We've previously talked a little bit about building an off-grid early alert system using the Dakota Driveway Alarm. But what if you want to add a camera to the mix? What if you're looking for an off-grid security system at your hunting cabin and don't know where to turn?

Today, we'll show you how I did so.

I'll start off by saying that this method utilizes phone towers.

Perhaps that means this isn't truly off-grid. In a grid-down situation, you'd be out of luck using the camera that we used here. There are other methods you would have to turn to for that. For day-to-day "normal" life, if you want to keep tabs on your hunting cabin that's a 45-minute drive from where you live, this method will work just fine. You can still use the "format" of what we did here, though, to serve as the model for a true "off-grid" camera system.

For the camera, there's a motion-activated Blink camera. You can easily pick these up for a little over $140 on Amazon. Once you get the entire rig setup, that camera will send your phone an alert and a picture anytime that it detects motion out in its field of view. You can even talk through the camera, so if anybody is fiddling around with your stuff, you can give them a verbal warning that the police are on the way.

Yes, it rained.

We started off with a car battery that we had lying around. You can pick these up at just about any car store out there for $80-$120 (it depends on what type you buy). I know that Yago, in his book Lights On, gives a very good outline of the different types of 12V batteries there are out on the market and which ones he recommends (and doesn't). I would recommend picking up that book for a more detailed analysis of this than what I can speak to. I'm not an electrical engineer – he is – and he knows more about all that than I could ever hope.