Yeah definitely blurry with motion in full darkness with mine too, but we have a street lamp not far from our driveway that lights up a fair bit at night, so it’s not that bad. From a security perspective it doesn’t actually matter too much. I’m willing to bet if you handed crystal clear footage of someone breaking in to the police, they still wouldn’t be able to do very much with it, unless the person is someone already known to them.

It occurs to me that you could also reverse the logic for your bins - instead of an expensive camera to cover both long and short distance, just get a cheap one pointed where they usually sit and have the logic be “Hey, the bins should be out, but they’re sitting here”. Maybe not as fun though?

That sounds strange. Are you sure you’re getting the main stream and not one of the lower resolution substreams from the camera?

I don’t know what the setup is like in Frigate. My setup is a bit old now as I haven’t really updated it, but BlueIris uses the lower res substreams for motion and object detection. I’m still using DeepStack for object detection, even though it’s not supported now, but recording and clips uses the main stream. Using the substreams reduces the load on the CPU. This is the BlueIris guide for substreams, it might have some relevant info that could help: https://ipcamtalk.com/wiki/sub-stream-guide/

Yeah my camera isn’t amazing at night either, but I don’t need to to be. Usually if someone comes close to the door, they’ll be identifiable anyway as the motion sensor lights will come on. It’s an Amcrest one I bought years ago on amazon.

How far away is the person? The specs on the camera says people should be identifiable at 6.5 meters away.

I will! Though a reddit thread came up with my search, talking about how batshit crazy the admin was and how he will dox you or harass you if he doesn’t like you… so I will just read as a lurker haha.

I don’t think I ever interacted with anyone there, just read reviews and what others were recommending!

Wow that looks like a real pain!

Would it be easier to feed it in from outside, up through the hole, then just keep feeding the cable in until it gets into reaching distance in the ceiling?

Yeah I think so. I’m trying to recall how I did it, it’s been awhile. I think I got my wife to feed it through while I was in the roof. A lot harder when doing it by yourself. I think I might have also taped it to a bit of bent wire to poke it up so I could see it easier.

I don’t think you really need 8MP at all. Sensor size is more important. Kinda like how phones have inflated MP numbers but a dslr or mirrorless camera with less megapixels but larger sensor gets much clearer pictures. If you are recording as well it takes up a lot of space. Check out cameras with the Starlight sensors, they get a great image at night without changing to a night mode or using IR illumination. Also if you go for a wide FoV camera, you lose detail around the edges and it’s generally clearer in the centre. All depends the distance you are trying to capture.

I did a lot of searching a few years ago on the ipcamtalk forums when I was looking for one. Check them out when you plan to upgrade!

One thing I learnt is just how bad of an idea it is to try to run a cable from the outer corner an eave. Turns out the inside of the eaves are not part of the ceiling cavity as I had assumed.

Interesting that yours is not part of the cavity! I’ve installed PoE cameras in eaves four times now and the worst part is always lying down in the roof space trying the get the wire fed through the small hole you can’t really see due to the sharp angle of the roof at the edges.

Which camera did you get?

My plan is to have things on either side of it, so maybe I’ll back fill the gaps with gravel or put some bricks around it to help it out just in case. 😅

You got caught out by skimming the video 😝

He says he underestimated thinking that experimental piece with a higher ratio would be fully hardened in 3 days.

Concrete/cement usually takes weeks to months to fully cure to it’s full strength. In any case the lower side of mine has an edge and I’ve actually made it slightly larger than I need. I think it should be OK, It’s not like it’s going to have cars or foot traffic on it just mainly storing things.

I think I will get some crumbling at the edges as it was hard to mix there. I’ve removed the wooden form I used and it’s holding together for now.

That’s basically it! You don’t really need much water either. It just kind of looks like dirt coloured concrete. Technically you only need about 10-15% cement to soil. But since I was raising the level and and adding topsoil (also being lazy), I didn’t measure it and just used a whole bag of cement. Tamped it to level it out, but it isn’t perfect as I’m going to use some paving sand and pavers to level out the top of it anyway.

If you don’t mind a 16 minute video, this what I watched before deciding to try it: https://youtu.be/tNoWVPVb6Mo

I’m planning to move my shed to some unlevel ground near our fence soon. Spent the last week trying to think of ways to do it on the cheap, as it will need a base of level ground that’s higher that the sloping ground so the door can open.

Decided to experiment with making a cement stabilised soil pad. Managed to get it all mixed and tamped down a couple days ago, so now I’m leaving it to cure. All I needed was a bag of cement and some bags of topsoil. I’m not sure I mixed it well enough though it has hardened some already. Oh well, it doesn’t need to be as hard as concrete, it’s only going to have a fairly light static load on it. Fingers crossed it all works out!

The weather here has been beautiful the last week. Freezing in the mornings, but clear and warm during the afternoon’s. I can get behind winter if it’s always like this.

Looks good to me!

Sorry! I got distracted with something else, and then fell asleep 😅 Don’t know if there’s still time to add it?

After a quick google I couldn’t find anything suitable, I’m happy with something simple

That can work too, but we’ll be double kiwi-ing it!

Edit: what about a pair of gumboots?

It was looking a bit empty there, I thought someone would start something, but no one did.

Dunno maybe a row boat in the blue? 🤔

No idea why that German(?) flag down the bottom decided to go over us but behind everything else. Been trying to take it back but they keep taking it again. Might just wait until later today to take it back.

We were all sick as well for the first week of the school holidays. I have felt like I’ve had low level sickness for probably the last couple months, just keeps returning. My usual ways of motivating myself aren’t working like they used to either. Weather isn’t helping too!

I’ll do what I can to help!

I don’t know what it is about this winter, but I feel very unmotivated. Just feel like hibernating for couple of months.

No ideas, but looking forward to help fill stuff out!