I wanted to share a story on how I used MotionEye (Pi surveillance software created by Calin Crisan) to catch a package thief this past holiday season.
During the holidays, the wife and I had 4 holiday packages stolen grossing more than $300.00 in losses. We own a condo and went to the association asking if we could set up a ring doorbell or a small non-invasive camera. We were told no because it would alter the exterior the building. Being a modder, I thought to myself that there had to be a way I could get around this without breaking the association policies and it dawned on me….
A door wreath!
Yes, I saw a holiday wreath on my neighbor’s door and thought that a disguised Pi camera would blend perfectly in the wreath.
So I got to modding…
After work, I stopped by my local Home Depot and Micro Center and picked up all the necessary hardware the get this thing started.
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Here's a how it looked when it was initially installed in the wreath. I moved the camera later and did a much better job hiding it.
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Here's a snap of how the system looked like from my PC (I added a second camera to cover both stairwells - sorry I should have taken a screen shot)
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I stashed a brick in an Amazon box and set the bait. 3 days later a local pizza delivery driver ripped off the package and fled the scene.
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I’m happy to report that the case just ended and the pizza delivery driver is awaiting sentencing for his crime.
Here are some bonus photos of my summer security wreath!
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Link to Calin Crisan’s page: https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneye/wiki