Well, flushed by the success of my QZT purchase, I decided to add another one to cover the back door and patio. Because it is on a different LAN, I can´t see the camera on my desktop Mac, but so what? I have a 10 year old iPad that Apple suggested they would scrap for me when I checked re a trade-in. It may be old, but it works ok and I can put it on the "foreign" LAN and the cameras show up on it - even set in a neat group or as solo pictures. An elegant (and mobile) solution, which actually is an improvement as I could never get the mobile part of the Mac App to work.
Now with the imminent demise of the front gate camera, I decided to get (yet) another QZT to cover that area. I might point out that they are a bit like these "ring" doorbell cameras, but without the bell, as they have two-way microphones built in, so you can talk to people - I guess they are really a sort of "gate-cam".
Anyway, I went on Amazon and ordered one at the weekend, and it was supposed to arrive yesterday. Then late-on, I received an email saying there was a problem with delivery and they would not be sending it and would refund the money. I was not too surprised as I had ordered one the same as my original camera and had noticed that the model had been upgraded when I received the second one. I went online and checked the screwed up order was the camera (I had a couple of other things on the way too - great value this Prime) and (I swear) it was the camera that was not coming, so I ordered another, and later model, from a different supplier.
As an aside - and in all the rush, I had forgotten the cameras need a micro-SD card installed to show video. G was going shopping, so I asked her to pick one up from the local electrical outlet named Worten (where I had bought them before). She went in, but found only empty shelves, so it looks like our largest home-entertainment retailer might be going out of business). Never mind, El Corte Ingles is much more my style - but so is Amazon, so I ordered one online.
Late this morning a white van came to the gate, so I went out to get the goods - and it turned out to be the original camera order (I knew immediately as it was a different colour as well as model). What the hell. I set to to install it, but immediately ran into problems. Guessing it might be the ethernet cable (supplied solely for set-up purposes), I changed that - but still no joy. Took off the (also supplied) power line extension and it finally worked. Trouble is I now only have a short lead and need about six feet (in old money, that is).
Tested the extension and discovered that it was one of the end connectors that was duff - and typically the socket-one for which I do not have a replacement, so I was now in a position where I would have to do some cutting and splicing (never easy with thin cable).
I installed the camera anyway, just to test it out you see, and found it was good - so I really mounted it and used the extension with it´s (now removed) dodgy end.
Oops.
I now have my beautifully mounted camera and tucked-in cable, but I realsie I do not know which of the two strands would be the postitive (and that is important!). I toyed with tossing a coin, but then thought I should be vaguely professional and looked on the web to see if there are any standards, as one of the identical black wires had some vague grey blotches on it. According to my research, that means it is the positive, so I connected it up that way.
But then, being a suspicious person, I wasn´t totally convinced of the web info, so undid part of the cable installation to check the polarity. It was good. All installed. Working. Sending alerts of movements. In camera group on ancient iPad. Brilliant.
Now I just have to add the microSD when it arrives.
.... and work out where to hide the additional camera which may well appear tomorrow!
.... and then source yet another microSD card for that one
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