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As we often like to mention, our tiny wireless bird box camera kits are an ideal Christmas gift, and fly off the shelves in this season, ready to be installed before the birds move back into nesting boxes in the Spring. And now that we’ve upgraded each camera’s sensor to 700TVL they are more popular than ever! As people get their camera’s up and running, one question that we’re often asked is whether it is possible to get a second camera that can run using the same system? This would allow them to have multiple boxes in one garden, or even have them installed in a larger container such as a Rabbit run. Luckily, this is indeed possible, but the best way to achieve it depends on the type of camera you are using…
Adding additional cameras to our wireless kits is actually incredibly easy and cost effective. Each kit comprises of a wireless camera that transmits, and a wireless receiver to pick up it’s video. As our receivers can pick up signal from any one of 4 different wireless channels, this lets you use up to 4 different cameras just with the standard receiver. With this in mind, we also stock the camera by itself– just add up to 3 of them to use with your existing kit! This is not only the case for our standard wireless receivers, but also for our combined receiver and SD card DVR, which lets you record footage without having to use an external device.
There is one caveat with this however. Whilst both of these devices can work on 4 different channels, it’s important to remember that they can only connect to one channel at a time. This means that you will have to manually switch channels on the receiver in order to view different cameras, or- in the case of our SD recorder- set it to automatically cycle through them. It’s also worth mentioning that as you use more of the available channels, there is a higher risk of wireless interference, so it may not be possible to achieve if your kit is in an area with lots of wifi activity.
In some ways it is simpler to expand your kit if you are using our wired cameras, as there are no receivers to worry about- you just need to buy another camera! Most TVs however will only have one set of plugs to connect them to, so you will need some kind of device that you can plug more than one camera in to. The easiest and cheapest solution for this is to use one of our Quad Video Processors. This unassuming white box can connect to up to 4 wired cameras, and then in to your TV. This lets you view all 4 cameras as a quad view splitscreen, or alternatively change between them in full screen mode.
In addition to our traditional wired and wireless models, 2016 also brings a brand new range- our first HD IP Bird Box Cameras! These are digital cameras that work by sending video as data down a network cable to your router. You can then view them on any PC connected to the network, or even view them on a tablet or mobile device from anywhere using an app. And what’s more, it’s really easy to expand a system by adding multiple cameras, just connect them all to a network switch attached to your router. This helps manage the data, and provides an easy central location for the wiring. You can actually monitor up to 64 cameras on one network…but this might be restricted a tad by bandwidth!
