One of the main reasons that people purchase surveillance camera systems is to protect the things that they care about in their lives, for example – friends, family, property and personnel items. When you consider this it makes sense that protecting your home with a security camera system would rank high on the list of reasons to install one of these systems. Knowing that you will have a video record of any criminal activities happening in or around your home can give the resident peace of mind. This combined with the fact that visibly mounted security cameras have been proven to actually deter criminal activity is a big part of why home security camera installations are becoming more popular than ever before.
There are many reasons why it’s a good idea to have a security camera system installed at your residence. One of these is the fact that this equipment can help gather incredibly valuable evidence if a crime is committed on the premises. Security cameras can also allow you to see who is at your front door without ever getting near it, much less opening it. With many security camera DVRs or NVRs, like those here at Techpro Security Products, you get the ability to connect to them through an internet connection. Once set up correctly, this feature will allow you see the live camera views from a computer, tablet or even a smart phone located around the globe.
In order to take full advantage of these benefits you will need to make sure that you have set up your surveillance cameras so that you get the most from them. Even the best security camera system in the world won’t do you much good if the cameras are not installed in the places where they’re most needed to help gather any potential evidence, act as criminal deterrence or just give a good view of the property when you remotely connect to the DVR through the internet connection while you’re away from the location of the CCTV installation.
Making sure that your cameras are located have the best point of view is an important part of any installation. The most important part of choosing the locations to install your security cameras is to make sure that you cover all the entrances or access points of the residence. This means that you will need to make sure that you have a camera set up so that it can clearly see any doorways to the building. A camera used for this purpose should also be mounted high enough so that someone cannot easily reach it and render it useless. You also don’t want to mount it so high that it will looking down on an intruder from too high of an angle because this would lead to you just being able to see the top of their head and not many distinguishing details. Usually mounting a camera that will be used for this purpose at a height of 8 to 10 feet will work in most environments but each installation has a different set of circumstances so you may need to adjust this height as you deem necessary.
Another common type of access point at most residences is a window and these can be handled a little differently since the area that you need to capture is the approach to the windows. If the configuration of the building allows for it, you can position a security camera in such a way that it can view the approach to multiple windows in the same video shot. This approach to installing cameras can help you maximize the video coverage provided by each of your security cameras while still giving you the coverage that you need.
Overlapping is another installation technique that can be very useful in a residential install. There are several types of tamper resistant surveillance cameras on the market today. This means they are resistant to vandalism, not completely immune to it. This is where the overlapping fields of view become useful. The basic idea is that your cameras will be able to watch one or more of the other cameras in the area. To take advantage of this you will need to position your camera’s fields of view so that they can see the approach to a neighboring camera or actually see the neighboring camera. This means that if any one makes an attempt to tamper with or disable any of your cameras then you should have recorded video of them from another of your cameras as they approach it.
Another technique that can be used to help get the most effective video coverage for your home is to install your cameras in such a way that they provide a second level of coverage. To do this you would install a camera inside the front door of the building, in addition to putting one outside the door to cover the approach. The one outside will provide the first line of video recording, plus a visibly mounted has been proven to deter criminal activity. If someone decides to commit criminal activity on the premises anyway and are focused on trying to get around the outside camera, they probably won’t notice the interior camera until it has already recorded video of them. It’s a good idea to mount an interior camera at each of your access points for this purpose if your DVR allows for it.
The last thing to keep in mind for your home installation is protecting your DVR or NVR. The best recorded video in the world won’t do you any good if an intruder is able to damage or steal the DVR where the footage is stored. There are two different ways that you can make sure that your DVR is safe and they can be combined for increased protection. The first thing that you can do to keep people away from your DVR is to hide it in a location that is difficult to access like an attic. If you decide to do this you will need to make sure that it is in a well ventilated area which is a safe place for electronics to be operating for extended periods of time. The second way that you can protect your recording device is to put it in a lock box. These secure boxes are made of metal and usually have a locking mechanism, while still being well ventilated (sometimes they even have a fan). Putting a DVR or NVR in a lock box and then hiding it away in a hard to access location is the best way to ensure its safety in the event of an intruder.