For one reason or another you have determined that you want to secure your home in addition to keep your children safe and sound which is an extremely smart choice. There are a lot of crimes that might have been prevented if others felt or determined the same thing. Unfortunately the majority of people make the choice to setup an internet security camera or any other type of home security internet camera wireless or wired after they’ve experienced a break in. Or in other situations you know of someone who has experienced a break in or vandalism which moves them them towards the decision. Either way its the right choice. You want to do what you can to secure the ones you love.
When purchasing a security internet camera system there are still a lot of options out there and a lot of investigation that needs to be completed. But fortunately for us the best home security systems are no longer difficult and time consuming to figure out and install. Some of the selections we need to make have to do with the style of camera we want. There are a few options out there to chose from. Do you want a wired home security system or do you prefer a wireless internet security camera ? Do you want the system to be reachable over the internet or recorded to a dvr/NAS (network attached storage) of some sort. Are the looks important? If so do you prefer Dome style or bullet style. The key is to take every one of these decisions one step at a time.
The first choice you need to make is where you want the Internet security camera or cameras to be located. You will need to figure out if you just want to monitor whats going on in a certain room at a certain time or do you want surveillance 24 x 7. Or do you just want to see who is at the front or back door with out getting up? You may also decide you want one at every entry point that leads into your house.
Second: Once you have decided how many you need and where you want them to go you then need to think about whether or not you want a wired home security system or do you want wireless surveillance. Or do you want a mixture of the two. Possible have wired cameras inside and have your outdoor security camera to be wireless. In the past wireless was not as reliable, but with the latest wireless technologies you can pretty much count on them running 99% of the time. You will want to think about the ease of installation if its easy to run wire from your camera to your PC or home network than you may save money going that route. On the other hand if you don’t want to drill holes and don’t want to have visible wires than you should lean towards 100% wireless surveillance.
Your third choice now that you know the location and the type of camera you want to purchase — you now have to figure out how you want to go about monitoring the system. Some systems offer the ability to watch over the internet using a computer or in some cases even an iPhone. Other systems offer the choice of recording your surveillance footage which may require the purchase of additional hardware such as a storage device (external hard drive or NAS system)
Fourth: You can now start to do some shopping for the type of internet security cameras you have decided on. The shopping will be followed by the purchase
Fifth: Once you have the product in hand you will now be ready for the setup. Start by opening up the packages getting it all laid out on a open table. Sit down with a drink of choice and read through the instructions. Do not skip this part. It is very important that you read through everything and understand what needs to be done. I know this is hard for some (its very hard for me–I like to open the package and get right to work–but in the end I always find that I miss a step and it ends up taking longer than it would have if I had just read the darn instructions). You will most likely need to connect your camera to your home network/router to configure it, even if its wireless. There are some devices out there that do the setup automatically. If its not automatic generally the companies have it set up for the non-technical person so it’s fairly straight forward.
Sixth: Now its time to physically install the cameras to the desired location. Again follow the instructions here. Make sure you have all the right tools.
Seventh: Once your internet security camera is installed (don’t put your tools away just yet) you will need to check the view of the internet security camera on you computer and run some tests such as have someone go stand in front of the cameras and verify you can see them. If not go out and do some adjusting to make sure you have the view you are looking for.
Eighth: After you are at the point where you have everything set up the way you think it should be set you will want to run some tests. First if you have the system set so you can view it over the internet have someone outside your home ( a brother or sister or friend) pull up the feed on there computer and verify they can see it. If you are recording the feed–verify after it has run for some time that you can go go back in time and view what was recorded. It would be a shame to think you were done and then later you need to go back to view something and find that the recording wasn’t actually working for one reason or another.
There you have it. You can now use this as a general outline for selecting and setting up the best home security / internet security camera. Just remember it will take some work but in the end its worth it.