A security camera system keeps spaces secured be it a business, an office, an organization, or external spaces like parking lots, construction sites, or even public parks. This is done utilizing IP cameras. Most systems come with one or more cameras, sometimes infrared illumination or motion sensors, and an alerting device such as a siren. As a result, you can monitor the protected space whenever you want. 

If the cameras used have audio and adequate speakers they can also effectively be used to talk down potential bad actors and help prevent situations from getting worse.

Using a  business security camera system allows you to keep track of your office space, employees, or in the case of an organization like a care facility, its patients. It also allows owners, managers and authorized users to see what is happening through a Smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer from anywhere. 

Why do you need security cameras?

Security cameras are a great investment for any business owner, or organizational manager responsible for the physical security of spaces, assets or people. We will go through some of the more popular options and explain why. But, first, you'll want to consider what kind of camera makes the most sense for your specific needs. 

Security cameras have either fixed lenses or in case of PTZ cameras lenses that rotate, pan, and zoom; others include infrared LEDs (for nighttime monitoring) and smart motion detectors that can alert you when someone comes into view. There are even models with two-way audio (so you can hear what's happening outside).

When it comes to choosing a good security camera, you need to start with knowing why you need them in the first place. 

1. Do your employees need easy remote access to see the space?
2. Do you yourself want the peace of mind that comes from being able to see 24/7 that your property is safe, secure, and protected?
3. Do you need any special automated function like LPR (License Plate Recognition) or people detection with alerting?

You need a camera that most accurately represents what's happening in the area where you placed the camera. We call your target area the field of view (FOV). We define it as the distance from your camera that you'll be able to see footage clearly with enough detail for identification purposes.

The cameras can also help you determine if there are security problems and help you make security  threat determinations faster. Regarding voice and video verification, the Fremont, California police station has found that phone verification alone has a 95% chance of false alarms. So audio alone is not enough.

In some cases, it is recommendable to provide access to the police. In an emergency in public spaces like schools or libraries,  it can save lives by providing access so that the police can quickly see cameras and know what's going on inside. In contrast, in cities that use video-validated responses, we found that the overall number of alert calls was reduced by about 90%, response times were improved, and people could get help faster.  Camera footage is also useful for criminal investigations in the event of a robbery."

The type and size of your space, office, plant, or home will decide how much security coverage you need. We recommend using at a minimum one camera set in all ingress-egress areas and also one in front of the building, and ideally one on the back side, and some cameras inside on every floor in all main pass-thru areas, as well as in any key to protect space, bank tellers, jewelry counters, safes rooms, etc. The home also has some cameras in the backyard. Only use outdoor surveillance cameras for any outdoor area. 

For added security, you can add surveillance cameras to all rooms that you use frequently or that you need to cross to get in and out of key spaces. In the case of offices, business security cameras are also often used for workflow and productivity analysis so you may add more cameras to areas where your production happens and lots of people interact.  

However, we do not recommend installing security cameras in sensitive areas like corporate boardrooms, CEO offices, Critical Engineering Facilities,  bathrooms, or bedrooms for privacy reasons. Installing cameras in some locations like bathrooms is illegal in some states. 

Primary Classes of Security Cameras 

There are two major types of security camera, indoor and outdoor. But these indoor and outdoor security cameras are further divided into many categories and subcategories according to their size, shape, purpose, 

There are various kinds of buildings, situations and applications where people want video surveillance coverage but sometimes there is not much space. Compact security cameras come in handy in these cases because they are unobtrusive and can easily be installed in smaller places like elevators, stairways, office cubes, balconies, kitchens, meeting rooms, thus making them highly useful for overall security purposes. 

1. Indoor Wired Camera

You can find many types of cameras, and each camera has its special purpose. The first type of camera is an indoor wired camera, and it is used for the security of your offices, shops or garages. This camera type is so easy to install, all you need is an ethernet cable that will go to a POE (Power over Ethernet) switch. This is a standard low voltage install that gets paid by the linear foot and maybe has some surcharges for complexity like if a camera is hung very high above a staircase and requires special equipment to be installed. Usually these are straightforward cables hidden behind drywall. 

