Nestbox with "safe" live stream? (2 Viewers)

[Gardine]

Hi there,

im planning to buy a new nestbox with a camera or just upgrade my existing one with a camera in order to watch the birds in my garden even if it's cold outside or I'm not home.
For this, I need a camera with a live stream feature.

Unfortunately, all the cameras I found so far are either harmful to most birds (LEDs, regularly noises) or running via chinese apps that need a lot of permissions (Gallery, Contacts, etc) for no reason at all.

Do you have any experience with this? Every help/opinion is appreciated

Thanks in advance!

 

[Kits]

Welcome to Birdforum. I hope you enjoy your visits. We have a nest box camera but it just streams to the television.

 

[Gardine]

Thank you @Kits! Been here for a while but more as a silent viewer

The stream to the television works with some kind of receiver right? Or do you have a smart TV application for that?

 

[delia todd]

Hi Gardine and a warm welcome to you from all the Staff and Moderators.

I'm sure you will enjoy it here and I look forward to hearing your news. No doubt someone will soon be along with information about the latest options for you.

 

[Mono]

The "old fashioned" style of nest box camera simply sent their signal direct to the TV via a video cable. No networking or fanciness involved you just plugged it in. You can still buy such cameras but be wary as a lot of modern TVs don't have the necessary inputs, you would have to mess about with adapters.

Such cameras would not allow you to monitor a nest box while out and about they just send signal to a single TV. There are many cameras available nowadays that will send their signal to computer network via WiFi or via cable. The more user friendly ones will often be used with a dedicated phone app, but you can get ones that work with Alexa or Google Home if you use such a setup. If you are more tech savvy then you can set up such cameras to broadcast to the world via the web and be accessible via any browser no phone permissions required. You can also go down the YouTube route for live streaming.

Practicality wise you will need to run cabling out to the camera, a 24/7 nest box camera with infrared lights will eat up batteries. You could go for rechargeables with a solar charger but you can buy an awful lot of cable for the price of such a set up.

Can't give you specific recommendations as to kit as the market is very fluid with new products coming onto the market all the time.

 

[Kits]

Oh gosh, I have no idea how it works, sorry! I know there is a cable from a plug in the house to the nest box on the outside wall and there is a cable which is plugged in somewhere to the television which is in a different room from the nest box cable plug. We've had it for some years so I am sure there are more up to date ones available now.