Installing Calving Cameras for the first time

If no WiFi then you need a 4g camera with a SIM card and a monthly plan.

There is a long thread here on same if you search.

I have a Reolink 4g camera and a data plan for a 10er a month with company 48. Works well and easy set up. Works fine in the dark also as it has night vision.

I have posted a few times in that thread on it if you have a look.

As said above, you have 2 main options, wifi bridge between house and shed; and a 4G camera linked to a sim card.

Pretty much all of them are relatively straightforward to install. There is lots of help and advice on here, so you'll not be stuck for long.

Most of the cameras will have night vision and so you will not need to leave a light on nor have a second camera. Consider though if a cow lies a certain way as to whether you'll have a blind spot.

Have you no lights in your calving pen at all? Maybe I misread above, but for safety reasons I'd make some lighting a priority too.

Ah OK, just read the first post as no light in shed.

Installing a smart switch along with a camera system can be useful to turn on lights if camera night vision is not showing enough detail.

The IR can degrade over time or sometimes just reflect a spiders web. Surprising too what detail sometimes can be missing with night vision versus lights on. My yard is 2.5KM away so I think the couple of euro for a smart switch is well worth it when it comes to the difference of staring at a screen wondering if I should hop in the Jeep or not.

Do you mean a wifi plug/switch. I had problems with my setup going offline maybe once or twice a month, tried a wifi switch on camera, didn't work. Had to install a gsm plug/switch to reboot the wifi to get it working remotely again.

As an aside would it be cheaper to get a 4g router and wifi cameras than the reolink camera if you are looking to install more than one camera in a shed with no wifi or bridge available? I've a 30 euro camera that has worked fine for the last few years.

Yes, I'm using WiFi switches, obviously if you are having issue with your WiFi dropping out then a WiFi switch won't be reliable.

If planning any extra internet connected equipment in the future than a separate 4G router and camera is a better idea alright. Also if sheds anywhere with line of sight of the house, then a WiFi bridge would make more sense.

a bit of info on link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWzcW1UNI0c

I got chatting to one of the cops at a show a few years where they had a few vehicles on display , it was able to read 4 plates per second with both vehicles travelling at 80kmh. he showed the differnt colours the screen flashed ranging from green , blue might out of tax etc up to bright red which would be dangerous criminals

I was just watching a weanling sale on line there for last couple of hours, I reckon a lot of the limousins would flash red.

I have afew of those routers

Any camera I have is 2.4.

I'd personally would stick with 2.4 as other gadgets I uses such as motion sensors are only 2.4 also

I made the mistake of buying a **** router once. Didn't take long to go down.. so I bought another tp link

so the phone you have is a network locked phone, eg a vodafone sim will only work in the phone, you need to borrow someone's phone that is unlocked and can take any network sim, when you do, you need to stick the sim in, go into settings and disable the sim pin, which is the 4 digit pin you enter when starting a phone after turning it off, it will be on the card you punched out the sim of.

you need to have the sim disabled, ie when you start a phone with the sim card in it, it won't ask for a 4 digit pin, otherwise you won't have internet