These cameras are low maintenance and need no extra power and will  help you keep an eye on everything happening in the area for many years even decades with more durable cameras like AXIS or Mobotix. These cameras are not expensive if you look at their cost over time.

We recommend always buying quality cameras that will give you durability and that also do not have any known security issues. You do not want cameras with known back-doors that are notorious for being hacked.

2. Indoor Wireless Camera

The second type is an indoor wireless camera, which you can use to secure areas where cabling is very hard or maybe impossible  (Landmarks and protected buildings). These are handy to install and provide about the same image quality if the network connection is good. These cameras can go without the ethernet cable to the switch but will still need power to connect to the network. The biggest drawback of wireless cameras may not connect well in congested networks and may be subject to jamming disruptions in the event of an incident.

3. Outdoor Wired Camera 

Like the wired indoor camera, the wired outdoor camera is the most popular. The basic purpose of an outdoor security camera is to monitor the surroundings of our properties, spaces and people. 

The wired camera is advantageous because it includes power and connectivity. You can check what activities are taking place outside at any given time. Using an outdoor wired camera will help prevent theft, vandalism, and provide actionable intelligence on the outside when needed.

Another advantage of using an outdoor wired camera is that today's sensors can capture a clear image reven in low  light of the areas you monitor.

4. Wireless Outdoor Camera 

A wireless camera is placed in a location where you can view the area you want. There will be no wires running fall the way from the camera to the building or monitoring center however the camera will still require a plug and adequate electric wiring to make a transformer and its low voltage connectivity outdoors proof.  Instead of ethernet connectivity, a WiFi transmitter connects the camera using a WiFi P2P (Point to Point) antenna bridge to gap the data transmission. 

What type of security camera do you prefer?

Suppose you are still confused about what type of camera you should choose for your business surveillance system. In that case, we suggest you choose a wired camera as these provide greater reliability, image quality and overall resolution.

Wireless camera image quality may not hold well when connectivity is weak. In addition, wireless cameras experience more latency than wired cameras, which can prove dangerous in some situations because you literally can see something that already has passed several minutes ago and make bad decisions based on wrong timing. With wireless cameras, you will also face some more risk of being hacked by unauthorized people who can access your camera feed from nearby and potentially monitor everything inside your camera sees or even access your network without your knowledge.

How to choose a security camera for business?

Surveillance cameras are an essential security tool for your business, office, plant, workshop, home, parking areas and more. The security cameras will be extremely effective if you pick the right angles/focal points.   You do not want to be too far away when you use fixed angles. So it is convenient to have an installer partner with experience to indicate ideal locations for cameras first and then picking the best cameras that fit your needs and budget. 

Another dimension is wired or wireless cameras.

They are often used as a deterrent against burglars and thieves and monitor pets, children, or the elderly. There are some options available on the market, and it's important to choose the right one that suits your needs. The most basic considerations are how many cameras will be needed for your home, what type of camera you will need, where you would like to position them, and if you need a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) or not.

1. Types of camera system

The first step in choosing a security camera system today is determining what kind of system you need. The questions below may help narrow down your options.

• Do you want to be able to see what happens at your location from somewhere else?
• Do you want to monitor a single location or multiple locations? 
• How many people will need access to the video?
• Do you frequently have to share video with third parties like Law Enforcement Agencies?
• What type of video quality is necessary?
• What is the length or retention time for video that is needed?
• Who will install the cameras?

This will give you a framework to decide between the following fundamental options today.

1. On-Premise Closed Circuit System with no external access
These systems may be required for government and highly classified projects where leaking of video material from a legal or national intelligence point of view were catastrophic. The type of places where this applies is limited to military installations, political or institutions of law.

2. On-Premise with access to outside world
Most classic systems are like this . They provide a local server based  video surveillance system. They are typically based on windows servers and classic server architecture and require redundant servers in  rack to offer minimum redundancy. They are relatively expensive to maintain  since they require the company IT team to make sure the servers are always uptodate, do security patches and OS and Database services and other software updates. They also tend to have high energy costs running multiple servers at 500-1000w each and a similar amount of energy for cooling.  Since energy consumption of a server is 24/7/365 the cost of such a system is quite high and is rarely fully calculated by the customers. The load on IT especially when calculating in today's networking security risks is more than nominal and needs to be measured as a significant fraction of an high-end IT engineer with networking security background. In most cases, this will require a minimum of 25%, for many companies more like 50%  of an engineer's time to keep such a system safe and fully functional.

