Decide what you need to see before counting cameras
The most common waste in a camera system is a lot of cameras and not one useful picture. During the survey we work through a short list of questions: which doors actually get used, what angle does the driveway come in from, where do packages get left, and how dark is it out there at night.
On a typical single-family home, four to six cameras will cover every way in and out. Rather than adding ten, it is far better to get each one at the right height and angle.
Why we record locally
Cloud-only plans keep billing you every month and usually compress the picture on the way up. Our default is full quality recorded on a box at the house, with event thumbnails and short clips pushed to your phone. You find out what happened straight away and you still hold the original footage.
- Continuous recording with event markers, so you are not scrubbing blindly through hours.
- Alerts separated into person, vehicle and animal, which cuts the pointless notifications sharply.
- The recorder goes somewhere it cannot be grabbed in the first ten seconds.
- Optional off-site copies of event clips if the risk warrants it.
Night is when it counts
Most incidents happen when the light is poor. Infrared night vision alone gives you a grainy black-and-white frame with limited detail. We normally pair cameras with controlled lighting, so movement triggers the lights in that area and the camera records in color — which is also a deterrent in its own right.
Where the line is on privacy
We set the field of view to avoid your neighbors’ private space and add masked-out zones where needed. It is good manners, and depending on the situation it is also the law.
Tied into locks and lighting
A camera system on its own is worth much less than a connected one. The doorbell gets pressed and the picture appears on the screen in the living room. The door is opened with a code and the system records who came in, at what time, with the thirty seconds either side saved automatically.