Solar/Wireless Camera with Real-time Imaging and Built-in Public Web Page

The Challenge

Cellular Public Webcam Helps Visitors of Popular Destination

Placer County, California offers 1,400 square miles of the most beautiful and diverse geography in Northern California, reaching the High Sierras of North Lake Tahoe and the Nevada state line. Placer County boasts a wide range of outdoor activities including several very popular state, county and local parks.

Hidden Falls Regional Park is a 1,200-acre park located between the communities of Auburn and Lincoln, north of the Ophir/Newcastle area. It includes approximately 30 miles of public multi-use trails for hiking, running, biking, and equestrian riding, as well as observation decks, waterfalls, picnic areas, swimming areas, and fishing access. Due to the popularity of the park, it sometimes becomes over-crowded, with parking lots filling up quickly.

Placer County staff wanted to help in a more orderly parking process and visitor experience by having a real-time camera available to the public to check conditions before heading out to the park. A key challenge was that there was no power or internet in the remote parking area. In addition, the team did not have a large IT budget to integrate the cameras into the County’s large public website.

The Solution

Solar/Wireless camera with real-time imaging and built-in public web page

The Placer County team worked with their local systems integrator, Capture Technologies to identify the Sensera MC78 model as a possibility. Capture Technologies was already a Sensera Authorized System Integrator Partner and understood that the MC78 would be a great fit for Placer County’s requirements.

“We felt that having a live camera accessible to the public would be a great way to mitigate the parking situation and give the public a better visitor experience. But we did not want to spend a fortune on a custom solution that would require design, engineering, and maintenance. When Capture Technologies showed us the Sensera Solution, it seemed a perfect fit for our needs. Once we got a pole in place, installation of the camera was a breeze and the public web page feature dropped right into our website, allowing the public to see real-time status of the parking areas. We have been very happy with the Sensera camera solution and expect that we will find other applications for the technology.”

Turnkey Solution

Complete end-to-end solution — Camera hardware, cellular data connectivity, cloud-hosted servers, and ease-of-use software are all provided in one complete package.

Solar-powered, LiFePO4 Batteries — No on-site power required. The system is energized by the sun and powered at night by a lithium-ion phosphate battery pack. The camera can run on battery power for up to 5 days.

Real-time, remote monitoring — Leverage robust remote surveillance and monitoring to ensure safety and productivity when you can’t be on-site.

“This is one of the first projects we had done with the Sensera camera systems, and we are very impressed. Capture Technologies has designed and installed a wide variety of innovative video surveillance solutions in the Auburn area and the greater Sacramento region. We immediately saw the value of the cost-effective Sensera solution for this particular set of challenges. We envision many other opportunities for Sensera camera systems.” —Martin van Enoo, Sales Manager, Capture Technologies