Hello and thank you for any information in advance.
I am a guitar instructor and teach students of all ages in my home. I require the parents of anyone under the age of 18 to stay in the class and they generally would anyway, but once they become comfortable with me they generally will either wait outside or drop off then pick up their child.
My wife and I were chatting last night about protection in the event someone decided to try and claim inappropriate behavior. We both agreed that video with audio of all of the sessions stored for an undetermined period of time would be the most effective.
I’m looking for the most logical and cost effective way to do this. The Wyze products have great reviews and prices, but how can I store months or years of sessions locally vs. cloud storage, which seems understandably limited?
There’s a couple options I can think of without getting into RTSP firmware and a DVR. You could turn the camera on for each teaching session with the SD card set to continuous recording, and then as the SD card gets full, you could remove the card and transfer the videos to a storage device to save them. Then turn the camera off between classes. After using it a bit, you should be able to determine how many hours you get on an SD card before it gets full and starts to overwrite.
Another way, if you determine you get say a week on an SD card, would be to replace it once per week, but that would get expensive.
To be honest, don’t get a Wyzecam for this. They do not offer what you need.
You want something that is 100% reliable, and that you can archive footage for months / years, and it most likely would have to be for years.
Wyze does have limited recording ability, but, it isn’t always 100% reliable, and even with CMC, there is no easy way to offload the footage to archival backup.
Even with RTSP, it just isn’t 100% reliable.
I would say go for a professional surveillance system, then you wouldn’t have to worry about anything except the price, but, in the end, it is a FAR smaller price you would have to pay for the system than have to fight a frivolous lawsuit.
It is wise to take cautious steps to defend against false charges of inappropriate behavior. You may want to review regulations and/or statutes in your state that regulate or restrict AV recording without certain specific notifications to people that are being recorded.
Thank you all for the replies. I’m going to look at each of the options and see what makes the most sense.
I was thinking the same on the SD card with turning it on and off for the sessions then offloading it as it filled. My sessions will go back to back for a few hours each night, so I’m curious as to the space it would take up on the card.
I figured I would have a disclosure form for the students or parents to sign so they would know. Checking the regulations regarding that is a solid idea.
It will be interesting to how a professional service would compare in cost and storage capability. Any service in mind specifically?
Thanks again for your insight and recommendations. I truly appreciate it.
You know, they could also upload the vid (or stream) to youtube, and have it private so it isn’t open to the public…
A good webcam would also have much better picture & sound quality compared to the Wyzecam.
with a “professional service” most of the time that means active monitoring by that company.
you could probably get a small kit from best buy for 400ish$ that would record to a drive and you would be set. the drives can be terebytes in size so they would record A LOT and last as long as you want. even harbor freight sells a small surveillance kit with a dvr although I dont have the specs. for the cost vs benefit you can get a really good kit for cheaper than you could get a really good defense attorney. considering what it would be protecting and being used on a fairly limited basis, I would spring for a good setup and be protected. but make sure you consult an attorney first.
keep in mind how much state and federal law vary, I talked to my attorney before I put a call recorder on my phone because not all states have a one party consent law for recordings even though federal law is a one party consent. and that was just an app on a phone.
You could create a youtube account and stream from a cell phone or laptop with a camera (don’t advertise the youtube channel). Then when the session is over, log into the youtube account and set the video to “private”. You could also just download the video locally and delete it off youtube. Youtube accounts are free, I’ve streamed continuously for over two hours, but I’m not sure of the limit. The quality would depend on the camera & microphone you use.