Security Cameras that run for a year on a single battery

newvisionantenna · Post by **newvisionantenna** » Thu May 21, 2009 5:24 am

I knew I was on to something with my wireless mesh and lower power devices. Everyone thinks wireless is a no go, we'll here's what I've been talking about for months in what looks like an easy to setup product.

www.vuezone.com

I just happened to see this in a magazine I picked up. If anyone would take the time to look into future military projects and wireless you'll soon find that cables are a thing of the past.

Now to figure out how to intergrate it with my DVD and find out if it works with Zoneminder.

edit: Looks like it does JPEG snapshots and also FLV.

http://vuezone.com/products/technical-details

Blazer · Post by **Blazer** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:21 am

How the heck does one of those little button batteries last a YEAR? It must only snapshot on request, there is no way that battery can last a year while streaming even just 5fps constantly.

newvisionantenna · Post by **newvisionantenna** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:56 am

I was just going off what the Popular Science mag said. It says it uses a different form of wireless. I don't find it hard to believe at all, haven't you been reading on all the new battery tech coming out? I feel they could have did this years ago, but then how would they make money if you were only buying batteries once a year?

Using wireless technology called FrameMesh, each three-inch-tall, 0.9-ounce Vue camera runs for a year on a $5 lithium-ion cell. Powering Wi-Fi, that battery would be dead in about four days. FrameMesh saves jice because it requires smaller and fewer data transmissions then Wi-Fi would need to maintain a data link between the cameras, blah blah blah.

It would be interesting to see if the video is on all the time or what. They are talking about adding motion detection and other stuff so I would think it's running non stop.

coke · Post by **coke** » Fri May 22, 2009 1:45 pm

newvisionantenna wrote: It would be interesting to see if the video is on all the time or what. They are talking about adding motion detection and other stuff so I would think it's running non stop.

Or they could be considering adding a cheap, low-powered motion sensor. I'm finding the streaming concept to be a little out there.

mitch · Post by **mitch** » Fri May 22, 2009 3:08 pm

mesh tech definately uses less battery but all the same running a full ipstack on the camera is still going to require some level of processing. I was not aware though of new 'battery tech' so if you have any articles on that it would certainly be interesting to read, generally battery capacity is one of the slowest moving techs out there, there is huge demand for batteries that last longer so I don't think its a money issue holding them back. I would definatley assume its an on demand image generator only and even then you are probably not getting close to a year:)

Post by **cordel** » Sat May 23, 2009 2:17 am

There is also a large difference between putting cameras on a 802.1x wireless network which you can find in just about every household so the noise floor for 2.4 is going to be high and running strait video over a radio link. Lower power is required in licenced bands as the noise floor is considerably lower. Also as Mitch points out running an IP stack takes processing routing headers. There are far better transmission standards than 802.1x for audio and video that are not cluttered, perform far better, and just as secure using AES.

Don't get me wrong, what you have going is useful. Personally for me, I like better performance and will not settle with anything less than a minimum of 1 fps on each cam and I typically run higher than that anywhere were security is important on average I run 5 to 7 FPS from each cam. I only had a day to play with one of your dvd's and I'll say it was certainly interesting but a bit much for my tastes. I like things very ordered and compact to reduce the security risks and keep it easily maintainable. But that's just me.

newvisionantenna · Post by **newvisionantenna** » Sat May 23, 2009 5:39 am

Your probably correct on all your points. I was just trying to use available technology and proven equipment to create a very cheap mesh camera network. Using the routers right now to run usb cam's is rather slow unless I use Openwrt, but then the mesh network needs reworked. The option is there but the best route is IP Lan/Wireless on the mesh.

I happen to come along that page in PM and thought, wow this is pretty amazing. We'll see how the product pans out and what it is capable of. I've read some more on it and it looks promising. I'm not going to say it can be used for Bank Security or something like that, but for sure in a home it would be nice.

newlinux · Post by **newlinux** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 4:16 pm

I couldn't tell from the documentation, but does anybody know if this thing is expected to have any audio capabilities? My guess is since I can't find anything on audio with this - that it doesn't have any audio capabilities. Seems interesting though - and aside from the audio would probably suit my needs pretty well....

newvisionantenna · Post by **newvisionantenna** » Sun Aug 16, 2009 6:36 am

@cordel

It's been a long time, but finally I have everything working I talked about months ago. Rememeber how I was trying to get a Wireless Mesh security system mixed with a hotspot billing system? We'll it's all done.

Now with a highly modifed ASUS WL500W router, Open-Mesh/OpenWRT built by myself, and pretty much any USB webcam this is all possible. On the router itself is running CoovaChilli that works with any Radius Captive Portal provider. The Wireless Mesh is built with the Robin-Mesh system, meaning everything is zero config minus a simple port forward layout on the gateway. Everything, I mean everything can be reached from the Gateway no matter how many hopes away. There are people running city blocks with this system. Now imagine each Router having an Orbit AF camera, or Lan camera, or even a Wireless camera attached to the network. The Wireless Mesh will heal, is smart enough to find the quickest path, and more. Anyway, for those that will understand what I've done you'll realize the value. Unfortuantly I don't have the time to market this other then a simple post on Zoneminder.

newlinux · Post by **newlinux** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 3:00 pm

Blazer wrote:How the heck does one of those little button batteries last a YEAR? It must only snapshot on request, there is no way that battery can last a year while streaming even just 5fps constantly.

http://vuezone.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/48
Their assumption is based on it being on only 10 minutes a day.

http://vuezone.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/79
Current versions aren't motion detection activated.

whatboy · Post by **whatboy** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 6:24 pm

What if you could hook it up to a photocell and install some rechargeable batteries???

kingofkya · Post by **kingofkya** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 6:27 pm

yeah a agree a charging curcit is not hard you just have to think about the revers the solar pannle/photocell also will drain the battery