My new idea for a deck/cockpit camera, anybody do this yet

[PuttingDoctor]

I like the idea and have my B&G Zeus2 12T at the helm with 2 video inputs. I’ve a pair of PTZ security cameras not yet installed that I will be able to use with great versatility.
My plan is to mount on port side at spreader height for help anchoring or docking. The second camera may mount on my arch to starboard to keep an eye on the dinghy when in the water at anchor.
My music / video is controlled from the plotter, phone, iPad or direct from the head unit. It’s a Fusion AV-750.

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by Dogscout

So that when I hear something going on the deck I can see what is happening before unlocking and opening the companionway.

Okay, so you must boat in location that you perceive as dangerous.

It is just I have never locked a companionway or a hatch unless I was leaving the boat unattended for an extended period, typically both are left open unless it is raining, or the seas are heavy while transiting.

Ditto, for when back on land, seven doors leading outside our second residence and they all are eventually become unlocked and generally left unlocked unless we depart town for an extended period of time, never to just go away for a few hours, often with a couple kept open to aid in breeze moving through the home. [Except during winter or when the temperature drops to say, fifty or below during the day.] Sure the odd animal wonders in and out on occasion, e.g., cat / raccoon, and there has been a few times when a drunken stranger has wander into the home late at night after the bars closed downtown. I recall one was looking for some rhubarb in order to cook a pie at 3AM, we did have a nice plant in the backyard to gather some, but none in the kitchen where I located him, rather humorous situations needing assistance to be helped back out of the yard. Nice enough guys, just a bit bewildered. I recall the first wayward stranger replying to me when I asked in the dark who was in our home: "Oh, sorry I did not know you were home." To the best of my knowledge, we had never meet before. You could smell the alcohol on their breath from the length of the home, so no reason for fear or anger. Just a friendly chat and then seeing them on there way. Whereas late one night, my wife awakened hearing noises from the kitchen and then upon investigating the sound she found a cute skunk rummaging in the pantry, that kind of unsettled her, so she returned to bed, awakened me and asked me to go send it on its way. She does similarly when we are camping and thinks she hears a bear outside the tent. Of course our two "watch dogs" slept right through the whole skunk in the home incident, until after I had shooed it on its way and closed the doors so it would not be tempted to reenter. So far the bear and mountain lion have only ventured onto the porches and not inside the open doors, or at least we haven't awakened to one inside, YET. A large mule deer buck repeatedly tried to enter in the Fall before the rut, one year but his tall and impressive antler rack kept clanging on the top of the doorway and inhibited his travel into the hallway. The major difficulty in having a deer in your home is that they will try to jump through a window to get out instead of finding the doorway. Our primary residence just has two doors leading outside direct shot across the width of the house so leaving them wide open allows for nice tunnel of breeze; one just needs to prop them open so as to not have the breeze slam them shut which is sure to awaken you with a startle. But then one soon figures it out that one of the doors closed abruptly in a gust, and we just roll over and go back to sleep. As for our remote cabins in the mountains, they are never locked, if someone needs shelter they are welcome to enter; the long practiced etiquette for strangers in Montaña being that if one dirties dishes or pots and pans in someone else's home that one cleans them and puts them away before departing. And it is not perceived to be good form to drink a lot of someones liquor, at least not the expensive stuff. We do wish that the stranger that repeatedly visited our southwest home while we were away, would have turned off the television after having watched Netflix and had turned the heat down so as to not have incurred as larger power bill heating the home to over 50 degrees in our absence. I recall it was a bit odd to see the Netflix account for that second home being listed as active when we were logging in to Netflix on the account for our primary residence. Well at least the stranger had rather similar interests in types of shows, except the episodes that we had watched were before the one's the stranger was bing watching so we had to go back a bit in the auto-selections, the stranger being ahead of our binge watching of a series. The stranger used up the last of our microwave popcorn without replacing it with additional stock which was an annoyance when we returned and wanted to watch shows and snack on popcorn and found we had none. Kind of inconsiderate of the stranger(s) to not have renewed the stock.

[Reefmagnet]

I think the forest has been missed due to the trees. I think the OP is wanting a camera, not so much a music player. If this is the case, check your MFD manual as many now have the ability to connect a camera or two to the display.



Having a camera in the mast is a handy idea. It lets you use it as a docking camera if your view from the helm is restricted or can used to line up with mooring apparatus or can be used for monitoring the anchor retrieval or for keeping an eye out for coral heads or....

[joelhemington]

Originally Posted by Montanan

Okay, so you must boat in location that you perceive as dangerous.

It is just I have never locked a companionway or a hatch unless I was leaving the boat unattended for an extended period, typically both are left open unless it is raining, or the seas are heavy while transiting.