3. VSaaS or Cloud-based solution
Just like companies stopped running their own mail servers and many companies  outsource even their ERP and it only makes sense to outsource running the surveillance system.  This reduces the cost, simplifies things for the users and reduces security risks since central security tends to be better funded and staffed than individual companies IT teams.

2. Cloud Recording and Cloud Storage Plans

Most VSaaS companies offer cloud storage plans, different companies will offer different feature sets and prices. So you'll probably want to compare these before making your decision.

Most companies will require a subscription to access cloud recording and a fee for some kind of bucket and retention for cloud storage.  If you want to get the best deal possible for your situation, it's important to understand upfront what you're paying for when choosing your VSaaS partner and his cloud storage plans. The rule of thumb is to pick the simpler to understand system. You do not want a system with a comlex charging scheme. Some companies offer flat rates others have rates based on number of users, time, storage amount, resolution, frames per second and number of events with complicated discounts and overage calculations. Some actually  charge a fee each time your users check in on your camera. 

3. Infrastructure and Power Source 

Different types of security cameras need different amounts of power. Wired cameras are powered by POE (Power over Ethernet) which is an ethernet wire plus power fed over your building's electricity via dedicated POE Switches. Some wireless cameras sometimes have a backup battery for when the main one runs out of power. The drawback is that power failure can render the camera useless until it's back online. 

Power failure can also render cameras useless. The most reliable option is to get a wired camera with both internal and external power options: maybe a UPS powering your POE switches for extended periods.

4. Security and Privacy

Security for your Surveillance Camera solution is a must which is one of the most important reasons to consider using a cloud based service provider as opposed to using an in-house server based solution.

Constant updates of systems and tedious security protocols are difficult to install and maintain in-house and over time home managed application servers tend to become much less secure than a commercially maintained system.

Privacy is a concern that often goes overlooked when buying home security systems. For example, some companies sell cameras with the option to back up video recordings to the cloud. But, unfortunately, with many of them, you have no say in where the tapes end up or what happens to them once they're there.

Anywhere your camera footage could be stored, it could also potentially be stolen. So even if you trust the company holding your videos with your privacy, it doesn't mean some employee or hacker won't look into your account and find something incriminating.

Many people aren't aware of how much information a simple webcam can provide until they see it in action. For example, suppose a hacker were to gain access to one of these accounts. In that case, they could track and monitor you worldwide and find out who's coming and going from your home, when you're home and many other details about your life.

With the amount of sensitive information we store on our phones – including everything from pictures of our family members to financial details – it's no longer safe to assume that what we do online is private or secure. So you should always be careful about what you do online, especially when it comes to financial transactions or anything that has any possibility of being incriminating.

5. User Access Management

For off-network on-premises systems user management has to be done more or less manually .
Inhouse systems can be connected to LDAP.
More advanced VSaaS Cloud based solutions will offer Single-Sign-On management to help simplify user management and more advanced systems like IPTECHVIEW will even offer integration options like ActiveDirectory.

6. Security Camera Central  Management 

Custom VMS solutions and in-house server based VMS mostly leave cameras all on the same basic settings and use the VMS to manage most configuration.  

For larger multi-site projects, this solution is very coarse and also makes it slow to make improvements and very difficult to upgrade all security cameras, something that may be necessary in today's security world.

More modern VSaaS that are designed for more specific premium cameras like AXIS and MOBOTIX may offer more sophisticated secure camera updating options that make configuration updates and other mass much easier and safer. The larger the projects and the smarter the cameras the more important it will become to have a solid and secure central management system.

Conclusion

Here we come to the end of our article on what you should look for when selecting and buying a security camera system for your business or organization. Our research and recommendations aims to give knowledge to our visitors exploring the state of the art of security camera systems. 

Our goal was to give you valuable information  to choose from a security camera both on-premise or cloud based. In other BLOGS on this site you can read more on why for most projects today cloud video surveillance is the better option. 

Security is paramount and essential for every organization. We hope that with these ideas you will find the right security camera for your situation.