Hi all!
I’m looking for a continuous-video recording camera to record animal behaviour at an aquarium facility that doesn’t have any WiFi. Cellular data is also patchy there. I’m wondering if I can still set it up at home and then bring it to the facility to record?
Thanks!
Welcome to the forums! No, but… These products are very wifi and internet dependant. They need internet/wifi upon startup for the camera to start and in turn start recording to the card. There have been instances of folks powering them in a place that has wifi and internet that the camera is set up to, then leaving that wifi connectivity zone all while keeping a power source active on the camera. You would also loose the ability to connect to the camera with the app because it has no connectivity. This is the just of it, and can be and is jumping through hoops because it’s not designed for this use. To me this product may be not the best for your use case.
In your instance, I’d suggest a GoPro style camera, or something that doesn’t need wifi/internet to operate it’s core functions.
I agree with @Omgitstony. Probably not the best fit for your need. However it is doable. I have set up s cam on a battery pack on my home wifi with an SD card then taken it on the road with continuous recording set on. No access until I return to my home wifi but the cam continued to record to the SD card for the duration. Limiting factor is the life of the battery pack. Once it loses power the cam stops recording.
Another more complicated way is to use something like a GLI Inet mobile router tethered to a phone hotspot to set up the cam with both on a mobile power source. That way you are taking your wifi and cam together to your destination. Then the cam can be accessed since it has wifi and hotspot internet. Again the limitation is the power supply. I’m testing this setup for a dash cam where hopefully the battery won’t go dead.
Again, as @Omgitstony said, something like a GoPro probably would work better.
One thing I do when traveling is I will turn on my hotspot from a cell phone, activate the Wyze cam then turn off the hotspot and it will record continuously to the SD card. This is only useful for if you notice something happened and want to go back and review it… Such as a motel or airbnb that doesn’t provide internet but you want to be able to see if suspect a hotel cleaner may have stolen your stuff. Things like that.
At least I did that a lot more before Wyze cane out with the battery powered Wyze Outdoor Camera. Now I often take that one with me when I travel because it has a cool travel mode designed to let it work without internet and it can monitor areas where there is no power and be set to just record when there is nearby motion so it will work anywhere for a pretty long time.
Thank you for all your advice! I was considering GoPro and police bodycams but reviews said GoPro stops recording at 17min due to overheating - I’m looking to record minimum one-hour videos continuously, while bodycams don’t seem to have very good quality yet.
I won’t have problems with continuous power and I’m good as long as the video gets recorded onto the SD card directly.
For tomp’s and carverofchoice’s suggestions - I just remembered that there is free public WiFi at a park 80m away although its signal can’t be detected at the aquarium. But wondering if I could set up the cam with such a WiFi? I do have mobile 4G network near the aquarium too.
It depends on the type of free public wifi. The ones that just let everyone on without having to click an acknowledgement first, yes, you can use those just fine.
Some require that each MAC address (individual device) click an agreement that it won’t be used illegally, etc. Since the camera can’t surf to the agreement page and click the agreement button, it can’t use those free wifi options directly. But there is a loophole.
If you have an old cell phone, you can log on to the free wifi, then turn on the hotspot option on the phone and the phone will then act like a router for you to connect the camera to, which then relays everything through the free wifi. I am actually doing this exact thing right now on my vacation in Hawaii…I connect a phone to the wifi which requires acknowledgement before it will work, then I turn on the hotspot and connect my Wyze cam and other iot devices to that phone hotspot and everything works.
(I also run a VPN on the phone so that everything is encrypted and nobody can access any of my data… So I might suggest running it through a Phone’s hotspot with a VPN anyway even if it will connect without it… If you don’t have an old phone, ask friends or family if they have an old one with a cracked screen or you can buy them really cheap anyway… if not, it’s probably five if it’s not recording something extremely private…)