This is the equipment behind the live stream as it is right now, and what is coming next. People ask about it quite often, so everything is listed here: the cameras, the computer and the software.
The cameras in use now
Two cameras at the tree
Two cameras are mounted at the tree. One points at the feeding place on the ground. The other sits about 1.5 metres up and points at the standing feeder pole.
One camera inside a nest box
One nest box has a camera inside, so you can follow nest building, eggs and feeding from within the box.
These three cameras are all the same model: the Reolink 4K 8MP PoE outdoor camera. It records in 4K, has infrared night vision, is waterproof (IP67) and gets power and data through one network cable (PoE).
Top view over the whole garden
At the back there is a top-view camera that can see across the whole garden. It is the Reolink TrackMix PoE, a 4K camera with two lenses that can pan, tilt and zoom.
Next to it there is a real sky cam: a Reolink 4K 8MP PoE camera, pointed straight at the sky.
A small nest box, now and then
For a small nest box I use the TP-Link Tapo C110, a 3 MP Wi-Fi camera with night vision. I stream live from it every now and then.
Not in use: Blink cameras
I also own quite a few Blink cameras. I am not using them at the moment, because I cannot stream live with them.
The streaming computer
The live stream runs through OBS on a separate mini PC that does nothing else: the GEEKOM A8 mini PC with an AMD Ryzen 7 processor, 16 GB of memory and a 1 TB SSD.
Software
The live stream is put together and sent to YouTube with OBS. It runs day and night on the mini PC above.
What is coming next
The next addition is a weather station: the Ecowitt GW1101 weather station, a wireless station with a solar-powered 7-in-1 outdoor sensor.
The plan is to show its live weather data together with the stream. That still needs some work, so there are plenty of plans.
Read more: Where the Cameras Are Now – and What Is Coming Next tells the story behind this setup: how the cameras hold up, why the Blink cameras are not in use, and what I do differently now.
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