Barn Camera Systems That Work for Detached Garages Too
Here are 3 reliable solutions for a barn camera system that also work well for security cameras for a detached garage or other structure. CCTV Camera Pros has helped many customers that need to install one or more security cameras on the exterior or interior of their barn. Typically, customers want to be able to keep an eye on the animals in their barn from their house. Most customers also want to be able to check in on their animals when they are away from the property using a mobile app.
Planning a camera system for a barn has many of the same challenges as with detached garages and other structures. Here are a few of the most common challenges that we encounter, along with practical solutions.
The Key Questions: Power and Cable Access
There are two main factors to consider before planning your camera installation:
- Is power available in your barn or garage?
- Can you run network cable between the house and the detached structure?
Your answer to these questions determines the best route for installing cameras in your barn and connecting them to your home security camera system.
Solution 1: Barn Has Power, Network Cable Can Be Installed
This is the best-case scenario in my experience.
If your barn or garage has power and the distance to your house is less than 328 feet (the limit for Ethernet cable and Power over Ethernet or PoE), you only need to run a single Cat5e or Cat6 cable from your home’s network router to a PoE switch located in the detached building. This PoE switch will power your IP cameras and bring all their video feeds back to the house via the switch’s network uplink port.
For example, if you install an 8-port PoE switch in your barn, you can connect up to eight IP cameras—covering all angles both inside and outside. The switch’s uplink then runs back to the router in your house. Everything is neatly hardwired, robust, and ready for recording on your home’s NVR (Network Video Recorder).
You can connect a standard TV to the HDMI video output on the Viewtron IP camera NVR so that you always have a live video view of the animals in your barn.
Solution 2: Barn Does Not Have Power, But Cable Can Be Run
If there’s no power in the barn or garage, but you’re still within 328 feet, you can run individual Cat5e or Cat6 cables for each IP camera. Each camera would be directly hard wired from the PoE ports on your NVR in the house to each camera in the barn. Since there’s no power at the barn to run a PoE switch, each camera must have its own dedicated cable supplying both data and power from the NVR. For four cameras, that’s four cables. It’s more work, but absolutely doable and often worth the effort for a reliable hardwired connection.
CCTV Camera Pros has 4 channel, 8 channel, 16 channel, and 32 channel Viewtron NVRs available that have built-in PoE ports.
Solution 3: Cable Can Not Be Run, Barn Has Power
Sometimes, it’s simply impossible to run cable between your house and the barn, or the distance exceeds the max 328 foot distance that Ethernet can handle. In these situations, CCTV Camera Pros typically recommends this point-to-point wireless bridge for IP cameras.
With this solution, you mount a wireless antenna on the barn, pointing towards the house, and another antenna on the house pointing back at the barn. This creates a high-speed wireless bridge—the two buildings are now networked together.
Install a PoE switch in the barn, connect your IP cameras to the switch, then connect the switch’s uplink to the wireless bridge. The video feeds travel wirelessly back to the house, where your NVR does all the recording. While wireless is usually a last resort (I always recommend hardwiring if possible), this point-to-point WIFI system is very reliable when installed properly and has helped many of our customers monitor barns, detached garages and other outbuildings.
Viewtron AI Security Cameras
All three of the above solutions support all of the Viewtron IP cameras that we supply. If you would like to use human detection, vehicle detection, face detection / facial recognition, I highly recommend our Viewtron AI cameras. We also have some of the best license plate recognition cameras available.
Free Phone Consultations and Security Camera System Designs
If you need help designing a camera system for your barn, home, business or any other type of property, you can request a phone consultation here.
Video Transcript
Hey guys. Mike from CCTV Camera Pros here in this video I want to talk about some solutions for a barn camera or a security camera system for a detached garage. These situations pose the same challenge. Basically the idea is that you have a home and some type of detached structure like a barn or a garage. And we’ve helped a number of customers with, with barns and detached garages over the years to enable them to put one or more cameras on that detached structure and to be able to record the cameras back at the DVR that’s installed in their home. So the, the idea is that the, your house is where your Internet connection is and, and that’s where the recorder is going to be installed. But you want to keep an eye on the animals in your barn or, or your car that’s in the detached garage or workshop or whatever you have going on out there. So how can you do it? Two main factors.
Do you have any power in your barn or garage? And can you run cable, network cable between the house and the barn? Because the solutions here I’m talking about use IP cameras. So number one, let’s say you have both power available in your barn and you can run network cable, Cat 5 ear, Cat 6 cable, and it’s less than 328ft. The cable run between the, the house and the barn. Because 328ft is, is the limit for network cable and for power over Ethernet. If you have power at the barn and you can run cable, you can run a single Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable from the router, the network router in your house, to a POE switch in your barn. And that POE switch then can power one or more IP cameras that you install in or outside of your barn. So for example, if you install a 8 port poe switch in the barn, you can hardwire up to eight IP cameras back to that network switch and then use the, the network uplink port to connect the network back to your house. So the Cat 6 cable from the uplink port in the POE switch back to your network router at the house.
Okay, so that’s, that’s best case scenario in my opinion, that you have both power and you can run cable to the barn. Now let’s say that you don’t have any power in your barn, but you’re still 320ft or less to run cable from the house to the barn. Then what you could do is you can run a Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable, one for each IP camera in the barn, because each IP camera at the Barn is going to be hardwired back to the NVR at your house to one of the POE ports on your NVR. And all of our Viewtron IP camera NVRs have built in Poe. So you could just hardwire each camera back to the recorder. But in this case, being that you don’t have power at the barn, to power a POE switch you have to run one cable for each camera. So if you have four cameras, you have to run four network cables. Okay, option number three, let’s say you have power in your detached barn or a garage, but you cannot run cable, or the distance is greater than 328ft.
You can use one of our point to point wireless bridges. You have a wireless antenna on the barn pointing back at the house, and you have a wireless antenna on the house pointing towards the antenna at the barn. That creates a wireless bridge between the house and the barn. So now the house and the barn are basically networked together. On the barn side, you put a POE switch, you hardwire all of the cameras in your barn to the POE switch and then hardwire the uplink port of the, the POE switch to the wireless antenna. And now the signal from all those IP cameras can travel over that wireless bridge back to the house. And the IP camera NVR can connect to all those IP cameras basically over WI FI using that wireless bridge. And we’ve helped a lot of customers that have barns with the solution.
It’s really applicable to any detached structure. Anytime you want to wire a main structure to a, to another detached structure and those, those, those structures are not networked together, you can use one of our point to point wireless bridges. They work great, but I do only recommend them as a last resort if you cannot hardwire the network cable. Wireless is always a last resort option. Guys. Once you have this connected, you can use any of our Viewtron IP cameras with AI software built in. So you, so even if you’re using a, any of these solutions, the wireless bridge or the hardwired solution, you could take advantage of all the AI software object detection that’s built in, the human object detection, the facial recognition. That way you can trigger alerts if you have anyone that is, is entering those areas when you don’t want them to.
And you could be alerted being that the NVR is back at the house. You can keep an eye on all of the animals in your barn live from a TV at your house. And if you have Internet access back at the house location, of course you could set up remote Internet access so you could keep an eye on all your animals remotely over the Internet using like the Viewtron app for iPhone and Android, or the desktop software for Windows and Mac. Guys, if you have any questions related to the barn camera solutions I discussed in this video or anything related to video surveillance equipment, feel free to reach out to me directly. I could be reached at mike@viewtron.com if you want to learn more about these solutions that I’m talking about in this video, please visit www.viewtron.com/barn. Thank you for watching.
