Improving night vision range

[bigboost]

Hello all, 

Just put up my 4 cam Arlo system and I'm pretty impressed, I like it alot, but had a few questions.

Are there any tricks to improving the night vision distance? I put several of my cameras near the top of my metal building (12ft walls) to try to capture the back yard and due to them being so high the night vision barely works, same with the one inside the shop, its dark with the doors closed even during the day so its practically useless in current state.

I've been thinking about putting a motion light directly under the camera so it would turn on the same time the camera detects motion, or installing a lowever voltage light that just puts out a small amount of light that I can leave on all night to help illuminate.

I know there is nothing you can do to the camera, was just wondering if anyones found any "Tricks" to help out with this situation.

Example of inside the shop 12ft from the ground, in the middle of the day.

[TomMac]

The bulit in illuminators have a max range of about 10m ( with fall off on the sides ).

External regular flood lights will help too.

What I have done is added external IR floods to add to my lighting needs... any 850 nm IR source will work.

I happen to have used the powered flood IR that were sold for the Vuezone night cams ( as I had them )... but a check on any of the major buy sites should come up with a workable unit for you. Amazon showed over 10 with a quick search.

[bigboost]

Thanks a lot for the reply.

I'm pretty ignorant on this topic, I had no idea they sold external IR lighting.

[TomMac]

For what you need, it might be better/cheaper to go with external PIR flood lights ( normal lights with motion sensors ).

It's an easy thing to test if you have some regular floods to place in temp position and check view at night. Any light source added will help.

[bigboost]

For simplicity's sake I'd agree, however I think it will be a good solution for inside the shop. Having a motion flood light hanging on the wall inside the shop would be sort of goofy haha.

Thank you again for the input, and btw I'm attentively watching your rechargable battery studies as that was my next obstacle to tackle, thank you for taking the time to help the community.