In our post sharing Yard and Driveway Security Tips, we discuss the important role surveillance cameras play in securing the outside of your home. Cameras work as a means of both deterring and solving crime. After all, thieves who spot surveillance outside your home will likely choose another target for their crimes. Of course, their actions go straight to video if they still follow through with their plans. Over the past several years, industry advances have made it easier than ever to add this security inside your home! In this post, we share some indoor surveillance tips to help you take advantage of interior video equipment.
We’ll begin by explaining the unique benefits offered by adding this security to your home’s interior. Installing these cameras have helped our customers solve a variety of security issues that outdoor cameras could not address. Therefore, we’ll spend some time exploring them. From there, we’ll look at the the options you have for adding indoor surveillance. These include traditional hardwired cameras, as well as a couple wireless options to capture video. Now, let’s get starting with an overview of the benefits created when you follow our indoor security tips.
The Benefits of Indoor Surveillance
Just as with their outdoor counterparts, indoor cameras capture video of events that happen on your property. However, while exterior cameras can track “coming and going” activity, they do not capture some of the details that interior cameras can. For example, houses with an elderly family member often have nurses coming in and out of the home. Installing cameras can help ensure that you know if anything underhanded goes on during a nurse’s shift, such as a nurse pilfering potentially expensive prescription medication or snooping around for valuables in a bedroom.
Traditional cameras require wiring run from a common location on a property to each and every camera location.
Additionally, interior cameras can help monitor areas of your house that contain personal or work-related tools, technology, or even weapons. Perhaps you fancy yourself a weekend warrior and house the tools of the trade to complete your yardwork in the garage. Or maybe you have a home office with computers or tablets. Or, you could have a den that contains your hunting equipment. All of these scenarios represent ideal locations for installing an indoor camera. Next, we’ll examine our options for actually adding this security, starting with installing hardwired cameras.
Installing Traditional Cameras Indoors
When we refer to “traditional” cameras, we’re referencing hardwired camera systems. These systems used to be the only game in town. Over the last several years, camera technology has advanced to the point where we can install wireless video equipment in people’s homes. However, hardwired cameras have a few key advantages over their wireless counterparts. As the name implies, installing these cameras involves running wiring to each camera location. We run this wiring from the cameras back to a recorder, which generally provides power for the cameras. In turn, this recorder captures video 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Furthermore, we can connect your recorder to your network, allowing you to view both live and stored video remotely! In the next section, we’ll see how this setup compares to our wireless video equipment offerings.
Wireless Options for Indoor Video Images
As we’ve pointed out, recent technology advances have made it possible to install image-capturing security without running wires. In this section, we’ll look at a couple ways we can add this equipment. We’ll begin with our most popular wireless video option: smart cameras. These cameras capture and store video clips without the use of wiring or a recorder! From there, we’ll look at how we can add both video and image-capturing technology to your alarm system. We have a couple offerings that allow our alarm customers to add indoor surveillance without even installing cameras! Now, let’s dive in with a look at how installing smart cameras represents one of our top indoor surveillance tips.
Alarm.com cameras allow you to check in on your home’s interior from anywhere, at any time.
The Smart Camera Advantage
Smart cameras provide a slightly different security experience than that provided by traditional hardwired surveillance. For starters, we do not have to wire smart cameras back to a common location. This allows tremendous freedom with where we place these cameras. Sometimes, we do need to plug these cameras into an outlet for power. At that point, the cameras connect to your network using your wifi connection. Our preffered smart camera, powered by Alarm.com, uses this method. Furthermore, less powerful do-it-yourself options exist that operate on battery power, for a 100% true wireless security experience.
As we mentioned earlier, hardwired cameras record video to a recorder constantly. In contrast, smart cameras generally only record motion-based clips that get stored in the cloud for later viewing. However, smart cameras do provide unique advantages that hardwired cameras cannot offer. For example, smart cameras can send instant video alerts to your cell phone when they detect motion. This allows you to view and address potential security threats in real time.
Furthermore, the Alarm.com cameras we’ve referenced also provide videa analytics. This means that your camera can tell you whether a person, animal, or vehicle has created an alert! Additionally, Alarm.com smart cameras can also provide alerts if an expected event failed to occur. Perhaps you expect your children home from school by 3:30pm. In this case, you can receive an alert if your interior front door camera does not “see” anyone walk in by then! The array of options and alerts created by these cameras make them quite popular. Now, let’s look at how we can add video security to your existing burglar alarm.
Security-System Related Options
We surprise many people with our ability to add image and video-capturing capability to their alarm system. As we mentioned before, we can add this video security without even installing surveillance cameras. One way we can do this is by installing a motion detector equipped with a camera. Upon detecting motion, this detector activates your alarm while also snapping an image. In turn, the central station operator responding to the alarm can view these images to see what caused the activation. At this point, the central station operator can inform your local police to a verified threat, as opposed to just a generic burglar alarm. As we pointed out in our post sharing Best Practices for Creating a Quick Alarm Response, this verification can create a priority response to the alarm, rather than a delayed visit.
The new QOLSYS IQ Panel 4 comes with a built-in camera for easy interior surveillance monitoring.
As an added option, our preferred alarm panel, the newly-released IQ Panel 4 by QOLSYS, includes an 8-megapixel camera built right into the system’s all-in-one panel/keypad unit! Our customers can utilize this camera in a number of ways. For starters, they can access the camera’s live feed from their smartphone at any time. Additionally, the camera also starts recording video upon activation of an alarm, allowing you to go back and possibly see what happened to create the alarm in the first place. Finally, this camera also takes and stores a photograph every time someone arms or disarms the security system. Therefore, friends or contractors coming back to your home uninvited won’t be able to do so without you knowing! The addition of a camera in this alarm is just one of many reasons we use it for new installations whenever possible.
Putting Our Indoor Surveillance Tips to Good Use
We hope that this post helps you put our indoor surveillance tips to good use! Cameras provide one of the most powerful and effective means of security that we offer. Moreover, we encourage you to contact us with any questions you have about the material presented here. We will happily work with you to design and install indoor surveillance for your own home.
Additionally, we invite you to take advantage of our free site survey program. We provide these consultations free of charge or obligation, to both new and existing customers alike. While on site, we can address any areas you feel require surveillance to increase your security and peace of mind. Furthermore, we can also make suggestions of our own based on our observations while on site. Together, we’ll create a solution that helps keep you, your family, and your most valuable possessions as safe and secure as possible!