I have a Nest doorbell that a friend gave me when she decided on the Ring ecosystem instead. Works fine and always alerts me when Amazon drops off a package. What I DON'T like is the idea of the monthly subscription service for someone else to store my video. Haven't decided on the path forward, so I'm just playing with real time functionality at this point.

For them, yes. This is Texas. Dude is playing a very dangerous game that could result in him becoming a bullet catcher.

I think it would be scary shooting someone even if you are defending yourself.

I have a DVR with multiple cams and foiled converter theft at my house.

Best cover in the world and nobody even thinks twice. Guy working for local utility dressed in safety vest. Converters were his second income.

Mid morning. Stops and goes to back of his truck, grabs a cordless cutoff saw.
Approaches my front door, rings bell and thinks nobody is home. I am watching this unfold live the whole time. Guy goes out to the street, looks around to check coast is clear, car approaches and as soon as the car passes comes up the driveway. Knelt down to look under my truck. Next thing he is under the truck.

Not going to get into details or frame by frame of the ending but he did not succeed.





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Makes sense, hiding in plain sight. Bad enough the utility companies robbing everyone but now the employees are at it also. There was a person last year walking around here in a high visibility vest looking like a meter reader that was robbing houses.

So did you get him busted by the cops, or just run him off?

I'm thinking Jeff H used a sawzall on the shinbone...

Or a pitbull. We know how THOSE work.

He does mention something about his ending, and no film footage. LOL

I would think a 9-1-1 call probably......

Good job, Jeff!

I saw where the mayor of NYC is saying no more mask wearing too. Not sure how that will end up but how convenient have the masks been for the all criminals? :rolleyes:

The guy was foiled and soiled. I came around the side of the house while he was under the truck. Can't elaborate more due to circumstances.

What I can say is this: was in 2021 three months after LE claimed they shut down the largest cat theft ring in SoCal history. Thefts did not skip a beat. Kept going on right under the noses. How targets were being cased or selected was what I believe LE did not know. They seemed to think it was just random hits. Trucks appear to be easy and quick since you can just crawl underneath them, no jacks involved.
The cordless cutoff saw this guy had was a diamond blade like you use on tile. Very quick and not loud like a reciprocating blade.

Who is going to question a local Utility fleet vehicle that drives around all day and thousands of people see them and do not even blink.

One year later a Federal bust took place where an etimated $38 million in stolen converters had been sold by two brothers to a recycler. The fence in turn sold the precious metal powders to a metal refinery for over $545 million.

$545 million is a lot of motive for thieves.

I sent it to a friend who does a lot of volunteer work with our city PD. He didn't think there was any follow up they could do since no laws were broken. I do think they watched us leave the house. I can't figure out why they then approached the front door though. We live on a corner and our front door is very visible to the street. The rear of the house is not.

Soo... Did you call the sheriff or coroner?

Now I'm convinced I need security cameras. I've been looking at outdoor wireless cameras. I need to cover 4 areas. I assume each camera needs WIFI access and I'm concerned that the wifi signal isn't strong enough in some areas where I want to put a camera. I need some way to measure the wifi signal in certain areas of the house.
I'm torn between the big two Nest and Ring, but I'm open to any other systems anyone can recommend and any suggestions as to the best affordable set-up for 4 outdoor cameras.

Use whatever smart phone that you have available.

You can use the "bars". I think that's what most phones display by default
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-v...1946556697.jpg

If that's not adequate
I think there are wifi signal strength apps available for Android (if it's not already built in).
And for Apple, you can download the "airport utility" (It's from Apple)
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252607588

I just gave it a shot and it worked. I disabled the wifi scanning in settings when I was done.

I installed two ring cameras. One on the garage that captures the whole driveway and one at the front door that shows anyone at the door. I could monitor my place when I was in England last summer and also make sure the gal that was feeding the cats was showing up. Only draw back is if the power goes out I have no internet and then no cameras.

Low tech, but I like my trail cameras. I have them writing high resolution .jpg files to the SD card.

Nest cam...
all is good...no robberies happening.
Click on 'enlarge screen' for proof.


<iframe type="text/html" frameborder="0" width="480" height="394" src="//video.nest.com/embedded/live/Q3cT1sZLTb?autoplay=1" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I’ve got six blink cameras covering the inside, outside and garage.

The garage camera gets the most action, because I check it to make sure I closed the garage door!😂

I use Blink as well. I have accumulated a lot of them over the years.

The wireless ones can go almost anywhere. I have them indoors and outdoors since I divide my time between a few homes. I can see if lights are on, if there are mice/snakes/bats moving around, etc. Outside, I can watch for prowlers, to see if a tree/limb hits my house, if we get a package left on the porch, if someone stops by and we are not at home, etc.

I mostly use the wired ones inside because they are cheap, but the wireless ones also relay the temperature so I can tell if my heat/cooling is working remotely (so I mix them). Inside, I generally don't even mount most of them because I move them around constantly to get the angle of what I need to observe...or move to another room or house. I set them on the floor or a shelf/countertop.

We see a lot of wild animals at night that one would never know are around. Usually racoons or foxes, but we were surprised at how often we had large bears on the front porch standing at our door late at night. It made me start being a bit more careful about going out in the dark without a light.

In one house, we do not even have a monitored alarm (as at the others) because they give us plenty of notice if anything happens (and can call the police ourselves). I think that having them in view is enough to keep most people/problems away. So far it has.

Pity you weren't at home.

There's nothing more satisfying than than running full speed outside jumping in the truck and going for a quick drive.