Thinking of purchasing commercially available plastic camera enclosures for cold climate

[blskevin]

I have just ordered two base stations and 8 ultra cameras for my property in Alaska. One setup off of the business/shop building and one for the house a few hundred feet away.

My challenge is that it gets to be -30 here every winter.

Each camera is going to be plugged in 100% of the time, but the cameras will most assuredly shut down for much of the winter if I do not provide some heat.

I was thinking of buying commercially available plastic (not metal to avoid affecting the signal strength) camera enclosures and adapting the ARLO’s to fit, but was wondering if anyone has seen a meant for ARLO Ultra enclosure, or have a preferred solution.

I can’t be the first person to use these in a cold climate.

Thanks!

[TomMac]

Haven’t seen really any enclosure that work out of box... the couple commercial ones with heaters use glass fronts ( will not work thru glass ).

Also, tho the camera will operate to -14f, the battery will not charge if below 32f...

you may want  to pull the battery if always  on ac (not necessary but may help )

[jguerdat]

If they're always going to be plugged in, why not consider the Q cameras instead? They use pixel-change detection instead of PIRs so work through glass.

[blskevin]

While another camera might have been a better choice for sub freezing weather out of the box, the choice to use the Arlo Ultra has already been made. 

The cameras arrive today, and they have the features I want to augment the security system at my home based business.

 Dealing with cold temperatures is a challenge that all products in this environment face, I will just have to overcome it, and i have several months to get this figured out.

Right now I am inclined to use commercially available camera housings designed for cold weather and equipped with internal heaters. What I will probably do is create a gasketed cutout in the front of the enclosure exposing the face of the ultra camera. This will eliminate any issues with motion sensing and IR light transmission.

I am honestly hoping that some smart entrepreneur comes up with a solution this summer, but if no capable product is on the market, or comes to the market this is not insurmountable by any means. I just prefer to buy products as oposed to fabricating them in house. That said,  you never know I as a businessman might just to fill the market gap myself as a value added enterprise.

The path to a commercial product would be easy. Find a housing I like with a easy to remove front panel. Then have a local plastics fabricator make replacement front panels with the correct cutout. 

[TomMac]

Good luck, hope it works....

would be interested to know how it turns out

[ITNinja1]

Here is what we came up with for my families cameras in Montana. These are wooden bird houses and inside is a small low watt bulb which switches on once the temp drops. Heats the inside up and keeps the cameras warm all winter. The photo shows the inside with the front of the house removed. Been using this set up for several years now and haven't had any problems with cameras shutting down due to cold and signal strength is good. Multiple cameras outdoors that are as much as 100 yards away from a base station inside the house.

[blskevin]

 I LIKE the idea of wooden bird houses!

Radio waves pass through wood pretty well, and it’s something I can do in my shop.

THANKS!!!!

[ITNinja1]

No prob! One thing to take note, I'm not sure about the Ultra's but on the Pro2's we had to have the cameras stick out about an inch or so from the wood because the IR light would reflect and wash out the camera view at night. We just adjusted the thickness/amount of wood the camera mount had under it until the night view cleared up. We also mounted some Tandelux 80ft IR illuminators on the outside of the box which made all the difference in the world at night. They are cheap at $20 or so and have lasted years so far.