Ditto, for when back on land, seven doors leading outside our second residence and they all are eventually become unlocked and generally left unlocked unless we depart town for an extended period of time, never to just go away for a few hours, often with a couple kept open to aid in breeze moving through the home. [Except during winter or when the temperature drops to say, fifty or below during the day.] Sure the odd animal wonders in and out on occasion, e.g., cat / raccoon, and there has been a few times when a drunken stranger has wander into the home late at night after the bars closed downtown. I recall one was looking for some rhubarb in order to cook a pie at 3AM, we did have a nice plant in the backyard to gather some, but none in the kitchen where I located him, rather humorous situations needing assistance to be helped back out of the yard. Nice enough guys, just a bit bewildered. I recall the first wayward stranger replying to me when I asked in the dark who was in our home: "Oh, sorry I did not know you were home." To the best of my knowledge, we had never meet before. You could smell the alcohol on their breath from the length of the home, so no reason for fear or anger. Just a friendly chat and then seeing them on there way. Whereas late one night, my wife awakened hearing noises from the kitchen and then upon investigating the sound she found a cute skunk rummaging in the pantry, that kind of unsettled her, so she returned to bed, awakened me and asked me to go send it on its way. She does similarly when we are camping and thinks she hears a bear outside the tent. Of course our two "watch dogs" slept right through the whole skunk in the home incident, until after I had shooed it on its way and closed the doors so it would not be tempted to reenter. So far the bear and mountain lion have only ventured onto the porches and not inside the open doors, or at least we haven't awakened to one inside, YET. A large mule deer buck repeatedly tried to enter in the Fall before the rut, one year but his tall and impressive antler rack kept clanging on the top of the doorway and inhibited his travel into the hallway. The major difficulty in having a deer in your home is that they will try to jump through a window to get out instead of finding the doorway. Our primary residence just has two doors leading outside direct shot across the width of the house so leaving them wide open allows for nice tunnel of breeze; one just needs to prop them open so as to not have the breeze slam them shut which is sure to awaken you with a startle. But then one soon figures it out that one of the doors closed abruptly in a gust, and we just roll over and go back to sleep. As for our remote cabins in the mountains, they are never locked, if someone needs shelter they are welcome to enter; the long practiced etiquette for strangers in Montaña being that if one dirties dishes or pots and pans in someone else's home that one cleans them and puts them away before departing. And it is not perceived to be good form to drink a lot of someones liquor, at least not the expensive stuff. We do wish that the stranger that repeatedly visited our southwest home while we were away, would have turned off the television after having watched Netflix and had turned the heat down so as to not have incurred as larger power bill heating the home to over 50 degrees in our absence. I recall it was a bit odd to see the Netflix account for that second home being listed as active when we were logging in to Netflix on the account for our primary residence. Well at least the stranger had rather similar interests in types of shows, except the episodes that we had watched were before the one's the stranger was bing watching so we had to go back a bit in the auto-selections, the stranger being ahead of our binge watching of a series. The stranger used up the last of our microwave popcorn without replacing it with additional stock which was an annoyance when we returned and wanted to watch shows and snack on popcorn and found we had none. Kind of inconsiderate of the stranger(s) to not have renewed the stock.

I think you're lucky the dogs slept through the skunk incident. It seems like there are Grizzlies in Montana which might alarm me - black bears not so much and mountain lions are a whole different problem - think I might rather deal with the Griz

[Catboat Willy]

To answer your question; yes we have seen that done. There is a boat in the yard now that has a-top-of the-mast mounted camera. It's an older set up and the camera looks like a coffee can stuck on the top of the mast. The boat's owner claims that it aids him when solo sailing and picking up a mooring. The camera's display is shown in the cockpit. Is it worth the effort ? The owner claims, 'He would not be without it'
de....W2CWL

[bcboomer]

The camera up the mast sounds intriguing for docking. I have a damaged eye so don't have depth perception anymore. Really frustrating when docking as I can't judge closing speed worth a crap.
A bird's eye view might be a really good solution.

[Dogscout]

Everyone. First thanks for all the discussion and wildlife stories. I have seen a Griz in the wild and do not want to encounter one up close. But thats a different problem.

So again, with some clarity. I am replacing my electronics and there will be a new Vulcan 12" plotter at the helm. No plotter at the nav desk, but I will have a tablet inside the boat to display whats going on. I no longer own any Compact Disks and I stream music with a phone or tablet. I have interior and cockpit speakers.

The car radio head unit with back-up camera screen would be mounted at the nav desk inside. This allows me to plug in a USB or stream via BT to the existing speakers thus eliminating the BT speakers that always seem to need recharged. The camera would be mounted to show the deck or the cockpit. Its is for security.

