In need of reliable but cheap webcams

ATM my friend lives in an apartment where someone has the master key. We’re going to change his lock, but we want to put up some cameras just in case. My friend isn’t exactly wealthy, nor money conscious, so 360p / 480p cams that won’t just overheat and die is kinda the goal.

We can’t put holes in the walls other than something like a nail, so I’m going to rig up some command strip mounts. One will be in his bedroom, one in his living room, and if we can help it, on the peephole at his door.

Thanks.

Even complete garbage webcams are like 50,- bucks right now. Honestly, think of a solution without those.

Hmmm… Even the creative labs ones that look like bad 90’s cmos cameras?

Hmmmmm…

I wonder if I could use line balanced LVDS cameras then… They’d be easier to hied and could all be run off a pi 2 or pi 1…

Hmf. Well if anyone has some jank logic ideas please share them.

Edit: Off course it is backorder/unavailable…

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@THEKitchenSINK know any shitty but good enough to not die cams on china / taiwan sites?

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Hack an old phone?

Old laptops, too. Four wires match the four USB pins, and you’re in business.

What we’re trying to avoid overall is things getting stolen. It wouldn’t be great if the cameras were stolen XD

Also taping a phone to the door would be kinna rank.

Just on LVDS? Or eDP?

I’ve seen it on both. This varies by manufacturer - I’ve seen it be a dedicated wire, but not commonly.

Hey, I’ve got a work laptop from 2005 at my desk right now. I’m going to pop it open for funsies since it overheated in spectacular fashion.

As for theft, I’m of less help there. At least laptop cams will look like garbage?

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More to the point, they are easily hideable

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Picture frames work nicely aswell.
Have a black dot in every corner, except one is a lens.

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If you’re looking for cheap cameras my suggestion is to find the old Playstation Eye cameras on Ebay. They cost 10-20$ or even less a piece and works much better than you might think. They work out of the box on Motioneye for the Raspberry Pi and have a metal base that allows them to be mounted on a wall if you stick a powerful enough magnet on it.

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theres a binch but they have been selling like hot cakes sense covid no matter the camera its a mess firewire is left alone because of usability there are really good cameras that use the firewire interface

i cant tell if you will get a camera in a year from ali express

usb cams are going way over priced

even rpi cameras like above 40-50-60-70$ in the end

like a pcie 1x firewire+usb card there are alot of non focusing cameras to keep the background blury and looks slightly nicer with soft lighting making it hard to id the background

also adding a downward or forward blue/white light will help the camera w/o auto focus clean up faces and fine objects with in the focus

you can find cheaper laptops with a web cam and gut them then buying cameras

lvds and like cameras are not cheap because of trends companies making a quick buck on shit 1080 cameras

this current market is basically if you can wait on prices to drop do it other wise get gouged fucker

Those were solid 480p and had built in motion detection… I have one on hand, I’ll play with that.

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The entire apartment is white I don’t think that’ll be an issue.

Yeah, I’ve used one for cheapo surveilance staying on for days and days and never gave me any issue. I think they’re the ones you’re looking for, given also the current situation.

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