I 've retired to a gated, wooded, mountain community in NGA. For good reason we have strict "burn policies." Grills and smokers are allowed but have to be "attended," which is sorta difficult when you're slow smoking a couple of butts or briskets. Anybody had good or bad experiences with a moderately priced video camera that I could aim at the smoker and then follow on a small monitor when I need or want to be inside? Or do you have a better idea?
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Yeah, I do this. I've used two cameras and neither was perfect. I use them to monitor my controller. Here's the one I use now. It had a lot of setup restrictions like no special characters in the wifi password and no 5G none of which was mentioned in the instructions. But now that it's set up it works well, it's small, and it's inexpensive at $19.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The other one I used was $50 IIRC and it could pan and tilt. Maybe that's a feature you would want. However when I changed my WiFi password and needed to reset the device the reset button glued to the circuit board fell off and so now I use the camera pictured above instead.-
I just checked this 1 out on Amazon. I wish it could tilt. But I'll trade that off for the motion detector feature. We love living where we often see deer, bears, wild turkeys, hawks, etc. But bears have been known to break thru garage doors and screen porch doors in the NGA mountains to get to what smells good. Many of us keep a bear whistle and compressed air horn nearby to scare them away.
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The only monitor I need is for my garage fridge, damn beer thieves
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You are lucky I don't live by you ... I have seen what you can cook ...I would be way more interested is stealing from the grill than the beer fridge!! Troutman
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No help here. While I can understand the attraction of retirement communities, gated communities, I'm hoping to get away from rules, etc when I hang it up. I might have to buy an old offshore oil rig or move out of the country.
Some basic rules based on common sense I'm Ok with. If you get set up with a camera do you have to stare at it all the time? I hope not.
Welcome to the pit! Send us photos of your goodies. North Georgia is beautiful. I assume that is what NGA means.Comment
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I like the camera posted above with the motion detector feature. I don't plan to spend hours watching a monitor. I got clarification that "attended" applies to open fires - pits, trash, etc - not to grills, which is a relief. Still, on a low and slow cook out on the driveway I want to know if a black bear decides to check out what's cooking. Love the picture of your catch! -
dbjbuzzy Glad to hear you don't have to stare at your grill. What a relief. I'm sure glad we don't have those pesky bears where I live. Cute, but pesky non the less. Get yourself a paintball gun and keep it loaded and handy except for the CO2 propellant. If you see a bear in your yard, pepper its behind. That should be enough to keep its buttocks out of your yard and it is humane.
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Yeah, I need something visual. I'm a long time BBQ Guru guy, so watching temps has never been a problem. I just need something that I can see, or that has a motion detector that will let me know if Mama or Papa Bear come sniffing around. I've found some options at Amazon.Comment
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dbjbuzzy , you mentioned having concerns about bears with your smokers.
We live in the mountains as well, and black bears are all around. They've never bothered my smokers because, I think, the smoke warns them away. That's my working theory. Plenty of folks here, though, have had their grills attacked because they failed to clean them at the end of a cook, but never a smoker.
Two weeks ago, bear took our bear-proof trash can, lock stock and barrel, back to his den (our naturalist followed the scrape/drag marks). I'm guessing he wanted a sleep buddy because there's no way he's going to be able to unlock that can.
He may eventually chew through it. If so, I hope he enjoys the dirty diapers inside, since our little granddaughter and her folks were visiting at the time.
Seriously though, have folks in your community had trouble with smokers and bears? I'm curious.
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I did something similar back when I did long-exposure automated astrophotography. Down here, it gets really muggy and hot during the summer nights, so I'd much rather be monitoring the status of 'scope from my air-conditioned office.
I used an inexpensive wireless nightime (i.e. infrared) security camera on a tripod. It had a receiver/digitizer (USB) that plugged into a computer. It worked really well. I am sure more modern cameras -- wifi, better video -- would work even better.
Just like with wireless temperature probes on smokers, my telescope had electronic sensors as well, but nothing put me as ease more than a real-time video of what the scope looked like at that very moment.
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