The Advantages Of Wireless Network Cameras
Wireless security cameras (also often called IP and network cameras) are fast becoming almost the default choice for home surveillance systems. So how does this new breed of camera stack up against traditional CCTV systems for domestic security?
The first and most obvious benefit is given away in the name – they’re “wireless” which means that like a laptop computer or any other wireless device you can put them pretty much anywhere. Not only that, but should you decide you want to relocate them to a different spot (often you only find out the best locations through a bit of trial and error) then once again they’re extremely versatile. A traditional CCTV camera needs to be physically linked via a cable to its recording medium which somewhat restricts them in this respect.
Being essentially just additional devices on your home wireless network also means that IP cameras are easy to, well network. This means you can easily get a unified view of all your cameras from a central location, either on one of your home computers or remotely. Most systems are automatically detected by the network and computer software for managing them so installation really is pretty straightforward.
Another aspect of network cameras is that, like most modern electronic technology, they can be made pretty small which has a couple of effects. First, they are lightweight and don’t require bulky mounting brackets and second they can be somewhat discreet. This latter characteristic is extremely useful in situations where you want to collect information rather than scare people away. A conventional CCTV camera situated indoors for example would stick out terribly, whereas you could easily place an IP camera on a shelf and most people simply wouldn’t notice it. In fact there are many other reasons why IP cameras are ideal for covert monitoring applications which we will get to, but in essence they’re much better at the job of recording images than regular CCTV systems which are as much about advertising their presence as anything else.
A key advantage of a digital security camera is that you don’t need to constantly attend to it since it never runs out of “tape” and can be configured to store images in an almost endless number of ways. So you have the option to keep everything more or less forever, or to discard images after a given period of time or in response to a manual request, or to archive selected images according to a schedule of your choosing and so forth. Also, the images can be instantly routed to multiple locations, including offsite, so there is no chance of having a vital tape stolen or destroyed.
In addition to the capability to transmit data to many different places, you may also enjoy the ability to monitor images from your camera(s) either in real-time or at your leisure, both locally (so you can see who is at the front door for example) and remotely. So next time you get a “missed delivery” slip that says they arrived at 2:20 and got no reply you’ll know they actually arrived at 4:15 and lied – trivial but fun and sometimes useful in cases where YOU are liable for missed delivery charges.
Domestic IP Camera Features
Another great feature is integration with various USB toys, err, mobile computing devices, to send alerts and optionally stream images to mobile phones and PDAs and via email. You don’t need to “monitor” anything anymore – the camera simply lets you know whenever it detects anything you wish to be informed about. This could be any kind of activity at all, or you can restrict it to activity at certain times of the day; you can also control the sensitivity of the motion detection algorithm so you don’t get bothered every time a cat walks by for instance.
The reason you have so much more capability in the area of motion detection is that, not only are IP cameras effectively specialised electronic computing devices with all the usual wherewithal for being programmed to provide all this additional functionality, but they capture and process images in a completely different way to CCTV. Normal video tape cameras store analog signals on a moving tape – the result is inherently always slightly fuzzy and not easily open to programmable control.
A digital camera on the other hand stores a series of high quality digital images and creates the impression of motion by showing each still image in turn at a high enough frame rate to fool the human eye. When stored as a movie file (typically in .mpg format) these images are compressed to hold a master still image followed by a series of much smaller chunks of data that describe only which pixels have altered from one frame to the next. This saves storage space and creates the illusion of smooth motion, but it also ensures that at any point you can pause and view the underlying high quality digital still image.
Storing images digitally has other advantages as well as superior picture quality, not the least of which is the ability for software to intelligently scan the differences between each frame in order to calculate whether anything changed, how quickly, by how much and in which areas of the frame. Using these techniques it is thus possible to detect movement much more accurately and eliminate both false positives and missed sightings, and it is usually also adjustable so you can set the detection parameters to suit your own specific needs if required.
Finally, it is becoming common these days to also see audio as an option on many IP cameras aimed at the domestic market (in some cases two way audio, which is useful for certain applications). But it’s not all positives; there are some inherent problems with wireless cameras as we shall now see.
Disadvantages Of Wireless Home Security Systems
Despite their name, nearly all wireless cameras actually need a “wire” to provide electricity. In some cases you can use PoE (Power over Ethernet) to combine data signals and power, but unless you have a camera that runs entirely on batteries (which introduces a whole new and different set of factors to consider) then you will need access to a power cable. That said, it’s often easier to find a means of supplying power than physically connecting a camera to a computer or network router.
However, there is still always the range of your home network router to bear in mind and also there may be particular dead-spots around your property where the signal is poor and/or prone to interference. Other well known issues with using a domestic wireless computer network include the fact that the speed of data transmission is considerably slower than via a cable plus security (or the lack thereof).
It’s not unknown for burglars to use a laptop to scan a neighbourhood for the presence of wireless networks and hack into and/or disable them. If your wireless network is down then so is your surveillance system, but a modicum of simple wireless security such as disabling SSID broadcast (i.e. not telling the world at large about your network) will quite effectively fix this issue. A related exposure is the phone line itself; it is common knowledge among criminals that many homes these days have IP enabled surveillance and remotely monitored intruder alarms that both use a telephone landline as a transmission medium. Cutting the phone line is thus becoming ever more a feature of domestic break-ins.
One big stumbling block for some folk is the technology behind IP cameras. For most reasonably computer-savvy people they are pretty easy to install, configure and use but anyone not familiar with adding devices to their network may struggle if the installation doesn’t proceed quite as expected. Also, there are seemingly countless configuration options and operational parameters to adjust, though in reality you can generally leave all the factory default settings in place and things will be just fine. And one of the defining characteristics of all modern electronic technology is, of course, that it goes out of date faster than yesterday’s news. However, unless being permanently up to date with all the latest features possible is a big deal for you, this aspect of technology in no way affects its ability to carrying on functioning perfectly for years to come.
Finally, one small point to consider is the matter of size. As noted above, most wireless security cameras are quite diminutive and are easy to overlook. This has the big advantage that you can often capture information without the subjects ever being at all aware they are under surveillance. However, there are many good reasons to ensure that your external security cameras are instead highly visible in order to send a signal that you take the protection of your property (and family or staff) seriously and to therefore deter would be intruders. In this case what you might want to consider is installing IP cameras for the purpose of recording events but also fitting dummy CCTV cameras to perform the role of visual deterrent.
