How a Homeschool Family Tests a Video Surveillance Camera

My boys were standing with me when the Amazon Vine newsletter was released. This is an online list of products that are being offered to me. I can request usually two items to test. Most of the time these are books but on this day last month one item was a home or small business video security system, a video surveillance camera with video recording ability and a motion activation option.

My sons begged me to get it.

We already have a very good home security alarm with monitoring by a professional company. Well now we have a video system that we control! This is a small unit with one camera that retails for just under $300.

My twelve year old hooked it up in less than fifteen minutes. It was that easy.

The first test was done by doing live monitoring in the living room with the kids jumping around and walking past it. Fine and well.

The second test was testing the night vision by putting the camera inside a huge fort made using the couch and its cushions and blankets the kids took off their beds. One kid went inside and made faces while the other watched the television screen to see that indeed the camera has night vision and we can see in the dark.

The data card was defective and we could not record until we took the card out of my camera and changed the formatting to accept the video camera's data.

We set up the camera outdoors (it is an indoor/outdoor product). At night we placed a too-old piece of ham from Easter on the grass and set the camera to record by motion detection. We wondered what animal would come to eat the ham. We took bets, two of us said a raccoon and two of us said a coyote. (We have a coyote den in the neighborhood and it is seen in the morning by the kids waiting for the bus stop regularly.)

During that test is when we realized that the jack for the power was defective. By itself the thing loses its connection and goes on and off all by itself. The next morning the ham was gone but the only video that recorded was the first one when we put the ham there. I am not happy that this set has both a defective power jack and a non-functioning card for recording.

The next night we set the camera up for another test to see if we put food out what would eat it. On this night it was raining and the raindrops falling in front of the camera triggered the recording. This is NOT good. However we proceeded with the experiment. We put out a gingerbread cake that my son made from a recipe on the Internet that never said the baking time and pan size so it was partially raw.

This time the power stayed on and there were three videos of an opossum slowly nibbling around the edges, between 10pm and 11:30pm. Then at 11:41pm a coyote quickly dodged in and picked up the cake in its mouth and backed off. The cake started to slip so it paused and got a better grip on it before running away. The coyote looked skittish and it was fast. It was also small (like the experts say they are) not like a giant German Shepherd as my neighbor says she sees often.

The resolution on the video is not great and it shows motion as kind of a stop-start, jerky way. However when fiddling with the controls I saw an option to make the resolution better so that will be the next test. We decided to wait until the multiple days of rain stopped and to do another test with the better resolution using my son's gingerbread creation from Christmas--Percy Jackson's sword. This is glued with icing onto aluminum foil covered cardboard so if the coyote comes back he'll have a challenge to get it off so we can get a better look at him.

I'd also like to video the compost bin. I hardly get any finished compost from all the stuff we put into it. I suspect mice and possibly raccoons and opossums are eating from it. I know something is as the less edible stuff we put in is sometimes found 15 feet from it (corn husks, tops of pineapples).

So that is how this homeschool family tests a video surveillance security system!

Note: My BlogHer contract prohibits me from sharing the name of this product as it costs over $40. I think this story is acceptable since it doesn't tell the product name and therefore cannot be labeled as an advertisement or endorsement or a true product review.