white-label (mostly Dahua) cameras from Andy/EmpireTech (recommended by most on the ipcamtalk forums). Getting the right sensor size to megapixel ratio can make a huge difference with low light visibility/quality on the cameras. Of course, locking down the IP camera network subnet is important to ensure nothing is communicating where it shouldn't be. Blue Iris is a reasonably priced software NVR for camera control (like Sean mentioned) but it requires Windows. I'm more interested in running systems on Linux and/or docker containers, like Frigate along with integrating with Home Assistant, etc. The local AI detection is pretty interesting.

Hands on Katie
>>149695278

Great point Nathan and agree entirely - I've only tinkered with frigate, but plan to have a play also with that - can use the QNAP to host and bounce off HA instance for some cool capabilities. The new QNAP can even take a dual slot GPU, so even quite advanced local AI/analysis capabilities are within it's grasp...!

Nathan Church
>>149695278

The QNAP HA capabilities sound worthwhile (depending on budget and time), Katie. I'm using my older QNAP to backup the primary NAS but full HA would be great if it works reliably without too much overhead. The GPU capabilities also open up a lot of options, especially assuming it supports decent Nvidia's, though I'd wonder about how much more power/heat would be generated. I bought a couple Google Coral TPU's for cheap to improve AI detection efficiency (primarily for Frigate).

Sean Reifschneider
>>149695278

I really didn't want to run Windows for the NVR, but at the time it was the easiest path. I've been wanting to try out Frigate NVR but haven't had time. Any recommendations for Linux-based systems?

Hands on Katie
>>149695278

Totally - it's pretty packed with expandability - 2 x nvme slot, ram upgrade slots, GPU slots, 2 x 10 GBe connections (and I've added another in another expansion slot!) - plus you can naturally get expansion units to click in, but they seem pretty much a full range (Synology always limited you to certain models)

john gallagher

Oh yes. So sneaky with a hammer drill and a one meter long bit. Nothing to see here! What holes?

Marc Radermacher

That has been on my list for a long time. Please stop giving me ideas... I'm just getting started on ESP32 and 3D printing. 😂

Hands on Katie
>>149755316

I don't know what you mean, John? Those holes have always been there since we moved into the house?? ;)

Hands on Katie
>>149777963

Oh Marc, you need to give in to the temptation, I'm going to have you a smart home acolyte - you're only choice is whether you do it the painful way or not.... ;)

john gallagher
>>149755316

Sounds like you may have a rodent problem. Might also explain those large holes on your yard. Recommend some sort of 24hr surveillance to catch them in the act. Disclaimer: may cause additional holes.

Ron
>>149692247

You should try a 48” or 60” long flex bit. They are interesting to work with.