Sick of Technology......

[ffuries]

We had a nasty storm come through on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. I was awoken by a loud bang, like lightening hit near by. Didn't think much of it, as we didn't lose power amd everything seemed to work.

Either Wednesday night or Thursday night, I was doing something on my phone and noticed I hadn't received any notifications from my security cams. Looked over at the monitor and all the cameras were up, checked the app on my phone and it wouldn't connect to the DVR.

Today I tried hooking two different computers with LAN ports directly to the modem, couldn't get either of them to connect. Went old school and did a loop-back on the modem (Taking the CAT 5 cable and running it from one LAN port to another LAN port on the modem) and got no activity/connectivity lights on the modem LAN ports. Also changed out the CAT5 cable just to rule out a bad cable. So waiting to here back from Comcast/Xfinity to verify that my modem LAN ports are dead. The wireless portion of the modem works as it should, but the CCTV DVR must be hardwired wired to the modem.

I went back and forth on whether the modem or the DVR was the culprit. Still can't rule out that the DVR LAN port might be dead also. Don't want to change the whole CCTV system out, as that is 8 cameras that will have to replaced along with the DVR, so that would be around $600.00 plus depending on the system I went with. Could replace just the DVR at $270.00 if needed.

Technology was/is supposed to make our lives easier, but it seems like it becoming a pain in the ass and wallet.......

Going to get in some comfy clothes, get my BP back down, relax and watch the idiot box. On Patrol: Live is due to be on in 17 minutes, so I can watch idiots getting jacked up.

[tomaustin]

this was no ordinary storm system...

swept through Texas leaving a trail of damage and headed straight toward Florida...

I would suggest to give the systems several days to straighten out the mess...

there were substations across the south that were damaged, if not totally wiped out...

electrics are of every vintage...your neighborhood may be upgraded by the providers, but just a mile or two over, those folks may still be in the 50's.....

sit on your $$$ for a few days.....let it sort itself out.....

Tom

[ffuries]

this was no ordinary storm system...

swept through Texas leaving a trail of damage and headed straight toward Florida...

I would suggest to give the systems several days to straighten out the mess...

there were substations across the south that were damaged, if not totally wiped out...

electrics are of every vintage...your neighborhood may be upgraded by the providers, but just a mile or two over, those folks may still be in the 50's.....

sit on your $$$ for a few days.....let it sort itself out.....

Tom

With a clearer mind this morning, after sleeping on it, I tackled it again. LAN/ethernet ports 1-3 (1 gbps) are currently dead, port 4 the high speed port (2.5 gbps) is working. With that my CCTV system is able to make an internet connection, so the CCTV DVR is not dead, which is good news.

Still waiting to hear back from Xfinity on the modem. I'll probably end up going to the local Xfinity store and swapping out modems sometime in the next week or so.

[tomaustin]

sounds good.....stick with your plan...

[ffuries]

sounds good.....stick with your plan...

Apparently the style modem 8 currently have from Xfinity have a known issue and the ports die. Whether it's a software issue, hardware issue or both I don't know, but I'll have them swap it out. Just glad it's a free fix versus a money fix that is for sure!

[Junk Yard Dog]

Blink cameras, ten of them, the whole system under a grand not including the phone, and cloud subscription. I see all, hear all, and can talk right through the cameras. No wires, no DVR's, HD quality picture, and super easy to install.

[ffuries]

Battery power sounds good, but with as much movement as we have around here, I'd be replacing batteries constantly. Plus I'd hate to have to climb up a ladder and replace batteries in 4 cameras (2 cams per corner) on the back of the house.

Area where cams are at marked with red line, picture taken before cams went back up.

[tomaustin]

don't know what you need all that technology for...you've got good-looking nightwatchmen standing by the back door....... !!!!

[Junk Yard Dog]

Battery power sounds good, but with as much movement as we have around here, I'd be replacing batteries constantly. Plus I'd hate to have to climb up a ladder and replace batteries in 4 cameras (2 cams per corner) on the back of the house.

Area where cams are at marked with red line, picture taken before cams went back up.

The battery is rated for two years. I have constant movement here from me, wild and domestic animals, as well as visitors, four months in and no problems even with the cold. I have two cameras covering the road outside the gate from different angels, they trigger probably 30-40 times a day. Because of the wide field of vision these cameras have you may not need second floor mounting. The small size also makes they very easy to miss despite being basic black, minor attempts at camo would hide them entirely. Most regulars know about at least five of them, but so far nobody has clued to the other five I now know that a bobcat is a frequent visitor, a fox is a multi times a day visitor, I have three regular racoons, and six pet deer that I keep an eye on with the cameras.

[Darryl]

My system doesn't use a DVR. It is Reolink. The cameras can be either hard wired, POE, or wifi and solor powered. Depending on the camera you buy. Fact is, it can be solar powered and have a cell phone inside and can be placed anywhere ...... on some models.
Each camera has a mini memory card it it capable of holding hundreds of images and will delete the oldest image and replace it with the newest image if you like.

The software is loaded onto any computer, phone, laptop or what ever and you can see all your cameras. If you want, you can leave on you computer and it will upload all the images both to it's memory card and to he computer. No DVR needed. Just camera.

I have mine all POE (power over Ethernet) and connected to my network. I can add wifi, or solar powered if I want too. I can see all the cameras anywhere in the world on my iPhone but mostly on my PC. My Son can see them too on his PC.
I have a total of 10 camera (including my "bird camera" ) around my house and can see anything going on outside.

Oh, I have two Kuna camera (in the front light fixtures) pointing down the front walkway also. That is kind of like the Ring system and is separate from my other cameras.

Two alarm systems. One on the house (normal stuff) and a second one in my gun room.
They inform me when I have a "problem" over my phone, then I can just look at my cameras and see who is there. Or, I can look at the images that the camera recorded on their mini memory cards.

Did I mention, I have an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) on my network powering all my cameras, and switches, modems. It also powered my PC (including my monitor), so no one can cut power to the house and defeat the systems. It will last about 10 hours or so.

Am I paranoid....hell yes! Just kidding, not really. But I have a lot of firearms and am just safe.

Darryl

[Junk Yard Dog]

The Blinks are the first line of defense, I won't tell you what the other ones are. This used to be such a nice quiet town, nothing went on here , now it's all gone down the shitter. Some months back last winter I look out the shop window to see some shithead had taken off his clothing and was dancing around in the snow. Even if I swung that way this was one dude nobody wants to see bare ass, some things can't be unseen. Being an upscale suburb of NYC we have a well funded sheriff's office, no less than 8 deputies showed up to corral the man into an ambulance that the nice young men in the clean white coats brought to take him away. That shit never happened around here back in the day. Yesterday a deputy got called to a domestic, arrives to find the guy is stabbing his girlfriend and did what he had to do by shooting that asshole to death on the spot. First officer involved shooting in the county in at least 12 years when a guy committed suicide by cop when he charged officers while swinging an axe. That guy was Swiss cheese after that. Robbery's, assaults, drug trafficking, DUI, all on the rise. The camera technology came at the right time.