Hello,
I am planning to deploy my first surveillance system at home. The objective is to detect intruders in the garden at night. All the electronics will be inside the house.
I was first looking at mmwave detectors but was advised to give night vision cameras a try (not raspberry pi, but regular finished product consumer-oriented ones, specifically tp-link models). I do have experience with raspberry pi cameras but not with night vision ones, and even less with outdoor use.
Before I start investing in hardware, wanted to ask here what would be the advantages or disadvantages of raspberry pi cameras vs standard surveillance cameras.
I know performance and features of the later ones vary enormously, but I am looking at the, say, 50 euros/USD max. segment, i.e. Tapo C320WS or Tapo C310.
I am not interested in, for instance, full color or being able to identify the intruder or stuff like that, but more on intruder detection, how far will I be able to see something (I need a minimum of 5 meters in near complete darkness), sensitivity in general (will I need IR lights for either in complete darkness?), this sort of things.
The objective is to have the system running on raspberry pi, it is just the cameras I am asking about.
In principle, at 30-50 eur/camera, the tp-link cameras seem difficult to beat, but I am afraid I will find too much proprietary stuff that makes working with raspberry pi a nightmare.
On the raspberry pi camera side, I am concerned that, not being designed for this purpose, I won’t be able to see anything beyond a couple of meters. But to be honest, I have no idea….
Any experience or advice is welcome, thanks.
I am planning to deploy my first surveillance system at home. The objective is to detect intruders in the garden at night. All the electronics will be inside the house.
I was first looking at mmwave detectors but was advised to give night vision cameras a try (not raspberry pi, but regular finished product consumer-oriented ones, specifically tp-link models). I do have experience with raspberry pi cameras but not with night vision ones, and even less with outdoor use.
Before I start investing in hardware, wanted to ask here what would be the advantages or disadvantages of raspberry pi cameras vs standard surveillance cameras.
I know performance and features of the later ones vary enormously, but I am looking at the, say, 50 euros/USD max. segment, i.e. Tapo C320WS or Tapo C310.
I am not interested in, for instance, full color or being able to identify the intruder or stuff like that, but more on intruder detection, how far will I be able to see something (I need a minimum of 5 meters in near complete darkness), sensitivity in general (will I need IR lights for either in complete darkness?), this sort of things.
The objective is to have the system running on raspberry pi, it is just the cameras I am asking about.
In principle, at 30-50 eur/camera, the tp-link cameras seem difficult to beat, but I am afraid I will find too much proprietary stuff that makes working with raspberry pi a nightmare.
On the raspberry pi camera side, I am concerned that, not being designed for this purpose, I won’t be able to see anything beyond a couple of meters. But to be honest, I have no idea….
Any experience or advice is welcome, thanks.
Statistics: Posted by M.Ramone — Mon Oct 20, 2025 11:45 am