If you wish to hide your security camera out of plain sight then you’ve come to the right article. This article will specifically teach you how to hide your security camera outside (as opposed to inside with your windows, doors, electrical sockets, stuffed toys, and so forth). You also need to purchase the best-hidden security cameras outdoors at your backyard or front yard for good measure to ensure you have a hard-wearing type of camera that can survive the elements.
With that said, here’s a handy guide to hide a security camera outside your home.
Why and How to Hide Security Cameras
There are a number of benefits you can get from hiding your security cameras—chief among them is avoiding vandalism.
- Burglar Protection: Burglars are less likely to spot or disable your security cameras if they’re hidden. While a visible security camera is a great deterrent against criminals, some ne’er-do-wells might attempt to take it down, damage, or block its lens. It can record footage that will serve as evidence in a police investigation, at that.
- Obvious versus Hidden Cameras: Many households opt to use both obvious and hidden camera solutions because they cover each other’s weaknesses and complement each other’s strengths. An obvious security camera deters some burglars from robbing the house while a hidden security camera keeps recording when said burglars attempt to block the vision of the obvious one.
- Legal Issues and Privacy Concerns: You will have fewer to no legal issues with a hidden security camera for the protection of your home. You’re not breaching the privacy of robbers by having those cameras around. Instead, you’re protecting yourself and gathering evidence against the robbers when they’re caught. They could even help in their capture by identifying them.
- No Wires Means Better Hiding Places: You also want to acquire a wireless hidden camera since wires will tip off the burglar where your camera is hidden. They also prevent destroying your home or yard aesthetics when push comes to shove. Not to mention, guests will find it more comfortable not traversing into multiple wires. It can certainly save you the trouble of doing cable management.
- Hidden Cameras That Connect to The Cloud: If you’re using Wi-Fi hidden cameras outdoors instead of indoors to serve as your nanny camera, then you should obviously place them in places outdoors where your Wi-Fi signal can still reach. They’re designed to upload the footage to the cloud or a virtual storage place you can access anytime on any device like a website.
Hiding Places
There is a number of security cam hiding places outdoors to choose from, which includes the following.
- Trees: The most obvious hiding place at your yard is the nearest tree. Just make sure of several things, including knowing where you’ve hidden it yourself so that you won’t lose the device. Even if it’s solar-powered, you need to change its battery from time to time as well as do occasional maintenance. Also, you should be aware that trees are usually the first place criminals will look for security cameras when push comes to shove. Trees can also provide you with a wide overhead view for good measure.
- Bushes: Next to trees, the most common hiding place of the security camera is the bushes. Like with trees, make sure you don’t lose the camera yourself or it’s stably installed amongst the leaves and branches of the bush so as to get a clear shot a la peephole. Just remember that unlike (most) trees, a bush is much denser with leaves, branches, and foliage, which tends to limit your camera’s viewing angles and range of sight, creating blind spots.
- PVC Pipes: Now we’re talking. PVC pipes are everywhere outdoors. Like how you can hide indoor security cameras into charge adapters, alarm clocks, and exterior lamps, you too can avail of certain outdoor security cameras that can camouflage themselves as PVC pipes or faucets and the like. Plumbing is hard for burglars to check and most of the time it’s the furthest thing in their mind to interfere with. They’re more concerned about breaking and entering your home and having an exit strategy.
- Bird Houses: Yes, this might mean your birds will have no temporary homes or nests for the time being, but a birdhouse is a common hiding place for a security game that’s also easy for you to remember and access. The fake birdhouse also comes with the added protection against the elements or weather changes, thus keeping your camera from malfunctioning due to being inundated with too much water to the point of flooding or something. It has its own roof over its head, so to speak.
- Under The Eaves: Speaking or roofs, another method of hiding your overhead security camera from burglars who might bash it with a crowbar or blot out its lenses with electrical tape is right under one of the eaves of your roof. Here, you can place wide-angled, motion-activated cameras to give you clear Full HD 1080p images instead of blurry 720p or even 480p footage with color night vision to help you make out various details like the face or plate number of the car being driven and whatnot.
- Nooks and Crannies: You can also hide additional hidden security cameras or mini cameras in various nooks and crannies in your home provided that you can keep tabs on where they are so that you can regularly change or recharge their batteries. Even if they’re hooked up to your home electrical grid so that they can regularly get electricity for 24/7 video capture, you should still be able to get to them and do light maintenance with them to ensure their longevity when push comes to shove.
Types of Hidden Camera
You can also buy a camera that’s designed to hide from plain sight, usually doubling as another device as in the case of the doorbell camera or floodlight camera.
- Doorbell Camera: The doorbell camera is all the rage nowadays, so it might not be as hidden as the other options on this list. However, it still counts here because it’s an outdoor camera placed on your patio. A doorbell camera can also double as several other devices, including a doorbell, an intercom thanks to its 2-way talk feature, and as a livestreaming method to keep tabs of your packages as they arrive on your doorstep.
- Lampposts and Lighting Fixtures: There are also Wi-Fi security cameras out there that double as lighting fixtures. This way, they can provide you overhead security camera action with the would-be burglars, trespassers, and package thieves none-the-wiser that they’re cameras in the first place. You can specifically order floodlight cameras that give you full-color footage of any burglaries and thievery in action with limited night vision and full motion detection when the floodlight is turned off.
- Security Cameras with Camouflage: If you want to hide your camera in the bushes and trees, then you need military-type camouflage to hide the cameras better. Most associate camo with the military, but it has its civilian uses as well. Some of these cameras don’t look like cameras at all, hiding them from plain view. The main detriment to them is keeping tabs where you hid them since they’re camouflaged. If they lack Wi-Fi capabilities and in-cloud recording, you might not be able to access their footage until you find them.
- Spy or Small Security Camera: You can hide security cameras outside easily when you have a small or spy cam. This way, you can directly place them under bushes, eaves, pipes, windowsills, outdoor shelves, near lawn decoration like lawn gnomes and jockeys, and so forth. They have no wire at all and they’re quite portable. However, as mentioned, their main problem is that they get lost easily, just like in the case of cameras with camouflage. Their smallness is both their advantage and disadvantage depending on the situation.
- Wired versus Wireless Cameras: Although wireless cameras are preferable, it can be a pain to recharge or replace their batteries every so often. There are many wired cameras out there that you can hide from plain sight anyway, like in the case of the floodlight camera and the doorbell camera. As long as the camera can double as another device, the wires won’t necessarily give out their location. Wires can be hidden underground or on the ceiling anyway. Otherwise, a wireless camera can be placed wherever there are no wires nearby.
Conclusion
The sky is the limit when it comes to hiding your security cameras outdoors as it is when hiding them indoors. It’s all about stealth but never forgetting the hiding place yourself. It should take a while before anyone could find your security camera and they should also end up attracting more attention to themselves when doing so, thus making the endeavor futile. Your camera choices for hidden cameras should be small yet high-quality with little blurring and possibly camouflage
There are many items and landmarks in your yard that can serve as viable hiding places for your outdoor yard or garage door camera. Then again, you should beware when it comes to the image quality and features of certain outdoor CCTV cameras. They’re much more limited than Wi-FI HD security cams.
References:
- Amanda Li, “How to Hide Security Cameras: Best Outdoor & Indoor Ideas 2020“, ReoLink, March 2, 2020
