If you are like me and you have young children in the house and a swimming pool, you know that it can be a deadly combination. There are constant stories of tragic deaths that could have been prevented by taking certain precautions. Pool alarms that float in the pool and detect the motion of moving water is certainly one option. Another option is to use your security camera system. It is not difficult to do as long as you have the right system. Make sure your DVR has the following specifications:
– Network capable
– Alarm output
– Able to email notifications
– Built in motion detection with separate motion zones.
Additionally you will want to make sure that your swimming pool area has some lighting at night so that the security cameras do not need to use infra red to see. Once you have everything, you will want to mount the security camera facing the swimming pool. Ideally, you will use a high resolution, low light security camera with a varifocal lens. The best way to set this up is to have a camera view of the only the area you want to monitor. This will probably be a view of the entire pool with a couple of feet around as a perimeter. The other option is a wider view and then you will go into the motion detection zones and deactivate the pixels for the areas you do not want to trigger motion.
In your DVR, you will need to set up that individual channel for motion detection recording. Also, you will need to program the DVR to react to motion the way you want it to react. All of these options are available in our Elite and Ultimate series DVRs, but may or may be available in other DVRs. Make sure before you buy, or contact us and we can advise you. Your options from trigger motions are to have the DVR send you an email, to use the alarm output of the DVR to set of a buzzer or alarm, or to connect it directly to the sensor input of your alarm system to set of your alarm system. There are many other options you can do with the alarm outputs. You can be as creative as you want to be. Once all of this is complete, you will need to make adjustments to the sensitivity and masking settings. Be sure to mask out any objects that you don’t want to trigger the motion detection, like a water fall or flag. Then adjust your sensitivity until it will detect a person, but not a bird that may land in your pool. It may take a little trial and error, but once it is done, it should stay that way.
When considering the safety of your children, why not use all options available. There is no reason why you can’t use this in conjunction with other means like pool fences and pool alarms. Just consider it another layer of safety.
