I have a detached garage about 100 feet from my house, but I don’t have access to it per my lease. My cars are parked near it, and I’ve already had people messing with them.
I want to install a camera above my cars to catch anything happening, but I don’t know the best way to power it. A floodlight would be ideal, but without power in the garage, that might not work. I don’t want to rely on battery-powered cameras because I feel like motion detection and lights don’t work as well when running on batteries or solar.
Would it be a bad idea to run an extension cord and plug the camera into a Wi-Fi outlet? Are there better ways to get power to a camera in this setup? Any suggestions?
Running a 100-foot extension cord from a house you don’t own to a garage you don’t have access to isn’t a good idea. It’s risky and not very secure.
If you have a clear view of the garage from your house, consider installing a varifocal zoom camera on your house and pointing it toward your cars. Something like the Amcrest 4K POE or Reolink RLC-811A would work.
Another option is running a direct burial Ethernet cable with Power over Ethernet (PoE). A CAT6, UV-resistant, pure copper Ethernet cable can power a PoE camera without needing Wi-Fi or a separate power line. It’s safer and more reliable than an extension cord, and you can get PoE cameras with built-in floodlights and alarms if you want extra deterrence.
PoE stands for Power over Ethernet. Instead of needing a separate power source, the camera gets power through an Ethernet cable. You connect one end to the camera and the other to a PoE switch, NVR, or injector. This way, you don’t need a power outlet near the camera.
Since you can’t properly install anything in the garage, your best bet might be a battery/solar-powered floodlight to act as a deterrent. A fake ‘dummy’ camera with infrared lights could also help scare off intruders.