So you hear some numbnut up on deck and you wonder if its you friend or foe. A simple look at the radio screen confirms its a friend and you make drinks or its a foe and you grab the baseball bat.

Has anyone else done this?

Further; I like the idea of a up mast forward facing camera that can be displayed on the plotter. I will look into that also.

[Bunter]

The original poster was attempting to install a security camera by using a car radio that is equiped with a connection for a back up camera.

A better option would be using something like Nest or for that matter a Ring unit that streams to portable devices and retention of 7 days of streaming video via CPU and NAS unit.

[lucseawalker]

Can you tell me more how you control all speakers?



We have 10 speakers in three locations on our boat (forward cabin, main cabin, on-deck), some quite large. They are driven by a Pioneer car stereo and 300watt amp (which can be switched off). Each set of speakers can be controlled from the central location or using a remote.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by lucseawalker

Can you tell me more how you control all speakers?

We have 10 speakers in three locations on our boat (forward cabin, main cabin, on-deck), some quite large. They are driven by a Pioneer car stereo and 300watt amp (which can be switched off). Each set of speakers can be controlled from the central location or using a remote.

A person could install a multiple speaker control box at the central location but we have kept it really simple and avoided another unit.

We use the head unit (or remote control which came with it) to control volume in general. We use the fader to shift between forward or rear which determines if the forward cabin or the main cabin (or both) have music and relative volume. We of course use balance (left or right) which applies to everything. There is a small switch box I installed which a) turns on or off the outside speakers and b) turns on or off the main cabin speakers, left or right. This last function allows loud outside speakers but no or lower sound in the main cabin. The four main cabin speakers and the 8" woofers all work together (except for balance), but the woofers are on the sub-woofer output of the head unit and that can be switched off but I've never done it. However, I do use the built in "EQ" or base/treble to increase or decrease the woofer volume.

Previously I had a separate mixer/equalizer with multiple outputs and controls for everything which looked cool but I wanted to simplify.

Mostly what we really do now is "turn it up", "turn it down" , or "turn the outside speakers on (or off)" but I do have more flexibility. For example if I am outside and have music on and Judy wants quiet in the main cabin, which cannot be accomplished with the head unit since they are both on rear I just tell her to turn off one or both of the main cabin speakers (right or left) with the switches.

[sagablu]

Perhaps this will work?

https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Wirel...3-f4fdf0022c7a

[SV__Grace]

PO of our boat installed 3 cameras, two are just basic Swan security cameras, one on top of the mast, one in a thru hull under water (not a Swan), and one in the engine room. He had them displayed in the boat's TV.

The mast camera broke off before we got the boat, and during our refit the electrician connected the underwater and engine room cameras to our new B&G Zeus3 12" chartplotter.

In practice, they're cool, but we never use them!

We got a Ring wireless security camera to monitor our boat when we leave it in a sketchy area or I'm nervous about the anchor dragging while we're off the boat. If we're at a dock I aim the camera at the companionway, if we're at anchor I aim it at the chartplotter. Requires an internet connection so we leave our iPad on, tethered to the camera.

I can set motion sensing alerts and view the camera real time on my iphone. It has recording capability with remote viewing of the recordings, but that requires a monthly subscription and we don't use it enough to justify the cost.

[Lost Horizons]

Originally Posted by Discovery 15797

WRT to wireless speakers...For me, the biggest advantage of the bluetooth speakers was mobility.

I suppose, poor quality of music does not concern you?

[SOLAR SUPPORT]

To listen Music with an old streo which you don't want to replace it with a new one..

This small Bluetooth device require only an auxin port on the existing stereo. Just connect it to your stereo with a mic 3.5 mm Jack (included). No battery required, USB connected for power. Music send via Bluetooth from your or others' cell Phone.

There are too many water proof cameras on the market which can be attached temporarly to your pull pit or push pit which can send video stream through wifi to your cell Phone..

[lucseawalker]

Thank you for the extra details .... it looks as it is close but not quite what i have rigged for many now ... but that i would like to improve


I have also a car stereo with amplifier but it is only a 2-channel. I installed 4 pairs of speakers each with a simple on/off switch ...


But I have been looking forever for separate mixer/equalizer with multiple outputs and controls so I can actually adjust the sound volume individually (at least each of the 4 pairs ... but i never found something running on 12vdc ... I have thought about getting potentiometer to add to the 4 switches on my made up box.


I would be interested to know more about the unit you used to have as perhaps for me it would be less complicated than playing with the radio controls .. especially that the remote does not work anymore (and the problem does not seem to be the remote but the radio ...


Any chance you remember model/brand and any comments?


Tnx