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Comment by pdonis | Hacker News Reader

> power over ethernet

This is a non-starter for me since none of the places I would want to put a camera have an Ethernet jack available.

It's not a requirement, just an option. They can also run off of a wall wart or solar panel, with data over WiFi or LTE.

> They can also run off of a wall wart or solar panel

Which is still a nonstarter for me, since none of the locations I would want to put a camera have an electrical jack handy, and many of them don't get enough sunlight to make a solar panel a viable option.

So what do you want? Batteries?

> So what do you want? Batteries?

Yes.

Some of the Arlo gear is battery-powered. I use a couple of their LTE cameras in areas without any other means of connection.

Yes, Arlo also makes good battery operated cameras. They are higher quality than Blink cameras, with higher resolution. On the other hand, Blink cameras have better battery life.

For constant streaming of video you're going to be constantly swapping out batteries as you're powering the camera itself, the ir array, and the wifi.

> For constant streaming of video

I don't need constant streaming of video, only when an event occurs that needs to be recorded.

The camera still has to run for that to work, unless you're also going to power a separate motion sensor and/or a small computer to handle automating the recording; all of this just decreases how long the battery lasts.

> The camera still has to run for that to work, unless you're also going to power a separate motion sensor and/or a small computer to handle automating the recording

Security cameras will have motion sensors built in. Recording would be elsewhere, the camera would just need to stream video for some configurable time if the motion sensor detects an event.

(This is all functionality built into Ring cameras, so for anyone looking for an alternative to them it doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me.)

Eufy (the camera arm of Anker) has battery-powered cameras that seem to be somewhat comparable to Arlo.

See https://www.eufylife.com/products/604/654/battery-camera

Nor did I. But I bought a PoE switch for my garage and installed one near my Front door, two pointing at my driveway, and one pointing at my fence door. PoE is just cat 5 cable, it's considered "low voltage" so you can just run it where you need to. It's much easier than trying to running normal power, which you'd need to do for a wifi connected camera (unless you want to regularly replace batteries).

It's a nice clean mount, I just use the template, drill a 1/2" or so hole for the PoE cable, and then 3 screws to finish the mount. It looks nice and clean, works great, never runs out of power, and is never impacted by the random Wifi issues.

Sure it's a pain to run cat5 everywhere, but I haven't found a better solution, none of my camera locations had power.

Then you don't want a PoE camera. PoE cameras are great if you want to hardwire them somewhere and want to run just one cable.

Not just one cable, but one low power cable. I'd MUCH rather run PoE (no electrician, no permit, no danger, etc.) than running power to a wifi camera.

Blink cameras have excellent battery life, provided there is not frequent movement in the zones you are monitoring.

Exactly what would you consider excellent? Did you measure it personally?

That is another Amazon company so can we note expect the same shenanigans?

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