I live in an single family home HOA complex with over 200 homes. Although it is Gated community, the gates do little in terms of security. Over the last two years we have seen a distrubing increase of mailbox thefts, unlocked car breakins, catalytic converter thefts and burglery events. The HOA security cameras are old and ineffective. The police will not rspond if there is no photographic or video evidence.
I was wondering if it is possible to “share” a hundred plus cameras to a common account that the HOA board has access to. The idea is to convince as many owners as possible to install a street facing Wyzecam ( at low cost) and then use them all as a massive network of cameras.
Some things to know for you looking into this, is that the shared account will have access to some camera settings, as well as the ability to live feed (with audio), no playback access to SD card footage. There is a wishlist that is requesting a change to the process of sharing a camera, by making the permissions allowed for that camera be customizable.
My HOA just sends a facebook group notice when something occurs and asks for anyone with camera coverage to help. The Pres also DMs me directly asking because she knows my house has cameras pointed every which way. My neighborhood is very pro ring, very little Wyze neighbors.
Good to know. A facebook group notice would be a quick way to get the word out. Maybe the Nexdoor app as well. Our HOA does not have any social media options, just their arcane web portal which is not user friendly.
As cheap as Wyze cams are compared to most. And as reliable as most that cost 2+ times more, I say this is worth a try.
Interesting idea having 6+ families/person’s eyes watching all the cameras view. Sure sounds like spreading the security across the owners would improve security.
But I don’t see the value in putting all or even half the camera in a single account. I suspect there’s some common denominator that you can use to pattern 5-10 camera per account. Maybe via strees or rows of houses?
You could also likely get buy in for an experiment. Some people share access to single account. Some people hare shared to from the master account. Then 30 days later how did it work out? And decide then best way to put them all.
Your ideas are interesting. I just met with the HOA board and tossed this idea out and the suggestion was a quick test with a few cameras. Possibly by one of our two entrance gates. Our community is designed with short culdesacs and lots of intersections. Your idea by street sounds very practical because we only have about 10 to 15 homes per section with one connecting intersection along a long connecting road. The “zone” idea would be more manageble.
The ordinance, backed by the Mayor and the SFPD, enables the SFPD to access live video streams from private non-city cameras for the purposes of investigating crimes, including misdemeanor and property crimes. Once the SFPD gets access, they can continue live streaming for 24 hours. The ordinance authorizes such access by consent of the camera owner or a court order.
Yes it is. Our local police are very good, but are spread too thin to deal with this level of crime. It is sad commentary on our criminal justice system and the “No Law and Order” DA’s we currently have.
That is what lead us to consider a digital neighborhood watch program, where we try and take control of a small amount of our communities security.
